An unspoken rule among congressional appropriators for years has been that if the Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee runs short of funds, it can take some from the Crime Victims Fund that gets its money from federal court settlements. The good times may be coming to an end, Roll Call reports. The program’s finances are drying up, and the Appropriations Committee faces major new obligations in fiscal 2020. Created in 1984, the Crime Victims Fund collects fines and penalties from convicted federal offenders to compensate victims for crime-related losses, as well as local victim assistance agencies. By placing a cap on the annual awards the Justice Department fund is able to make, lawmakers can take the difference between the fund’s balance and the annual obligation cap as an offset.
Conservatives have railed against that use of the Crime Victims Fund as a “gimmick,” and Senate Republicans have been able to cap the amount of paper savings from changes in mandatory programs, or “CHIMPs,” that appropriators can use that don’t actually cut any spending. President Trump wants to eliminate the victims fund CHIMP starting in fiscal 2020, but it seems a safe bet appropriators will balk. The fund’s balance hit $13 billion in fiscal 2018. Last year, however, new judgments brought only $445 million into the fund, shrinking its year-end balance by nearly $4 billion. Steve Derene of the National Association of VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) Assistance Administrators says that for the first four months of fiscal 2019, collections have been $212 million, and there are no major cases with judgments of $100 million or more in the pipeline.