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Advocates seek $450,000 baseline and $717,000 for supervised visitation programs
Summary
Committee heard advocates ask to convert a one-time $450,000 appropriation into base funding for domestic-violence services and separately requested $717,000 for a statewide supervised-visitation system; members asked staff to clarify distribution and whether the visitation request belongs in the human-services budget.
Speakers at the Feb. 17 House Judiciary Committee meeting described two related funding requests from victim-service advocates: making last year’s $450,000 one-time appropriation part of the base and funding a $717,000 statewide supervised-visitation program.
Speaker 1 told the committee the $450,000 was the network’s top priority and that the $717,000 visitation system, while important, was a less pressing ask because of its larger cost. "We had $450,000 one time last year. They want to put this in the base," Speaker 1 said.
Speaker 4 flagged how the funds are distributed, saying, "of the 450,000, they actually only retained $200,000 for themselves ... and 250 was distributed out to member organizations," and asked the committee to examine how the $250,000 is spent by member groups.
Members sought clarity on where the visitation program should be budgeted. Several asked whether the $717,000 request is a human-services item to be administered by the Department for Children and Families rather than included in the judiciary memo; Speaker 6 noted that the network expected DCF to hold the contract for the visitation system if adopted.
Committee members and witnesses also described the revenue source for the domestic-violence special fund: Speaker 6 explained it is "fed by the surcharges ... a portion of the surcharges and the marriage license fees." Members said those revenue streams have not kept pace with demand and that converting one-time general-fund support to base funding would change the fund’s structure.
Next steps: the committee asked staff to request additional testimony and documentation from the network and from human-services officials to establish how the $450,000 was distributed, how the supervised-visitation system would be administered, and whether the $717,000 belongs in the human-services budget.
