CADA looks to legislature for first funding increase in eight years

Brian Arola, The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
Updated ·3 min read

Mar. 12—MANKATO — Despite a greater need for victim services at the Committee Against Domestic Abuse, executive director Jason Mack said the nonprofit hasn't seen a funding increase in more than eight years.

Even worse, one key source of federal funding looks likely to go down by about 25% this year. Another, from the state, could again remain flat if state lawmakers don't pass a proposed $25 million per year increase over two years — to be shared between CADA and other crime victim services providers across the state.

Without the state increase, Mack said, CADA would need to look at cutting direct service staffing levels by 43%.

The impact would be wide reaching across CADA's nine-county area, as those staff members work with hundreds upon hundreds of victims of sexual and domestic violence.

"It's going to impact over 1,000 people per year who currently have access to programming in our area," Mack said.

CADA currently serves between 2,000 to 2,500 people per year. There's more to the numbers, though, said Kristen Walters, CADA's development and communications manager.

"The time advocates spend with each person has increased," she said. "The complexity of everyone's situation has increased, so the numbers aren't necessarily telling the whole picture."

CADA leadership's hopes for a funding increase crumbled when the legislative session fizzled out last year. This year, Mack described feeling cautiously optimistic as the nonprofit works to educate lawmakers and the public on how funding isn't a given.

About 84% of CADA's revenue comes from grants from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Office of Justice Programs, or OJP. The grants include both state funding, the chunk that's long been flat, and federal funding, which fluctuates more year over year.

It's typical for crime victim service programs to rely on this grant funding, Walters said.

The federal funding, from the Victims of Crime Act, is partly tied to the number and type of federal prosecutions. A big case requiring high restitution payments goes on to help crime victim services organizations, but funding fell off in the later years of the Trump administration and hasn't yet rebounded during the Biden administration.

The result is CADA expects to receive a $230,000 reduction in federal funding. And while no state increase would be the worst case scenario, securing an increase merely improves the chances of CADA maintaining current support staff levels.

Increasing services, let alone increasing staff or investing in retaining staff in a competitive job market, would require a bigger funding increase, essentially establishing a new, sustainable baseline.

Funding for CADA, a vital partner to the Mankato Department of Public Safety, is critical, said Matt DuRose, deputy director of public safety.

"We really rely upon them for victim advocacy, and that can be through the court process, could be through protection orders, and it can be other parts of advocacy that we really need somebody to provide," he said. "CADA really fills that void."

CADA's statewide coalition partners will be rallying to raise awareness of their roles and funding situations at the Capitol on March 22. The groups will look to stir up support on both sides of the aisle for the grant increase and additional needs, after six DFL representatives authored the funding bill in the Minnesota House and Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, authored a companion bill in the Minnesota Senate.