VOCA Funding

Current Status/Action News:

FY 2014

The Administration's requested FY 2014 spending proposal asks to increase the VOCA cap to $800 million (from the 2013 cap of $730 million). Of that:

  • $71 million of the increase would be used for specific initiatives:
    • $25 million for supplemental victims' services and other victim-related programs and initiatives,
    • $20 million for tribal assistance for victims of violence,
    • $10 million for victims of trafficking grants focused on domestic victims
    • up to 2 percent ($16 million) for research, evaluation or statistical purposes related to crime victims and related programs.

In addition, the Administration is projecting that $60 million will be taken from the Crime Victims Fund for DOJ management and administrative costs, further reducing the amount available for the core VOCA-authorized programs. Taken together, the M&A and new earmarks would reduce the amount available for VOCA-authorized programs to $669 million. The additional $131 million costs means that more than 1.3 million fewer crime victims will receive VOCA victim assistance-funded services.

NAVAA Position
Consistent with its longstanding policy, NAVAA does not support the creation of any new set asides from the Crime Victims Fund. Notwithstanding the merits of the individual proposals or initiatives, NAVAA believes the original and primary purpose of the Crime Victims Fund is to support services to victims of all types of crimes throughout the nation by use of state formula grants. VOCA state victim assistance grants have not even kept pace with inflation, let alone the increasing need assistance services. State assistance grants in 2012 were 30 percent less in real dollars than grants in 2000. We therefore believe that the highest priority should be given to restoring funding for VOCA state victim assistance grants.

Sequestration The Office of Management and Budget projects there will be $11.431 billion in the Fund in 2014 of which 7.2 percent or $832 million will be sequestered. Sequestration, however, does not mean that amount will be removed from the Fund, but are merely not available for obligation. Because sequestration is taken from the entire Fund and not the amount “under the cap,” sequestration may not directly reduce amounts available to support victim services.  However, because sequestration reduces the overall amount available to appropriators (see below), sequestration may tend to lower the VOCA cap as well as amounts available for other DOJ victim programs, such as Violence Against Women Act programs.

FY 2013

Congress has passed and the President has signed the bill to keep the Federal government operating through September 30, 2013. As passed, the cap on spending from the Crime Victims Fund in fiscal year 2013 was set at $730 million. Although this is a $25 million increase over the $705 million cap in 2012, several factors may have a serious impact on VOCA programs:

  • The spending bill incorporates a 5.1 percent sequestration which will reduce the amount available from the Crime Victims Fund by $37.2 million.
  • In addition, DOJ grant managment and administrative (M&A) costs assesed against the Crime Victims Fund in 2013 are estimated at nearly $57 million.
  • Because of sequestration, the Department of Justice had announced it intended to "donate" grant funds to avoid furloughs in the Bureau of Prison. It now appears that DOJ has found other funds to transfer and that grant funds will not be diverted to other uses.

Management and Administrative Costs (M&A)

In 2012, the Office of Justice Programs allocated VOCA M&A so that some VOCA authorized programs (i.e. Children's Justice Act and state crime victim compensation grants) were not reduced but state victim assistance grants were assessed a disproportionately large share. The 2013 spending bill directs OJP to ensure that its M&A assessment is equitable and, "for programs funded through the Crime Victims Fund that the assessment reflects a fair representation of the share of each program devoted to common M&A costs."

If OJP applies the same method in 2013 as it did in 2012, state assistance grants will be approximately $383 million, about the same as 2012 grants. If it uses the more equitable allocation, the amount available for state victim assistance grants in 2013 is estimated to be about $398 million, a 4.7 percent increase over the 2012 grants (remembering that the 2012 grants were an 11 percent reduction from the previous year).

 

 

Documents

(All documents in PDF format unless otherwise indicated in square brackets.) [Top]

Media Coverage

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Background

  • The Crime Victim Fund helps an average of 3.7 million victims of all types of crime every year.
  • The Fund comes from the collection of Federal criminal fines; not taxpayers.
  • Congress has repeatedly pledged that all amounts deposited into the Fund would remain available for victim services.

The Victims of Crime Act of 1984 is the Federal government's principle means of providing support for programs that serve victims of all types of crime. Each year, Federal criminal fines, forfeitures and special assessments are deposited into the Crime Victims Fund (the Fund). These offender generated revenues -- NOT TAXPAYER DOLLARS -- are used to support these programs:

