THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

The Joint Committee on

Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review

Report # 580

A Review of the Department of Health’s Administration of the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund, FY 2005-FY 2013

Executive Summary

Introduction

During its 2013 Regular Session, the Legislature enacted Senate Bill 2631 to create a Domestic Violence Task Force to provide recommendations and advice regarding domestic violence issues in the state. Senate Bill 2631 required the PEER Committee to provide support and recommendations to the task force.

While performing tasks outlined in Senate Bill 2631, task force members requested information from Department of Health (DOH) staff regarding state funds available for distribution to domestic violence shelters. Upon receiving the information from DOH staff, task force members considered the information to be incomplete in providing a full accounting of available funds and requested that PEER authorize a project to review the department’s distribution of monies designated for domestic violence shelters.

Background

According to the U. S. Department of Justice, domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. The U. S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that in 2012 there were 1.3 million cases of domestic violence victimization involving intimate partners and family members. This number represents 4.8 victimization cases for every 1,000 persons age twelve or older.

According to its most recent strategic plan, the Mississippi Department of Health provides specific resources for the prevention of family violence, rape prevention, and crisis intervention through contracts with domestic violence shelters and sexual assault/rape crisis centers. Located within the department’s Office of Women’s Health, the goal of the department’s Domestic Violence Program is to reduce the incidence of domestic violence through prevention education and direct intervention with victims. Specifically, the program’s purpose is to provide safe facilities, temporary food and shelter, family counseling, and related services to the victims of domestic violence and their children.

Funding for the Department of Health’s victims of domestic violence program is derived from fees received from marriage licenses, assessments associated with traffic violations, implied consent law violations, game and fish law violations, other misdemeanors and felonies, and criminal bonds.

The Department of Health’s Administration of the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund

From FY 2005 through FY 2013, the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund received approximately $5.5 million in total revenues. During the same period, the fund expended approximately $3.9 million. The majority of the department’s annual expenditures from the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund are in the form of grants to the state’s domestic violence shelters that are qualified to receive state funding. For FY 2014, thirteen domestic violence shelters received funding from the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund.

Although the Department of Health provided grants totaling approximately $3.4 million to domestic violence shelters from the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund from FY 2005 through FY 2013, the department did not grant approximately $1.6 million that had accumulated in the fund over that period. Following are the reasons why the $1.6 million balance accumulated in the fund and was not disbursed as grants to domestic violence shelters:

• The Department of Health has not created a special fund in the State Treasury for the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund, as required by state law.
• Department of Health officials have not taken into consideration the revenue from criminal bond fees, which began yielding monies for the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund in FY 2010, when determining the amount available for grants to domestic violence shelters.
• State law caps the amount an individual shelter may receive from the fund annually at $50,000. This amount has not been revised by the Legislature since it was set in 1983.
• From FY 2009 through FY 2013, domestic violence shelters did not expend approximately $102,000 of funds awarded as grants from the Victims of Domestic Violence Fund.

Pages 14 through 19 of the report contain explanations of each of the preceding points.

Recommendations

To comply with the specific requirements of statute, the Department of Health should:

1. Establish a Victims of Domestic Violence Fund as a special fund in the State Treasury.
2. At the conclusion of FY 2014, transfer the balance in the Department of Health’s Victims of Domestic Violence sub-fund to the Victims of Domestic Violence special fund in the State Treasury minus the amount of FY 2014 direct and indirect expenses and any encumbrances for prior fiscal years’ indirect expenses.

The Legislature should:

3. Amend MISS. CODE ANN. Section 93-21-117 (3) (1972) to limit administration expenditures, for both direct and indirect administration, to ten percent of the amount granted annually to domestic violence shelters from the revenue sources listed in MISS. CODE ANN. Section 93-21-117 (1972).
4. Regarding the establishment of special funds by the Department of Health, or any other agency, the Legislature should:
   
   
   • require that any agency that has been directed to establish a special fund in legislation, but has not done so, to establish such fund within ninety days of the effective date of this act;
   • require the Department of Finance and Administration to hold any funds that should be deposited to such special fund or funds in suspense if the agency fails to establish the fund as required by law;
   • require that any special fund established in legislation adopted after 2015 shall be established as soon as practicable after the legislation creating the fund is enacted;
   • require the Department of Finance and Administration to hold any funds to be paid to such fund in suspense until such time as the agency establishes the fund as required by law; and,
   • provide that no agency that has failed to establish special funds in conformity with this act shall be authorized to expend or obligate funds that are to be paid to such fund until the agency has complied with this act.

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