Resource Library
These documents are intended to provide information and ideas on a wide variety of subjects.
The documents are organized according to broad categories, to aid in locating information. Please contact us for help in finding what you’re looking for; call 703-780-3200 or email dan.eddy@nacvcb.org, and we’ll be happy to send the document directly to you, or seek that information out for you.
Basic Information
These documents provide basic information about compensation programs: reporting and filing periods, maximums, departmental affiliation, programs where compensation and VOCA assistance are co-located. More detailed information can be round in the other categories.
Program Standards — From the NACVCB archives; but still an excellent overall approach to compensation work
IRS Ruling: State Victim Compensation is Not Taxable Income
Confidentiality of Files: State Laws and Rules
Building a Trauma-Informed Compensation Program
Tips for Effective Communication With Victims
Maintaining Morale: An Essential Element
Data Tools For Evaluating Your Program (from our Winter Webinar Series)
Average Processing Time — Why Comparisons Are Impossible
Restitution Recovery Officers — A State List
VOCA Compensation Guidelines — current, last edited 2001
Outreach
Outreach and training are fundamental to a compensation program’s mission. If victims don’t know about compensation, how can they get the financial assistance available to them? With small staffs largely dedicated to claims processing, state compensation managers simply can’t reach every victim directly (though the district compensation programs in Colorado do precisely that, through letters to every reported violent-crime victim in their jurisdiction). They necessarily rely on others to tell individual victims about compensation — and that’s why training and providing information to those intermediaries are so important. Every program engages in training — defined as imparting knowledge about your program to those who work with victims regularly, or who might be able to help them apply. This could include police, prosecutors, judges, and the full gamut of victim assistance programs (victim-witness programs; domestic violence shelters, rape crisis agencies), as well as providers of services (hospitals, doctors, counselors, funeral homes). It’s a never-ending task, since new police cadets are hired all the time, and assistance programs experience frequent turnover of personnel. Of course, good victim service programs have an obligation to institute training procedures of their own that cover victim compensation, but we know that many do not, and that is why training from compensation programs must continue on a regular basis. Outreach — defined as improving public awareness, or reaching victims directly — is a somewhat different matter. While the well-funded and sufficiently staffed compensation program can engage in a variety of public outreach techniques — public service announcements, billboards, flyers in church bulletins, Websites — it may be difficult to discern whether these efforts actually result in significantly more claims. Is a substantial direct-outreach program cost-effective, if only a few victims ever get the message that way? Clearly, public outreach is a wonderful tool for programs that can afford to use many different ways to get the word out; but for those programs who must focus their efforts and resources, training appears to be much more effective. Many states have excellent Websites (see the State Links on this NACVCB site), which include outstanding brochures and posters.
Outreach, Training, and Communication: A Comprehensive Look
Outreach Survey
The Art of Digital Communications in Victim Services (November 2011)
Claims Processing
Every state may have its own “process” for handling claims, based on its staffing, orientation, and management style. For example, in some programs, the same person gathers necessary documents, analyzes police reports, makes recommendations on eligibility (or is empowered to make the decision itself), and then handles all payment determinations. In other states, eligibility tasks are handled by one person, and then the file is turned over to a different person to figure out what and how much to pay. States also have different hardware and software capabilities, which influences how a claim goes through its system.
But all states, whether they’re small or large, have to do the same things with an application: open a claim; gather police reports, provider bills, employment records, and collateral-resource information; and create a coherent and comprehensive file for making eligibility and payment determinations. It doesn’t matter whether the program staff consists of two people or two hundred; the basic work on a claim is always the same.
Some managers have hired consultants to study business process and workflow, and others simply have worked on their own with their staffs to take a hard look at duplicative and wasteful steps. A significant technological advance has been made in a few states: moving to a “paperless” system in which documents are scanned and then shredded, and everything is viewed and worked on through a computer screen (see below). And a few states are developing ways that victim assistants and victims can file claims online — and even create a new claim within the program’s system (as in Pennsylvania).
Claims Management Vendor Source
A Process Analysis: The Blue Lights (Presentation)
Calculating Lost Wages: The Rhode Island Approach
Decision Making
Decision making is the culmination of all a state program’s work, and therefore deserves considerable attention. If decisions aren’t faithful to the law, consistent, and fair to victims, then all the work done in outreach, training and claims processing can come to a bad result.
