As state lawmakers hammer out a budget on the brink of a new fiscal year, the state’s attorney general, local law enforcement leaders and victim service providers urged them to add more funding for crime victims services.
The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee approved spending $20 million on crime victim services during a late-night vote June 27, falling far short of the nearly $68 million requested by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
The request was in response to a massive shortfall in funding from the federal Victims of Crime Act, known as VOCA. Those federal dollars have historically supported advocates who accompany victims to court, answer hotlines, run emergency shelters, provide safety planning and offer other services.
“The safety net only holds if every thread, every agency, advocate and shelter is supported and sustained,” said Shannon Barry, executive director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Services in Dane County, during a news conference June 30.
Wisconsin has a long history of protecting crime victim rights, first enshrining them in the state constitution in 1993. State lawmakers strengthened the language in 2011, and voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2020 known as Marsy’s Law.
That history reflected a bipartisan commitment to victim rights, Attorney General Josh Kaul said.
“As the budget currently stands, those promises appear empty,” he said.
Nationally, VOCA funds have declined steadily since 2018. The pool of money comes from fines and penalties collected in federal criminal court cases. Congress addressed the funding formula in so-called “VOCA Fix” legislation in 2021, but it will take years before the fund is fully replenished, if at all.
In the last five years, the state Department of Justice funneled about $44 million annually to local victim service providers. Pandemic aid and a bipartisan $10 million stopgap measure delayed the deepest cuts in Wisconsin, but the amount plummeted to $13 million annually, starting last fall.
Many victim service providers, aware of the looming shortfall, already cut positions, shortened hours, eliminated programs or have taken other steps to try to keep their doors open, such as ramping up private fundraising efforts.
Additional federal cuts are compounding the situation, and the continued uncertainty has roiled the organizations, officials and advocates said.
“When funding collapses each budget cycle, victims are the ones who suffer,” said Wausau Police Capt. Benjamin Graham.
Kaul, a Democrat, said his budget request was supported by a broad coalition that included the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association and the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association.
Although organizations that support survivors of domestic and sexual violence have been at the center of the funding discussion, victim services include all crime types.
“Victim-witness work, it’s everybody,” said Jessica Bryan, who serves as Eau Claire County’s victim witness manager and president of the Wisconsin Victim/Witness Professionals Association.
“It’s your elderly, it’s financial crimes, it’s your traffic crimes,” she added.
The proposal advanced by the Joint Finance Committee earmarked $20 million in general-purpose revenue in the first year of the budget for victim service grants, provided an additional $4 million over the two-year budget cycle for child advocacy centers and funded two project positions in the state Office of Crime Victim Services, according to a news release from the state Department of Justice.
The Journal Sentinel called and emailed the offices of state Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and state Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), who co-chair the Joint Finance Committee, about the proposal but had not heard back as of the early afternoon of June 30.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Victim service providers, AG call for more funding for crime victims in budget debate
Reporting by Ashley Luthern, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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