Some victims who’ve applied for money from the state’s Violent Crime Victim Compensation Fund have been waiting more than three years to find out whether they’ll be paid, underscoring a nearly decade-long problem that has plagued the agency responsible for the fund.
A recent State Board of Accounts audit of the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute showed claims from victims of violent crime for money dating to January 2006 had not been addressed.
T. Neil Moore, the institute’s executive director, said the backlog of claims is the result of a faulty database that officials hope will be fixed either late this summer or early in the fall. The institute – which has a history of lagging behind on payments out of the fund – has been playing catch-up and getting money to eligible people who made claims before 2006, Moore said.
“The database is a big issue,” said Moore, who was Fort Wayne police chief from 1988 to 1997. “I will not be satisfied until a correction of the fund is fully implemented.”
Created in 1978, the fund was designed to keep victims without health insurance, sick leave or life insurance from bearing the brunt of medical or burial costs. The institute is payer of last resort for victims of violent crimes.
While part of the fund is set up for such victims, part also pays for treatment of victims of sex crimes and helps keep places like the Fort Wayne Sexual Assault Treatment Center operating.
The institute had more than $1.4 million in funds available to pay approved victims of violent crime as of Feb. 28, according to the Board of Accounts audit, which was released last month and covered financial activity from June 2006 to Jan. 31, 2009.
A previous Board of Accounts audit three years ago showed the institute had claims from victims of violent crimes dating to 2001 that had not yet been approved for payments.
That audit also found no new claims for victims of violent crimes had been entered into the institute’s database as of June 2006 and eligible claims for sex-related crimes had not been approved dating to 2005.
The lag in payments at one point put a strain on the Fort Wayne Sexual Assault Treatment Center, of which Moore was a board member at the time. Moore said the facility almost had to close because of it, and according to Sharon Robison, chief administrative officer at the center, the institute had fallen as many as 24 months behind in payments.
The recent Board of Accounts audit, which Moore called “mild” compared with the previous one, showed payments for sex crimes from the fund had been made through August 2008, and more payments might have been made since then.
“They’re not quite up to date, but they brought the account current up to the end of last year,” Robison said of payments to the sexual assault treatment center.
In 2006, The Journal Gazette reported the institute’s lack of staff and money, high turnover, bad computer system and confusion about what money actually feeds into the fund led to years of disarray. The agency began seeking to settle some claims by paying out about 70 cents on the dollar.
According to state law, the fund is fueled by government grants and a percentage of court fees, work release money, and restitution from criminal cases, and 75 percent of punitive damage awards in civil cases.
Solving problems
Moore, who took over the institute in March 2008 when appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels and approved by the agency’s board, said one of his main goals was to rectify the problems going on with the fund.
“It was clearly one of those issues we had to get fixed, simply because we had victims in the balance,” Moore said.
The agency he inherited not only had continuous trouble making payments out of the fund but had been mired in scandals, some minor, others more severe.
Michael Cunegin, Moore’s predecessor and also a former Fort Wayne police officer, left the agency in 2007 after an inaccurate résumé claiming he had a bachelor’s degree was posted on the agency’s Web site. He took another job at the Department of Correction.
Before that, Heather Bolejack was fired as the agency’s director after a state ethics investigation found a Bolejack friend had obtained a grant of $417,000 without board approval.
Before Cunegin left he had begun the process of fixing the database, Moore said.
Cheaper solution
A full report on a solution for the database was presented to the institute’s board during Moore’s first meeting as executive director. Although that report was well received, Moore said the board asked him to find a cheaper solution, causing a delay in fixing the problem.
Moore said it’s unclear how long it would take a claim to be processed if the database was working. The Victim Compensation Unit, a four-person division in the institute that handles claims for the fund, must go through each claim to determine whether an individual is eligible.
Money from the fund has been paid out for claims of victims of violent crime each year, but those claims were made before 2006. So far this year, Moore said, $20,000 has been paid out of the fund for such victims, as opposed to $1.2 million last year.
“That clearly signals to us we have to get moving, we have to get this fixed,” he said.
Some victims’ advocates in the state have been frustrated by the institute’s tardiness. Advocates usually only show a victim how to apply for money and rarely hear back from victims, who do apply, according to several officials from area victims’ assistance programs.
“What I do, I still refer (victims) to the fund if I think it’s appropriate,” said Karen Carty, the Adams County Victims Advocate. “I just warn them, they’re the payer of last resort, and they haven’t paid in a long time. I don’t want them to get their hopes up.”
