The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Articles I, IV & V met with the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence on April 16 to discuss and hear invited testimony on the following interim charge:
- Review and make recommendations for improving the level of funding of the Crime Victims Compensation Fund.
Representatives of the Legislative Budget Board and Office of the Attorney General of Texas provided updates on the current state of the fund, its projected revenue health, and efforts being made to improve its funding streams. The Crime Victims Compensation Fund (CVC) is the payer of last resort that makes compensation claim payments to victims and also appropriates money for victims services grants.
Testimony indicated both the short- and long-term viability of the fund is in jeopardy.
Over the long-term there is not enough revenue coming in to support current spending levels; the fund is sufficient enough to compensate individual crime victims, but not sufficient enough to fund grant programs at current levels.
From a short-term perspective, the fund is facing a cash flow shortfall in the first quarter of the coming biennium that threatens both individual payments and the grant program. The revenues collected for the CVC from court costs and fees at the local level are held in local treasuries until the end of each quarter when they are transferred to the Comptroller. It is projected there is less than $3 million in the CVC, and because local officials will not deposit their monies until the end of the first quarter in the coming biennium, there will not be enough cash to reimburse crime victims. However, grantees will continue receiving their FY 2012-2013 grants at existing levels at the urging of state leadership and legislators, who have vowed to address the shortfall in the coming 2013 legislative session.
The stakeholder groups invited to testify were: People Against Violent Crime, Texas Council on Family Violence, Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, Texas CASA, and Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas.