Talking Points and Q&A

These talking points are intended for use during meetings with legislators,
either virtually or in person.

Use it as a guide for your conversations. There is no need to memorize these points or cover all the issues described below. Feel free to focus on one or two items of most significance to your program. And we encourage you to modify the language as you see fit so your conversation becomes natural. Our goal is to deliver consistent, rather than identical, messaging to legislators.

General Background:

• Thousands of domestic violence victims rely on the care we provide. We help DV victims safety plan. We find them housing, and access to medical or mental health treatment. We advocate on their behalf with state agencies and local government agencies. We help them re-establish their families in new communities, enroll their children in new schools, find jobs, even accompany them in court. Our work is critical and without our program, DV victims would have nowhere to turn.
• New York State is failing to address the needs of domestic violence survivors and their families. Funding is woefully insufficient to meet the skyrocketing demand for our services. Every month, DV programs like mine experience significant cash flow issues because the state fails to reimburse us in a timely manner. Whatever reimbursement we do receive is not enough to cover the costs we incur. [Provide information about the operational challenges in your program.]
•  In addition, our staff do not make a living wage. We have been left out of the cost-of-living salary adjustments and bonuses available to other human services workers. We are again excluded from this year’s proposal to increase state contracts with human services providers. This inequity has resulted in hundreds of employees transitioning from our programs. Many vacancies remain, further stressing our over-worked and tired workforce. [Provide detail about your program’s challenges recruiting employees, retaining employees and/or how vacancies at your program are over-burdening the staff that remain.]
• New York must fully fund DV services to ensure all DV survivors get the help they need when they need it.

I am asking the Legislature to:

1.     Create a $200 million program to fix the way New York State funds DV services.

The goal would be to expand DV programs’ capacity to support DV victims and significantly reduce the number of requests for DV services that cannot be fulfilled each year. In addition, program funding would be used to ensure local DV programs can continue their life-saving supports for all DV victims, as required by state law, even if federal funding is no longer available or if significant restrictions are placed on the use of federal funding. [Provide information about the critical need to support immigrant, undocumented and LGBTQ+ DV survivors.]

2.     Increase the Governor’s $100 million commitment for victim services to $150 million.

More than 90% of the funding New York State earmarks for DV programs is federal funding. Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding is the largest of these funding sources, enabling hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to access services including shelter, housing, legal assistance, counseling and more. New York’s federal VOCA grant has declined $155.4 million since 2018, losing 78% of its value. While the Governor’s commitment is welcome news, and we urge the Legislature to maintain it, it may not be enough to fund the next round of VOCA contracts, particularly in light of the potential for freezes or restrictions on federal funding streams. We urge the Legislature to increase the Governor’s earmark by $50 million to ensure the continuity of these critical safety net services.

3.     Stabilize the DV sector’s diminishing workforce by providing a 7.8% increase on our NYS contracts.

DV advocates are essential, frontline workers whose work requires specialized skills and training. It is also a 24/7 job, requiring us to meet DV survivors where they are – at the police station, in court or the hospital – to provide critical, life-changing services. We have been excluded from every budgetary initiative intended to raise wages for human services workers. This failure has had a disastrous impact on our ability to retain employees, which impacts our ability to provide services. We see it in the data. On any given day in New York, more than 1,000 DV survivors cannot get the services they are asking for.

A bill has been introduced (S3669) to provide a 7.8% increase on state contracts with human services providers like DV programs. We urge you to support it.

4.     Earmark $9.6 million of federal TANF funding for non-residential DV services to meet demand and account for inflation increases over the last 25 years.

Demand for non-residential DV services has increased 72% since 2021. Yet funding for these services has not increased in 25 years. We urge the Legislature to increase this funding to $9.6 million to address inflation and the extraordinarily high demand for such services.

Miscellaneous:

If asked: Do you support the Governor’s proposed funding for rape crisis centers and/or child advocacy centers?

A: Yes, we support both earmarks. Sexual violence is a hidden yet common and complex aspect of DV. The Governor’s funding for rape crisis services is critical to enhancing hospital and community services, expanding geographical access to forensic exams and ensuring support for culturally responsive programs. Similarly, we support the Governor’s funding for child advocacy centers as these centers have been flat funded for a decade despite the increasing demand for their services.

If asked: Do you support the Governor’s proposal to create a misdemeanor level DV crime?

A: We share the Governor’s goal to keep guns out of the hands of DV abusers by informing the FBI of more convicted abusers who should be unable to purchase or possess firearms. However, before we jump to creating a new crime in NY, which could have unintended consequences for DV survivors, it is critical to identify the root causes of NY’s failure to submit the necessary information to the FBI. We are asking the Legislature to omit the Governor’s proposal from their one-house budget bills and instead work with stakeholders to identify the root causes. Only then can an appropriate response be identified.

If asked: Do you support the Governor’s proposal to expand victim services under the State Victim Compensation Program?

A: Yes. We particularly support the Governor’s proposal to eliminate consideration of contributory conduct in cases involving the death of a victim. We actually support eliminating these type of assessments in all cases, not just those involving the death of a victim.

If asked: The Governor is proposing to tweak the requirements for district attorneys’ to provide evidence to defendants, known as the discovery law. Do you support these changes?

A: We wholeheartedly support the goals of the 2019 discovery laws – to ensure defendants understand the evidence prosecutors have before trial or before taking a plea. We also are aware that many misdemeanor level criminal cases have been dismissed – particularly in New York City -- due to the failure of district attorneys to turn over all the evidence in the prescribed timeframes of the law. Most DV crime, when it is prosecuted, is charged at the misdemeanor level. So we want to be sure that when a DV survivor seeks justice in the criminal justice system, their case is not dismissed due to technicalities. I can put you in touch with NYSCADV if you’d like to discuss this further.