New proviso threatens RW funds

RIDGEWAY – A Victim’s Assistance Program proviso approved by the State Legislature July 1, 2016, threatened to force the Town of Ridgeway to forfeit up to $35,000 of the slightly more than $60,000 in its Victim Assistance Fund (VAF) to the State Office of Victim Assistance (SOVA), Ridgeway Town Council members Angela Harrison and Heath Cookendorfer explained to Council during their regular monthly meeting last week.

The newly implemented Proviso 93.95 provides that if the Town does not spend 90 percent of the funds it collected in previous years for victims’ assistance, it will have to forfeit any amount over $25,000 or 10 percent, whichever is higher, to SOVA. Only the balance in the fund can be rolled forward to the next year. Prior to the new proviso, all monies remaining in a town or county’s VAF could be rolled forward indefinitely.

The new proviso came as a surprise to Council members last month since no notification had been sent to the Town by SOVA, and Harrison said information has not been easy to acquire. An email from Ethel Ford, Deputy Director of SOVA, to Harrison stated, “As you can see from the Proviso, we are not mandated by law to notify entities of current legislative changes.” SOVA, Ford wrote, provides training and technical assistance regarding the acceptable use of the funds.

“We’ve always rolled the money forward,” Harrison told The Voice. “We didn’t know the proviso existed until we were recently looking at ways we could help victims in our town with these funds. In the past, we didn’t have anyone who was certified to work with victims, so we usually referred them to the Fairfield County VAF or Sistercare, so the money in our fund just rolled forward every year and built up. Now that we have Police Chief (Christopher) Culp who is certified as a victim’s advocate, we wanted to see what we could do to start using our funds to better help victims in our community,” Harrison said. “That’s how we found out about the new proviso.”

Ridgeway’s victim assistance revenue comes from a percentage of the money brought in from traffic tickets written by the Ridgeway Police Department. The fund has grown to about $60,000 according to Harrison.

After meeting with Ford in early April to clarify the details of the proviso, Harrison and Cooendorfer agreed there is still considerable confusion about a number of the proviso’s directives, however, Council moved forward to disperse 90 percent ($50,000) of the money in the Town’s current VAF through donations to local organizations authorized to distribute funds to victims.

Cookendorfer introduced a motion to send $30,000 to Fairfield County’s VAF and $20,000 to Sistercare, with the Ridgeway Council reserving the right to say how those funds would be spent.

Before that motion could pass, however, Harrison said she would like to see the more significant portion of the funds go to Sistercare.

“Fairfield County has its own VAF. Sistercare needs the money more than the County. Sistercare recently had to house a family of five. Do you know what it’s like to have to feed a family of five every day and pay for their rent and all their needs on top of that?” Harrison asked.

“We also have to remember that Fairfield County is our backup. They help us out when we don’t have an advocate,” Cookendorfer said. “We could even flip the number with $30,000 going to Sistercare and $20,000 to Fairfield County. Again, $50,000 is on the table. I think we can make both parties extremely happy.”

Cookendorfer suggested the remaining $10,000 might go towards advocate training for Culp. Council also discussed using Ridgeway’s VAF to supplement a percentage of Culp’s salary in the future. That percentage would be determined by SOVA based on a 90-day time and activity paperwork filed with SOVA along with other documentation concerning the number of victims served and other data.

Council voted to donate $50,000 to Fairfield County VAF and Sistercare with the split to be determined after research on the two groups is presented at the next Council meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

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