Come the next federal budget fiscal year in October, various San Luis Obispo County victims' services will experience budget cuts.
According to Marina Bernheimer, the executive director of local nonprofit SLO CASA, the Federal Victims of Crime Act fund that relies on fees from federal crimes is running low. In turn, the amount the fund can provide to victims nationwide and here locally is getting cut.
The organizations affected include SLO CASA and others like Lumina Alliance, the SLO Legal Assistance Foundation, and the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Office's Victim Witness Assistance Center.
“We just learned very recently about the size of the cuts being even larger than we anticipated," Bernheimer said, adding that she expected only a 30% cut in federal funds but now anticipates a 45% cut. "We've just been working with our budgets to be very conservative and to try to cut wherever we can but importantly, without impacting services for kids.”
The federal fund supplies up to 40% of these county services, including SLO CASA which is now cut down to almost 20%, according to Bernheimer.
“We're just looking at all of our operational costs and trying to cut all of those," Bernheimer said. "We're talking to all of our vendors and trying to bring down costs. We are just being really conservative about anything extra. As a nonprofit, we didn't start off with lots of extra anyway, to be honest, so we are really relying on the generosity of our community.”
Bernheimer also said that in addition to community support to help fund local nonprofits, they are hoping for a long-term solution at the state level. That could be a state-level victims-of-crime act fund similar to the one at the federal level.
In the short term, county services are asking Governor Gavin Newsom to reinstate $100 million of the original $200 million allocated to the state for victim services through an emergency fund within the state's budget.
To donate to local victims of crime services, visit the websites below for more details on how to do so:
