Chandler Fire Chief Tom Dwiggins presents to the City Council on Feb. 26 about the first full year of his department’s opioid response unit deployment. The unit is funded mainly through large-scale court settlements.
Courtesy of Chandler Fire
Chandler Fire Chief Tom Dwiggins presented data such as this to the City Council on Feb. 26 as his department wrapped up the first full year of having an opioid response unit deployed. The unit is funded mainly through large-scale court settlements.
In the midst of planning for fiscal year 2027, which starts July 1 for Arizona municipalities, one department used recent work session time to show the Chandler City Council what it’s been doing on a critical front.
Chandler Fire Chief Tom Dwiggins presented some numbers, trends and plans going forward at a Feb. 26 work session about opioid abuse in the community and care for overdose victims, mostly using settlement funds the city has received from large-scale litigation.
“We deployed many resources anew in March 2025, so we have just about one full year of data now,” Dwiggins said about new Chandler Fire Department opioid overdose calls. “So not only have we learned important parts to the routine, such as working with the Dignity Health emergency rooms and who takes what insurance, but also, how things change around the clock and in the course of a week.”
Dwiggins said one important finding Chandler paramedics had is the timing, with many more opioid-related calls coming into dispatch between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. than other times.
“So that’s one example of an adjustment, where we want to staff when we need resources the most, as opposed to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.” he said.
Chandler Fire’s programming on the opioid front started in mid-2024 with a council work session, staff reports state. There, the fire department and other leaders got council direction and discussed the program’s vision.
That was followed by the recruitment of a program lead who has a master’s degree in social work in late 2024, and then agreements to bring on board a college intern.
“We figured out pretty quickly that we can’t do this by ourselves,” Dwiggins said. “So we brought, to council, agreements with the four biggest universities in the state that have social work programs, for internships.”
A deployment model was created and a partnership with the Arizona Department of Health Services was created to acquire Naloxone, the opioid antagonist used to reverse opioid overdoses.
Staff also developed and completed 13 treatment facility agreements.
Chandler Fire created a specialized opioids response unit, embedded that unit into its 911 system and started educational outreach and follow-up, the reports state.
There will be $2.3 million in settlement funds available for Chandler Fire to spend on the program in July 2026.
Not all of the settlement revenue comes to Chandler at the same time and it isn’t exactly clear how much total money the city will have for such opioid programs. Staff predict that about $8.5 million total will become available to Chandler, spread over the next 13 years.
Dwiggins also requested funding from the city to help further tailor the program to Chandler’s needs.
He presented statistics that included opioid-related incidents dipping from 455 in 2023 by almost 80 in 2024 and 2025, to the 370s, while opioid-related deaths in Chandler remained in the mid-30s all three years.
Dwiggins said educational outreach, especially to parts of the city that have many seniors who might take opioid medications, is critical. So is tracking local data over longer periods of time.
“We have some data, but after four years of data (including 2026), then, we might be able to see some correlations,” Dwiggins said. “I’d really like to see those deaths reduced to at least the mid-20s.”
Email Jason W. Brooks at jbrooks@iniusa.org. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
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