The Partnership’s Push to Increase State Funding to Prevent Domestic Violence
As a heads up, this podcast was recorded early last week, before Governor Brown revealed his January budget proposal. Some of the conversation is dated in that regard, now that this post is going up after the budget proposal was revealed. That aside, the conversation I had with Erin Scott – Board Chair, California Partnership to End Domestic Violence (The Partnership) – is still very much relevant.
Funding for domestic violence work in California has remained steady for the past few years at roughly $20.6 million annually. That funding comes out of the General Fund. and covers emergency response for domestic violence survivors and has become a part of California’ social safety net. It’s essential funding, but there’s more that could be done. Put another way, current funding only allows nonprofit organizations that serve domestic violence survivors to react to the problem of domestic violence. The Partnership is leading a push this year to double the amount of money in the General Fund being spent on domestic violence work with the new $20.6 million being spent on domestic violence prevention and addressing the longer term root causes of the issue.
As I mentioned before, our conversation was recorded before the budget proposal was revealed. Since then, the Governor’s budget proposal has been revealed, and the state’s investment in domestic violence crisis services remained steady at $20.6 million. In a statement following the announcement of the budget proposal Kathy Moore, Executive Director for The Partnership said,
We appreciate the state’s consistent investment … over the last 10 years, but it’s simply not enough. […] On any given day, about half of the 5,410 domestic violence victims being served in California access emergency shelter, while the other half receive non-residential services – things like legal assistance, children’s counseling and other complimentary services. Yet average data also shows there are over 1,086 unmet requests for services every day. Continuing to band-aid these families crises with inadequate resources isn’t the solution. Victims are telling us they need more.“
No budget fight in the California Legislature is easy. The level of difficulty is only exacerbated when an organization is fighting for General Fund dollars – of which a minimum of 40% are already constitutionally earmarked for K-12 education. We said in the podcast that the funds The Partnership is going for comes out of one pot. It’s more like the funds are coming from half a pot, and there are numerous other groups angling for those same dollars. While Erin noted that “it’s never the perfect time for this kind of request,” I see a couple trends that point towards this being a good year to make the ask to double the funding for domestic violence work.
The first of those is the windfall – or surplus as some others are calling it – in this year’s state budget. It’s easier to ask for more funding in a year when there is more money available to the state to spend. The other trend that could help The Partnership is the #WeSaidEnough movement that has taken the California legislature by storm. While the issues of domestic violence and sexual harassment and assault in the workplace are most certainly not the same, my feeling is that the return to focusing on victims, and victims’ rights, and getting those victims the help that they need puts the political winds in a more favorable position for The Partnership in their effort to get the funding that agencies across California to start being more proactive, start addressing the long term root causes of domestic violence, and, hopefully, start reducing domestic violence in California.