HARRISBURG - Counties could tap a new fund to combat a widespread heroin and opioid epidemic under a proposal that a House lawmaker hopes to include in the final state budget.

Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-Bensalem, chairman of the Human Services Committee, wants to create a $20 million state Emergency Addiction Treatment Fund. He proposes to generate the revenue by levying a 10 percent impact fee on corporate sales of prescription painkillers with opiates.

DiGirolamo seeks support for his proposal as a legislative agency puts a spotlight this week on heroin and opioid addiction treatment and recovery services in Scranton.

The Center for Rural Pennsylvania has scheduled a public hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Commonwealth Medical College Medical Sciences Building, 525 Pine St.

Two state officials - Physician General Dr. Rachel Levine and Ted Dallas, secretary of the Department of Human Services - are scheduled to testify. So are law enforcement officials in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties and administrators of drug and alcohol programs in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, heads the center's governing board. Rep. Sid Michaels Kavulich, D-Taylor, is a board member.

The center issued a major report last year that recommended steps to address heroin epidemics, which often begin with the abuse of prescription drugs. The recommendations include, among others, expanding drug treatment services, providing more funds for county drug task forces and expanding the scope of intermediate punishment programs.

"The increased use of heroin, which often has roots in the abuse of prescription painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin, has catapulted Pennsylvania to seventh in the nation for drug-related overdose deaths in the latest federal statistics," Yaw said.

DiGirolamo is spurred by some 2,500 overdose deaths in Pennsylvania in 2013, a number that he said is on the rise.

"We know that prescription opiates are driving both the overdose death rate and the growing heroin problem in the state," he said. "It's time for the manufacturers and marketers of prescription opioids to step up, own up, clean up and address the damage to our communities and to our families."

DiGirolamo's plan would steer the impact fee money to supply local police and emergency medical services with naloxone, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses; provide drug and alcohol counseling in county jails; pay for related criminal justice programs; and support the new state prescription drug monitoring program.

The Center for Rural Pennsylvania released a report this month saying that about four-fifths of police departments in Pennsylvania currently are not using naloxone, but about 28 percent of them plan to do so in the next three months. Police departments across the state have begun carrying naloxone, also known as Narcan, this year.

Pennsylvania enacted a law last year approving the use of naloxone by first responders.