  • Children’s Justice Act -- to improve the investigation and prosecution of child abuse cases;
  • U.S. Attorney’s victim/witness coordinators -- to provide assistance to victims involved in Federal criminal prosecutions by funding 170 FTE United States Attorney Office victim assistance coordinators;;
  • F.B.I. victim assistance specialists-- to help victims during Federal criminal investigations by funding 112 FTE victim assistance specialists;
  • Federal victim notification system -- to provide automated notification to victims of the status of Federal criminal investigations and prosecutions and the offender's status in the Federal prison system;
  • OVC discretionary grants -- to support national scope training and technical assistance and to provide services to victims of Federal crimes;
  • State compensation formula grants -- to supplement State funds used to reimburse victims of violent crimes for medical expenses, mental health counseling, lost wages, loss of support and funeral/burial costs;
  • State victim assistance formula grants -- to support direct victim assistance services -- such as counseling, emergency shelter, rape crisis centers, help in participating in the criminal justice system. Approximately 3.5 million - 4 million crime victims receive these services by more than 4,000 agencies annually;
  • Management & administration (M&A) - For 2012 and future years, Congress directed DOJ to use grant funds to cover its grant M&A.
  • Antiterrorism Emergency Reserve -- to replenish a special $50 milllion reserve to assist victims of domestic and international terrorism and mass violence. The needs for this reserve is demonstrated by Minnesota's request for supplemental compensation funding in response to the Red Lake, MN school shooting

Prior to FY 2000, all of the money deposited into the Crime Victims Fund from the collection of Federal criminal fines, forfeitures and assessments, was allocated the following fiscal year according to a formula in the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) statute. Because of wide fluctuations in the amount deposited, beginning in FY 2000, Congress began imposing a limitation or "cap" on the amount of Fund deposits that could be obligated the following year.

Fiscal Year
Prv. Yr. Deposits
Cap
  
Fiscal
Year
Prv. Yr. Deposits
Cap
2000
$985,185,354
$500,000,000
  
2007
649,631,046
625,000,000
2001
776,954,858
537,500,000
  
2008
1,017,977,475
590,000,000
2002
544,437,015
550,000,000
  
2009**
896,316,825
635,000,000
2003
519,466,480
600,000,000
  
2010
1,745,677,602
705,000,000
2004
361,341,967
621,312,500*
  
2011
2,362,337,940
705,000,000
2005
833,695,013
620,000,000*
  
2012
1,998,220,205
705,000,000
2006
668,268,054
625,000,000
  
2013
2,795,547,045
 730,000,000
* Includes rescissions.
** Does not include $100 million in Recovery Act funding

Congress said it was delaying use of the deposits above the cap in order "to protect against wide fluctuations in receipts into the Fund, and to ensure that a stable level of funding will remain available for these programs in future years." [Conference Report 106-479] Congress also amended the VOCA statute to reflect the preservation of all deposits for future VOCA programs.

The amounts remaining in the Fund are carried over from year to year to be used when Fund deposits are less than the next year's cap. Three times since caps were imposed -- in FYs 2002, 2003 and 2004 -- Congress has relied on this "rainy day reserve" because of insufficient deposits. However, thanks largely to a handful of very large cases, deposits into the Fund have escalated at unprecedented levels.  As a result, the balance in the Fund continues to grow:

Fund Opening Balance (millions)
FY
    
FY
  
2000
485
  
2008
1,730
2001
1,300
  
2009
1,852
2002
1,330
  
2010
3,148
2003
1,311
  
2011
4,801
2004
1,080
  
2012
6,099
2005
1,261
  
2013
8,185
2006
1,307
  
2014
9,531
2007
1,333
      

This is important because the VOCA statute contains a rather complicated formula that determines how much each  receives each year. State victim assistance grant -- the grants that support thousands of direct victim services -- in effect gets whatever's left over after the other VOCA-authorized programs are funded. As a result, unless the cap is high enough, state VOCA assistance grants are cut as new programs are added or other VOCA-dependent costs increase.

Despite tremendous growth in the Crime Victims Fund balance, lack of adequate VOCA funding means fewer crime victims have access to essential assistance services.   In fact, more than 630,000 fewer victims received VOCA funded services in 2012 than in 2007.

Fiscal Year
VOCA assistance funds*
No. VOCA Funded Agencies
No. Victims Served
2006
395.9
4,397
3,813,128
2007
370.6
4,201
4,116,648
2008
309.0
4,358
3,780,068
2009
363.8
4,020
3,526,736
Recovery Act
47.5
568
38,307
2010 412.1 3,730 3,609,421
2011 428.1 3,780 3,760,235
2012 379.7 3,879 3,486,655
* in millions

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Contact Congress

Call, email or fax your Congressional delegation and urge them to fully support crime victims by raising the VOCA cap. Find out how to contact your Senator and Representatives (often just by entering your zip code) by going to these web sites:

Connect to their offices through this toll-free number: 1-800-247-2971

For media inquiries about VOCA and the Crime Victims Fund: contact: NAVAA Executive Director Steve Derene at steve@navaa.org or call 608-233-2245.


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©NAVAA is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization whose mission is "to advance education, research, and public service to assure accessible quality services for crime victims nationwide, to strengthen exchange of information and communication among its members and to provide its members with training and technical assistance to effectively respond to the issues and challenges of supporting those services."