This article is the third installment of a Sentinel series on the upcoming victim service funding cut. Check out the other articles to learn about the impact on nonprofit providers at gjsentinel.com.
More than one in 100 Coloradans benefited from the state’s judicial district victim services last year, but an impending cut to major funding sources poses a threat.
Direct Support and Advocacy
Direct victim support and advocacy through the District Attorney’s office includes an array of services: trial-prepping victims, attending trials with victims, meeting with district attorneys about the cases with the victims, connecting victims with therapists, compensation programs, and more.
The Director of Victim Services with the DA’s Office, Jennifer Lucero, stated that the quality and availability of employees to provide those resources will be substantially reduced without intervention from the county, state, or federal government.
“There’s been so much focus around the VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) funding because there’s not a lot of available money for victim services, so we have to rely on our grant funds to fill positions,” Lucero said.
Funding Details
The upcoming reductions primarily stem from the VOCA grant, a federal funding mechanism supported by fines and penalties deposited into the federal Crime Victim Fund.
According to Colorado Office of Victim Programs Manager Kelly Kissel, the amount of fees contributing to the fund has repeatedly dropped over the past several years, resulting in a “historic and critical low” for the 2025 fiscal year.
Kissel mentioned that some initiatives have mitigated that cut: one-time budget increase requests from Colorado legislators and Gov. Jared Polis, the state’s use of the pandemic-era State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, and a federal VOCA fix from 2021.
Between those federal and state initiatives, Kissel said the initially anticipated VOCA funding cut has shrunk from 45% to 27%.
Impact on Services
According to Lucero, the Violence Against Women Act fund is also set to decrease by 7.7%. Two other notable grants will see a non-reduction, which Lucero said is essentially a decrease when considering inflation and increased demand.
Accounting for all these changes, Lucero said the DA’s Office is anticipating a decrease across all grant funds of 11.4%, or nearly $46,000. These grants historically funded more than 25% or $403,000 of the unit’s $1.47 million budget this year.
Challenges Ahead
The impending decrease threatens several other victim services offered across the county, but it especially endangers recent progress made in the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
“We finally got to a point where we’re serving victims appropriately and directly,” Lucero said. “We’re helping them through the worst part of their life, and then it’s gone. That’s a hard pill to swallow, and there’s nothing on the backside to pull from.”
Lucero highlighted that the unit has made major strides in the past five years to serve victims better while reducing its funding requests to the county. When Lucero became a victim specialist with the team around 2017, she said her average caseload was about 490 — more than double the “best practice standard” of 50 to 200 cases.
Future Considerations
With next year’s funding substantially cut, the 2025 county budget is the unit’s best chance of supplementing the nearly $46,000 deficit.
Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein expressed confidence that the Board of County Commissioners will approve their new budget request later this year.
Lucero emphasized that the DA’s Office unit has even fewer options for funding than their nonprofit counterparts because they can only utilize government-based grants like VOCA. The private donors and foundations that account for most of the existing grant funders are prohibited.
“Victims don’t choose to be victims of crime — it’s something that happened to them, it’s been committed against them,” Lucero said. “So, it’s incredibly disheartening and frustrating to see the lack of funding in victim services, period.”
Comments are closed