By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Public taxing entities are preparing their budgets for next year. Tuesday morning, the Barton County Commission heard from several outside agencies that are requesting funds for next year's budgets. Kylee Graves, executive director at the Family Crisis Center in Great Bend, said she has never had to ask local governments for help funding her agency in the past.
"It's 100 percent grant-funded," she said. "I manage 17 different federal and state grants right now to keep staff funded now, and it's a lot. But our biggest funding for the past however many years has been the VOCA grant. If you're aware of grants, VOCA is a federal grant that has been cut drastically."
VOCA, or funding through the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, is facing a $700 million, or 40 percent, cut from the year before. For the Family Crisis Center, which offers services to sexual and domestic violence victims in 11 counties, that means a VOCA grant cut from $561,000 in 2023, to $201,000 this year.
"I've been able to write enough extra grants that I have not had to cut staff yet, but there is nothing else I can cut out," Graves said. "Our services have just continued to increase."
Graves is now asking the counties and communities served by the Family Crisis Center for any help they can provide. Pratt County has committed $5,000 for the 2025 budget. Graves is trying to maintain 21 full-time staff, five part-time staff, the administrative office and a shelter in Great Bend, and a shelter in Pratt. The crisis center has helped with the Sexual Assault Nurse Exam program at the University of Kansas Health Systems - Great Bend Campus, and has seen a large increase in numbers since October 2023.
"Now, if someone is sexually assaulted, we have somewhere local we can take them whereas before we were having to go to Hays, Wichita," said Graves. "People back out by that point. They don't want that drive. They've been assaulted. They need to be seen right now. We are getting called to the hospital probably three or four times a week for people who have been assaulted, both children and adults."
Other information provided by Family Crisis Center staff during Tuesday's budget session, using 2022 information, include:
- The Family Crisis Center served 508 across its 11 counties, tripling the figure from the year before.
- There were 176 reported incidents of domestic violence in Barton County. Law enforcement made 148 arrests for an arrest rate of 72 percent. The state average for arrest of arrest is 51 percent.
- There were 35 domestic violence-related homicides in Kansas.
- The Family Crisis Center provided 132 hours of crisis intervention and on-scene crisis responses for Barton County victims
- The Family Crisis Center provided 1,191 services for 57 children who experienced domestic violence, and 165 children who needed child advocacy, among the 11 counties served.
- There were 17 reported incidents of sexual assault in Barton County and one arrest made. The Family Crisis Center provided 392 services for survivors of sexual assault in the county.
"The reason for that discrepancy is we are providing services to people who aren't necessarily reporting," explained Aimee Norris, program director for the Domestic and Sexual Violence Center. "It's really hard to get convictions, there's guilt, there's shame, there are all kinds of things that would cause somebody to not report but we are still out there supporting them."
- 21 of 76 protection orders filed in Barton County resulted in a violation with an offender making contact with the victim. Family Crisis Center staff assisted victims in completing 72 of those 76 protection orders.
- It costs $821 a day to run the shelter, which is able to serve 16 victims at a time and is usually full.