BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
733 (Leno)
Hearing Date: 01/21/2010 Amended: 01/11/2010
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Public Safety
7-0
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BILL SUMMARY: This bill requires the Victims Compensation and
Government Claims Board (VCGCB) to administer a grant program
for trauma recovery centers that provide victims services in the
areas of: mental health; community outreach; and coordination
among medical personnel, mental health care providers, law
enforcement and social services. VCGCB would be authorized to
award grants of up to $3,000,000, from the Restitution Fund.
This bill makes legislative findings and declarations regarding
the importance of providing treatment and services to crime
victims.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
Restitution Fund grants up to $3,000 up to $3,000
up to $3,000 Special*
Program Administration ***Unknown, likely minor costs***
Special*
(VCGCB)
*Restitution Fund
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STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE
This bill requires the VCGCB to administer a new grant program
for trauma recovery centers. VCGCB would receive applications
and award grants totaling no more $3,000,000, to one or more
centers. The board may award grants funding for up to three
years. This bill makes a substantial appropriation, but to the
degree that the trauma recovery centers receiving grants are
successful, the state will likely have some cost savings. These
cost savings will, however, be at least somewhat offset by the
increased number of victims served under this program.
Trauma recovery centers that would be eligible for the grants
described in this bill, would be very similar to the San
Francisco Trauma Recovery Center (TRC) in services provided. By
all measures, TRC has been very successful at providing victim's
services more cost effectively than individual reimbursements to
victims for seeking their own mental health and medical
services. In addition to the cost containment for each
individual victim that occurs when TRC as the provider is paid
by VCGCB (because it seeks to serve as many people as possible,
as opposed to a victim potentially incurring more expensive
services elsewhere) TRC has served seven times as many victims
in need of mental health services as the entire panel of San
Francisco fee-for-service providers. TRC provides services more
efficiently, and is able to reach more people (which often
mitigates cost savings). If these services are needed, however,
there may be additional long term savings by providing them to
victims who would not seek them otherwise and would have a
slower recovery period.
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SB 733 (Leno)
The $3,000,000 appropriation that will fund the grant program
may only come from the Restitution Fund, which is designed to
fund victims' services. The current system largely relies on
individual victims seeking mental and physical medical services,
and then applying to the VCGCB for reimbursement, which can take
several months.
Requiring VCGCB to administer a new grant program will increase
existing workload, and it is unclear if new staff would be
required. A Bureau of State Audits (BSA) report from December
2008 criticized the size of the VCGCB administration relative to
services provided and the efficiency of reimbursement
processing. The BSA report also criticized VCGCB outreach,
contending that many victims are completely unaware of its
existence and program. The LAO estimates that in 2006-07, VCGCB
administrative costs accounted for $39,000,000 - about 31% of
the annual funding for that year. It is possible that the VCGCB
could absorb the administration and evaluation of this program
within existing resources.