ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
The executive director of a statewide program that helps inmates with life after incarceration said Wednesday that the program will die if the General Assembly passes the Senate version of the state budget.
"If the Senate version passes, we will be dead, shut down," said Lin Edlich, director of VA CARES, Virginia Community Re-Entry Systems Inc., based in Roanoke.
The Senate budget includes no money for the 20-year-old program, which provides education, counseling and services in employment, housing, family and community relations, and transportation for an estimated 3,000 ex-offenders in 28 localities.
VA CARES has operated for the past few years, including the 1995-96 fiscal year, with a budget of $1.3 million.
The Senate budget endorses Gov. George Allen's proposal to "de-fund" VA CARES and transfer the $1.3 million from the Department of Criminal Justice Services to the Department of Corrections' Division of Community Corrections.
The House of Delegates budget preserves the $1.3 million and adds another $1 million - $500,000 for each year of the biennium.
No change in either position is expected when each chamber acts on its version of the budget today. A conference committee will have to reconcile the two versions.
"I think this is an attempt to take funding away from where it's needed most and fund the community corrections program," Edlich said.
Under the Corrections Department, VA CARES would be folded along with other community corrections endeavors - day reporting centers, electronic monitoring, boot camps, Edlich said. Like other entities that want to operate community corrections programs, VA CARES would have to bid for funding.
VA CARES' funding runs out June 30. If the program had to bid for funding, it likely would not receive money until September or October, Edlich said.
VA CARES may not even be eligible to bid for funding, Edlich said. Regardless, a funding structure "will probably be set up in such a way that there certainly would be no VA CARES," she said.
Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke, said Wednesday that there is some concern that the Department of Corrections would take the VA CARES money and use it to establish its own re-entry program for prisoners.
VA CARES, founded in 1976, was funded with federal money - up to $2 million - until 1981. That year, federal dollars were cut, and the program began operating with state money through the Department of Criminal Justice Services. Funding has since grown from $75,000 to $1.3 million, where it has stayed for several years.
VA CARES always has been viewed as a kind of "outlaw" of the system, because it has no police powers, Edlich said. Its approach is from a "sociological point of view," helping people get off the streets and into a job, helping them take responsibility for their family - "getting them headed in another direction," she said.
Edlich has been in Richmond lobbying to preserve the program since the start of the General Assembly session. She was surprised by the Senate's budget, because 22 of the 40 members were co-patrons on an amendment to fund VA CARES.
Sen. Benjamin Lambert, D-Richmond, who sponsored the Senate amendment that would have retained VA CARES money, said he will try to convince budget conferees of the program's importance.
"I plan to work as hard as I can to make sure VA CARES has money," Lambert said. "It's not over yet."
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB