Wisconsin’s attorney general is praising lawmakers for action on the state budget, which includes restoring a funding model for Child Advocacy Centers. Those agencies provide assistance to child victims of crime, and work with the court system to help those children find justice and healing.
Governor Scott Walker’s budget had called for moving to a grant-based funding model, something former Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen had supported. Current Attorney General Brad Schimel had concerns about the proposal though, and asked lawmakers to go back to the previous system. Schimel said the centers preferred not to be fighting each other over the funding, which amounts to about $17,000 per location.
Most of those facilities also rely heavily on volunteers, and may lack the staff needed for a competitive grant-writing process.
Schimel also thanked lawmakers for approving four new positions to help investigate officer-involved deaths. The request comes as his office is seeing a dramatic increase in the number of those investigations it needs to conduct, thanks to a new state law that requires a review by an outside law enforcement agency.
WSAU