The House Oversight committee called a meeting on Sept. 8 to investigate how money from the Victim Assistance grants is being distributed and if this money is being used to serve the best interest of the victims.
Victim Assistance grants are awarded to help fund the operating costs of sexual and domestic abuse hotlines in the state, emergency shelter services, Domestic Abuse Comprehensive Services and Sexual Abuse Comprehensive Services. These services assist victims with shelter, transportation, counseling, programming for children, community education, training and support for allied professionals and other essential services for victims of sexual and domestic abuse.
Victim Assistance grants are designed to provide services to victims at the local level. Through this review, the committee’s goal will be to determine if taxpayer money has been misspent or improperly documented. The CVAD and these grants exist to ensure victims receive the assistance they desperately need and that the money given to these organizations is truly used to help victims.
In 2013, the Victim Assistance grant program went through a redesign in an effort to provide better services to victims across the state. This redesign was supposed to help reduce some costs associated with underutilized shelters as well as provide better localized service to victims.
In 2014, a budget of $6.7 million was requested for Victim Assistance grants. Representatives were concerned that the cost of the program had not decreased after the redesign. Since costs were not being reduced, we pushed for changes to be made to the Victim Assistance Grants program. These changes will make the Victim Assistance Grants program more transparent and ensure tax payer dollars are truly helping victims.
While the changes enacted this session will help create more transparency, there still appear to be problems facing the Victim Assistance grants program. Representatives have been reviewing reimbursement claims and have found unresolved issues. We want to ensure the Victim Assistance grants are helping victims in the best way possible and have called an Oversight meeting to review the practices of the Victim Assistance grants program.
“Our mission is twofold: are taxpayers’ dollars being spent wisely and is that money getting to those victims in need,” said Rep. Koester. “House Republicans began looking at the CVAD program and asking questions about the administrative procedures of the program during budget negotiations in 2014. Unfortunately, we still have questions that we need answers to. We’re determined to get the facts.”