California’s largest federal funding source for crime victims suffered deep federal funding cuts, leaving local victim services groups anxious about continuing to sustainably provide care to survivors in the years to come.

In 1984, the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) established the Crime Victims Fund that’s since used fines and forfeitures from convictions in federal cases—not taxpayer dollars—to support crime victim services organizations across the country. 

But the fund has been prone to fluctuation since the number of fines and fees imposed and the number of convictions vary from year to year. Now, a significant drop in the Crime Victims Fund prompted the federal Office for Victims of Crime to allocate only $87 million to California crime services for fiscal year 2024. That’s a 43 percent reduction from the $153.8 million committed to the state last year.

“The prior presidential administration conducted fewer prosecutions of white-collar crime, and those are the ones that tend to have the largest fines to refill the coffer,” said Marina Bernheimer, the executive director of the San Luis Obispo County Court Appointed Special Advocates (SLOCASA). “Since there were fewer prosecutions, there were fewer penalties to go into the pot.”

While prosecutions of white-collar offenders hit an all-time high in 2011 during the Obama administration, the number of prosecutions began heavily declining under the Trump administration. 

According to the 2023 analysis of the Department of Justice’s case-by-case records by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, white-collar crime prosecutions in fiscal year 2022 were lower than in any year during the Trump administration. Prosecutions that fiscal year were less than those in fiscal year 2020, too, when COVID-19 and federal partial shutdowns curtailed federal criminal enforcement activities.

Bernheimer added that Congress put a cap on how much money can be withdrawn from VOCA funds, and those caps have been decreasing over the years. A high of $4.4 billion in fiscal year 2018 gradually lessened over the years to stand at $1.9 billion in fiscal year 2023. In March, Congress set the fiscal year 2024 cap at $1.2 billion.

In response, SLOCASA, Lumina Alliance, the SLO Legal Assistance Foundation (SLOLAF), and the SLO County District Attorney’s Victim Witness Assistance Center became a handful of voices in the state call to compel Gov. Gavin. Newsom and the California Legislature to bolster crime victim services with $200 million. Advocacy efforts involved letter writing and phone call campaigns, social media pressure, and stakeholders meeting with legislators.

By June, Newsom committed $103 million of the needed $200 million. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is responsible for releasing those funds to groups across the state that apply for grants. 

Smaller than expected, the governor’s monetary injection makes grant acquisition more competitive for the 44 CASA chapters across California. Until now, three VOCA grants made up 40 percent of SLOCASA’s annual $1.3 million budget. 

“There’s one VOCA grant that we received for many, many years, and we’ve always received about a $140,000 a year in this grant,” Bernheimer said, “All CASA programs received this funding. Once the cuts were announced, we learned that instead of 44 CASA programs statewide getting the funding, 22 will receive it.”

Moreover, SLOCASA was only allowed to apply for $70,000 of funding. As of July 11, Bernheimer said that SLOCASA doesn’t know which of its three grants will be sustained.

SLOCASA hires advocate supervisors who each oversee a maximum caseload of 30 volunteers who, in turn, provide direct services to foster youth. Last year, SLOCASA served 240 kids in foster care, which represents 80 percent of those in the system who need a CASA.

“If our funds are not recouped, we cannot retain all of our staff positions,” Bernheimer said. “Children in foster care are very likely to become homeless when they age out of the system, to not attend college, and to do poorly in school. All of those outcomes are improved when a child has a CASA volunteer who stays with them the entire time they’re in foster care and make sure all of their needs are met.”

Other groups like Lumina Alliance, which serves survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence, are also in the dark about which of its grants will be impacted by the funding slash. Eighty percent of Lumina Alliance’s funding comes from government grants like those offered by VOCA. Private donations and foundation grants comprise the remaining 20 percent of the budget. 

Still, Lumina Alliance has been preparing by tightening its purse strings.

“We’ve been kind of looking at our budget all year and recalibrating it to what these anticipated cuts might be,” said Lumina Alliance Director of Communications and Outreach Clementine Ellis. “We have seen impacts just in small cost-saving measures, a reduction in staffing, that sort of thing, just in preparation.”

Ellis added that while Lumina Alliance is grateful to the state for the $103 million funding injection, that sum is only a one-time fund. In other words, resource groups have to return to advocacy efforts soon to encourage lawmakers to keep funding flowing.

“It’s a drain on our resources but also when you’re asking survivors of domestic and sexual violence to come out and share their stories at press conferences or in op eds or in the news, that’s a big ask,” she said. 

Ken Oplinger, the executive director of Domestic Violence Solutions for Santa Barbara County, lauded the advocacy efforts. 

“We should be making sure that the work we’re doing is top of mind for elected officials, because it is so vital, and without it, communities would have so many additional issues that they would have to deal with on their own without this assistance,” he said.

Oplinger told New Times that the Office of Emergency Services had informed Domestic Violence Solutions that its three primary grants will be fully funded next year. 

But SLOLAF wasn’t so fortunate. It didn’t receive the continuation of funding for the program that provides legal services to survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The Office of Emergency Services didn’t respond to New Times’ request for comment by press time.

“The grant we expected to receive (based on past funding) is competitive, and the overall funding for these grants was significantly reduced for 2024,” SLOLAF Executive Director Donna Jones said via email. “Only 29 of 79 applicants [are] receiving funding for 2024 due to the reduction in overall funds available.”

The VOCA grant made up 40 percent of SLOLAF’s budget. While SLOLAF is filling the funding void for 2024 and 2025, Jones said it isn’t a sustainable solution. SLOLAF estimates not being able to serve 75 survivors per year because of the funding cut.

“For 2025, we do not have any indication that this particular legal services grant is going to be offered at all, meaning no organizations in California will receive it,” Jones said. “This is tragic, as legal services funding assists organizations like SLOLAF to offer restraining orders to survivors, as well as assistance with child support and visitation.”

But a saving grace is in the making for all these groups. They’re encouraging residents to contact Newsom and their respective state legislator to support Assembly Bill 2432. Helmed by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), the bill is designed to be a secure revenue source for crime victim services programs around the state. AB 2432 calls for scrutiny of large companies with deep pockets that are bad corporate actors rather than prosecuting individuals. 

“It essentially is proposing that we create our own California Crime Victims Fund, so that’s going to impose additional corporate fines and fees for corporate crimes and financial crimes,” Lumina Alliance’s Ellis said, “and then that would go to support California crime victim service organizations.” ∆

Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at [email protected].