Funding delays hobble shelters

A bureaucratic muddle threatens services for rape victims and beaten women

RALEIGH -- Fiscal juggling between state agencies has put local nonprofits that shelter and aid victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in dire financial straits. Some programs haven't received a cent of state support since July 1, forcing several agencies to ask staff to work for free and beg local banks for loans to pay their rent.

"Every week, I'm told the check is in the mail," said Margaret Crites, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center of Robeson County. "I check my e-mail about six times a day, hoping to get word that the money's been deposited in our bank account." Crites hasn't been paid in six weeks; she's maxed out her agency's credit card, and for the first time in 18 years is late paying her program's electric bill.

This year, state leaders shifted the responsibility of awarding these grants between two state departments. The transfer has caused long delays for dozens of programs awaiting money.

Programs like Crites', small nonprofits serving victims across the state, rely heavily on state grants to serve victims of domestic and sexual violence. These programs provide emergency shelter for women fleeing an abusive partner, hold rape victims' hands in the emergency room while a nurse collects evidence of the crime and go to court to help secure a judge's order to keep abusers at a distance.

For many of these groups, the funding accounts for as much as three-quarters of their budget. Even programs with broad financial support use these grants to cover a third of their domestic violence and sexual assault services.

This fall, programs in Franklin and Johnston counties have had to leverage their shelter property for a bank loan in order to make payroll. A program in Yancey County hasn't paid its electric bill for months and had to turn to the county commission to pay health insurance premiums for its staff. Many others, including a program in Chatham County, have burned through their emergency reserves while they wait for grant reimbursements.

"I guarantee you that no agency in Raleigh would be willing to operate with this level of uncertainty for as long as [our programs] have been operating," said Pat Youngblood, executive director of Hopeline, a domestic violence and rape crisis center serving six counties in northeastern North Carolina.

Streamlining attempt

The hiccup began in the most harmless of ways. A top adviser to Gov. Michael Easley was trying to reduce the paperwork for these local nonprofit groups applying for federal and state grants, spokeswoman Renee Hoffman said. In 2007, Easley's cabinet members signed an agreement shifting responsibility for these grants to the Governor's Crime Commission in the state Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, away from the Council for Women under the state Department of Administration. Crime Control was already dealing with federal grants, and Easley's adviser thought they were better equipped to handle all the grants.

But the General Assembly had specifically charged the Council for Women with the state domestic violence and sexual assault grants. Legislators began raising questions.

This spring, after the local agencies had already applied for state grants through the Governor's Crime Commission, Easley's administration shifted the money back to the Council for Women.

The crime commission had managed to cut checks to little more than half the recipients before having to turn the money back over. Those checks were just to cover the first quarter of the fiscal year starting in July.

The Council for Women received the money in October. There, one veteran grant manager and a newly hired assistant began sifting through more than 350 grant applications, checking each page of the inch-thick packets for signatures and dollar figures. Most programs have had to sign new grant contracts, tracking down board members to sign off on applications they'd already assembled in the spring.

"It's been a constant roller coaster," grant manager Jacqueline Jordan told a group of legislators Thursday as they examined how grant funding for these programs could be improved. "Right now, it's going around in loops. Every day of the last 30 has brought a new challenge."

No one knows this better than the local agencies scrambling to keep their doors open.

"Some of our programs are so vulnerable, operating close to the wire month to month," said Jo Sanders, executive director of Family Violence and Rape Crisis Services of Chatham County. "You cannot run a business this way."

Sanders said that her program has learned tough lessons through the years and had built up a reserve for tight periods like this. Sanders said they've now spent all of that backup money, and if the state grants don't arrive soon, she won't be able to make payroll.

"My board wants to know who to blame," Sanders said. "We've ceased trying to understand it and are just trying to respond to it now."