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SPONSOR: |
HAFC |
DATE TYPED: |
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HB |
190 & 257/HAFC |
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SHORT TITLE: |
Amend Local DWI Grant Act |
SB |
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ANALYST: |
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APPROPRIATION
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Appropriation
Contained |
Estimated
Additional Impact |
Recurring or
Non-Rec |
Fund Affected |
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FY03 |
FY04 |
FY03 |
FY04 |
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See Narrative |
Recurring |
Local
DWI Grant Fund |
(Parenthesis
( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)
SUMMARY
Synopsis of Bill
The
House Appropriations and Finance Committee substitute for House Bills 190 and
257 amends the DWI Grant Program Act and allows funds
to be used for programs to reduce or prevent the incidence of domestic abuse
related to alcohol abuse. This legislation
provides a new section whereby the Local DWI Grant Fund can be used for
programs, services or activities to prevent or reduce the incidence of domestic
abuse related to alcoholism or alcohol abuse.
This legislation would continue to fund existing community based
programs, service or facilities for prevention and treatment of domestic abuse
related to alcoholism or alcohol abuse.
The
bill further amends the Local DWI Grant Program Act by revising the amount and
timing of distributions for the Local DWI Grant Fund from the current amount of
revenues of $2,000,000 to $2,500,000, (using 2002 county reclassifications as basis
for amount each local program would receive.)
This essentially raises the “cap” in the Fund.
Revenue
to the Fund are liquor excise tax dollars.
The
bill increases the amount of money the Department of Finance and Administration
(DFA) may access and use from the Local DWI Grant Fund for the
purposes of administering the Grant Program. Currently, DFA is capped at
accessing $100,000 for administration costs. With this bill, the Department may
access up to $600,000 which was a recommendation made in a recent LFC audit. This increase is simply a revision of how
much money from within the Fund itself that DFA may use for
program administration costs.
The
bill also amends the Act to add evaluation of the DWI grantees and Grant Program.
Significant Issues
In
According
to the Department of Health (DOH) and the Health Policy Commission (HPC), DWI
continues to be a major problem in the state of
Nationally,
nearly half of female victims of intimate partner violence (domestic violence)
reported that the offender was drinking or using illegal drugs at the time of
the crime. This same pattern was found
in a national survey of prison inmates with 55% of these offenders drinking or
using drugs at the time of the offense.
The DFA notes that expanding the funding for domestic violence
prevention and treatment may diminish the funds available for DWI.
According to the Administrative Office of the
Courts, additional programs or services give judges sentencing options in
dealing with domestic violence or DWI cases.
National research and statistics into the nature of domestic violence
show that early intervention is important in dealing with domestic
violence.
The
Bill increases the “cap” of the Local DWI Grant Fund by $500.0 (from $2 million
to $2.5 million), and increases the amount of money that DFA may access in the
Fund to cover program administration costs.
Balances in the Fund do not revert to the general fund, so there is no impact
to the general fund.
The Local DWI Grant Fund is
comprised of $2.8 million of liquor excise tax revenues. This legislation proposes that $300.0 of
this amount be distributed to counties reclassified in 2002 as class A counties with a population more than ninety thousand, but
less than one hundred thousand in the 1990 census. This would affect Sandoval
and
The
DOH provided the following comments:
·
The Local Government Division (LGD) of
DFA currently administers the Local DWI Grant Program Fund. The Local DWI Grant Program administered by
LGD has two different funding mechanisms to assist local
·
The Legislative Finance Committee (LFC)
recently released a report following a nine-month analysis of the Local DWI
Grant Fund Program, as a result of HJM 93.
In this report, the LFC recognized that the administrative support for
LGD for the Local DWI Grant Fund Program was insufficient at its current
funding level. Among its findings, the
LFC found the funding for program and administration oversight was insufficient
for LGD’s ability to manage the Local DWI Grant Fund program. In addition, the LFC found that since the
program’s inception, approximately 2% of funds transferred from liquor excise
taxes to the Local DWI Grant Fund Program have been dedicated to the program’s
administration. The LGD has had to use
$150,000 to $175,000 from the general fund budget to supplement current
administration of the Local DWI Grant Fund Program.
·
In addition, LGD DWI Program staff, which consist of three program managers, have been
overwhelmed by the workload, according to the LFC report. It was the LFC recommendation that the
administrative funding cap be increased from the current $100,000 to $600,000
per year. The additional access to
program administration dollars could be used to create an internal audit unit,
and provide for additional program staff to provide ongoing technical
assistance and evaluation for local county programs.
·
The DWI Grant Program Evaluation Report
provided by the
·
The success of the DWI Grant program is
critical to the statewide initiative.
From July, 1999-June 2000, there were approximately 12,000
convictions. Of those convictions, 9,280
were screened; treatment was recommended for 7,351; treatment was assigned to
3,947 and 2,119 completed treatment.