Tri-County Council faces massive decrease in funding

A local non-profit organization devoted to helping victims of domestic and sexual violence is in peril due to what executive director Angie Fanning called a “devastating” 70% reduction in Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding.

According to Fanning, all Wisconsin domestic violence and sexual assault services programs, including the Tri-County Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, are facing drastic reductions due to their reliance on VOCA funding.

“In 2019, the Office of Crime Victim Services (OCVS) awarded approximately $44.5 million annually, for a 5-year funding cycle,” Fanning explained in a press release. However, budget forecasting indicates that OCVS will be able to award only $13.5 million to all agencies in Wisconsin and that money has to last for the next three years. This amounts to an allocation of about $250,000 per organization, as all of the agencies in the state must share the $13.5 million pot. 

“This is a devastating 70% cut for the programs across the state who rely upon VOCA to provide core operating funds and fund shelter, advocacy, legal assistance, economic support, housing, culturally specific services and prevention,” the release states.

In an interview with the River News, Fanning explained that the VOCA funding comes from the national Crime Victims Fund, which was established by the Victims of Crime Act of 1984. Fines and fees collected as part of federal criminal convictions are directed to the fund and each state then issues grants to local agencies that support survivors of violent crime.

“Thousands of victims statewide will lose access to lifesaving and life-sustaining child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and other victim services,” the release notes. “Without access to these critical services, the real-time impact will not only be felt by individuals and families but will also ripple through communities statewide.”

Fanning noted that Tri-County was originally advised to expect a 40 percent decrease, which would have been a major challenge to absorb, only to learn the reality would be far worse.

According to Fanning, the Crime Victims Fund is replenished when assets associated with federal convictions are seized.

“There just hasn’t been anything coming through the pipeline, so to speak, through the federal criminal justice system for significant amounts of assets seized. So that’s why we got the warning that this was going to happen,” she explained.

The Tri-County Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, Inc. has been serving victims of domestic and sexual violence in Oneida, Vilas and Forest counties since 1979. 

“Our most important role in our work is homicide prevention because that is exactly what we do,” Fanning noted in the press release. “The reduction in all overall financial support is going to be the biggest challenge in making sure that we can really keep our doors open. What we have been able to offer in our tri-county community for many years will need to change drastically and of course this means that we will not be able to serve everyone who walks through our door. We will be leaning heavily on other Wisconsin agencies for their resources, but of course, they have been deeply affected by these cuts too. We need to make sure that we are getting far into our communities to educate and work on the prevention aspect, more than the reactive response like we have for so long.”

“Within the plans to restructure all of our services, it has been incredibly heartbreaking to have had to lay off six part time staff and one of our full-time outreach program coordinator, who has dedicated more than 10 years of her career with us,” she added. “We completely lost funding to our outreach offices (in Crandon and Eagle River; the main office is in Rhinelander) and have no means of supporting those staff or those locations. We plan to offer services by mobile advocacy to meet victims in these very rural areas, but we are limited to how often because we lost funds to cover significant mileage costs. Lily’s House, our emergency shelter, will no longer be able to accommodate more than one victim or family at a time since we do not have enough shelter advocates to support them. This means that the ones who are able get help will be the ones in the most danger. The number one thing that we had to focus on was how we were going to keep services here after almost 50 years of service to our communities. And unfortunately, this resulted in many agonizing decisions. At this point we are just trying to put one foot in front of the other until we are told we can’t anymore. Our biggest fear? Who will die as a result of these cuts?”

Fanning noted that while Tri-County is very much in need of funds, money isn’t the only way members of the community can help.

“Our organization has been dependent on grants for far too long,” she explained. “We still need to keep moving forward despite these awful changes and figure out how to rally our communities together to help victims. This can be in the form of volunteering your time to answer our crisis hotline or sitting with sexual assault victims while they are experiencing the worst moments of their lives in a hospital exam room. Help also looks like offering grant-writing services to locate grants and apply for funding. But the biggest need is obviously money. It is up to our community members, organizations and businesses to support their own community members who are facing terrible violence in their lives, often that is hidden from others. One in four women and 1 in 7 men will experience domestic violence while 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men will experience sexual violence in their lifetime. It could be your friend, child, parent, neighbor or co-worker. If you can help in any way, please do. Domestic and sexual violence is not going away.”

For more information, contact Fanning at [email protected].