Programs make decisions in different ways (see below), but they all face the same question: in light of statutory eligibility requirements, does this victim (or family) qualify for benefits? And all programs have the same basic tests: reporting the crime to police or appropriate authorities; timely claim filing; cooperation with police and prosecutors; and an absence of substantial misconduct that caused the crime, or the injury or death. When to be flexible on the basic reporting/cooperation/filing tests is one important area of consideration (and most programs can show significant flexibility for child victims and others who can’t be expected to meet normal standards). Contributory conduct is a particularly problematic area, which is why we’ve focused some of the resources below on it.
Decision Making: An Exploration
Decision Making: Who Makes The Determination?
Contributory Conduct: A Suggested Analysis
Contributory Conduct Decision Chart
Contributory Conduct: Passenger in car with drunk driver
Funding
What we know:
Every program has to find the right amount of funding to sustain the benefits it pays. Managers not only need to think about what they need to support their programs today — they also need to think about emergency needs, that might arise from an incident of mass violence or terrorism, as well as where their program will be some time in the future. (See the “Forecasting and Budgeting” presentation from our 2010 Conference.)
We know that most programs — more than 4/5 of the states — fund themselves through offender fees, or fine percentages, or probation and parole assessments — though there are a lot of variations on this theme (see Funding Sources, below). Many of these programs have found this mechanism quite sufficient to provide necessary funds, and that generally these sources survive budgetary crises in their states, because they’re independent of legislative whims (except when the legislatures try to raid compensation funds to pay for other budgetary items). And we know that the states that depend solely on appropriations have suffered, repeatedly, and in state after state, when the legislature is unable to appropriate enough funds to pay current claims. The result is backlogs, or forced cutbacks in levels or types of benefits.
For states that need to look hard at their bottom lines, the equation is really quite simple: Either increase funding, or cut costs. Some states have been able to bump up their offender fees — say, from $25 to $45 per felony, as Texas did some time ago, with excellent results for its budget. Other states have had to look at controlling costs, and they generally focus on the largest budget item: medical costs. About half the states do what the private insurance industry, or Medicaid, does — pay less than the full amount of the medical bill that the victim is asked by the hospital to pay (see the chart below). This makes sense: If Blue Cross pays 60% or less of a charge, why should a state-government program pay anything more? But there is a fine line here; states that cut benefits too much may find medical providers (or counselors, especially) balking at providing services or accepting compensation benefits.
Recovering payouts, through aggressive restitution-recovery efforts, is becoming more the norm for compensation programs. We have a number of examples of successful restitution-subrogation programs; contact NACVCB if you’d like to find someone in such a program to talk to about setting up such a program, or improving your current efforts.
An interesting new funding source? Oregon’s compensation program gets a significant portion of punitive damages in civil suits.
Funding https://nacvcb.org/wp16/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Funding-Sources2019.docSources
Benefits
Every state covers the basics: medical and counseling costs; lost wages; lost support for families in homicides; funeral and burial expenses. (These are the only benefits required by federal law (the Victims of Crime Act).) And the vast majority of awards are made in these categories — national statistics show that about 65% of all awards are for medical and counseling care; 15% are for lost wages and support; and 11% are for funeral and burial costs.
Programs begin to diverge in what else they cover. About half the states pay for crime-scene cleanup (usually in limited amounts, like $1,500 per claim). Around 20 states pay for relocation, chiefly for domestic-violence victims, and some of those also pay a limited amount of rent once the victim has moved. Some pay for “replacement services,” defined as tasks like housekeeping and child care that the injured victim no longer can perform; some reimburse for attendant care, either for victims or for victimized children; transportation to appointments; security systems; attorneys’ fees; or the costs of attending criminal trials. And just over half the state victim compensation programs (28 at current count) now have separate procedures to pay for forensic exams in sexual assaults (usually with different requirements and procedures: in most states, victims don’t have to report or cooperate to get the exam only paid, and the billing and payment procedure is a direct arrangement between the provider and the compensation program).
Federal law (VOCA) does not restrict what a state can pay for. It stipulates only that payments to replace property cannot be made using VOCA funds, and must be deducted from the state’s payout for purposes of calculating federal grants. A state victim compensation program is free to pay for whatever benefit state law allows.
A Comprehensive State Benefits Chart
Forensic Exam Payment Programs: A Detailed Look
HIV Prophylaxis Payments for Reporting and Nonreporting Victims
Rules & Procedures
New Rules: Changes in Reporting and Cooperation Requirements
Oregon’s Statute and Rules on Reporting and Cooperation
New Mexico’s Approach to Reporting and Cooperation
Time Limits on Paying Claims (“Claim Life”)
Debt Collection Delay Laws and Rules
Child Sexual Assault Claims: When police cannot substantiate crime
Paying for Sexual Assault Forensic Exams: New Hampshire’s Approach
State Policies and Procedures
Iowa Code and Policies