ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
A Roanoke-based support services agency for prisoners has been hit twice in seven days with legal and financial setbacks.
Last week, Virginia Community Action Re-Entry Systems - known as VA CARES - lost one-quarter of its annual funding in a new bidding process that spreads state funding among a greater number of agencies and that required it to compete for funding for the first time.
And Monday, a Richmond Circuit Court judge rejected the agency's lawsuit against a gubernatorial veto that ended VA CARES' decade of guaranteed funding.
"I don't know what we're going to have to do - shut down some offices, maybe cut back some staff," Lin Edlich, VA CARES executive director, said Tuesday.
VA CARES' woes began earlier this year, after Gov. George Allen struck language from the 1996-98 biennial budget that would have guaranteed the agency $3.2 million - $600,000 more than it received in the 1994-96 biennium.
Since 1987, VA CARES has had a no-bid contract with the state to provide pre-release and post-incarceration services for prisoners. That gave the agency the majority of money that the state Department of Criminal Justice Services sets aside for those services - called "PAPIS" funds. The $3.2 million, for example, would have been the bulk of $3.6 million in PAPIS funds for the 1996-98 biennium.
Allen kept the appropriation intact, but he contended that other agencies should be given a shot at PAPIS funds through an open bidding process. He eliminated budget language that designated most of the appropriation to VA CARES.
VA CARES sued in Richmond Circuit Court, contending that Allen did not have the power to veto portions of budget items.
Monday, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Melvin R. Hughes Jr. ruled that VA CARES had not shown a legal right to the money. Hughes gave the agency 10 days to amend the lawsuit if it chooses.
Amending the suit "may cure the reservation [Hughes] has about it," said William Hopkins Jr., a Roanoke attorney representing VA CARES.
Hughes' ruling came days after the Department of Criminal Justice Services notified 10 agencies - compared to four last year - that they will share $1.8 million in PAPIS funds for the remaining nine months of the 1996-97 budget year.
Of that amount, VA CARES will receive $995,000 - down from the $1.3 million it received in the 1995-96 fiscal year and less than the $1.6 million the agency had expected this fiscal year. Edlich said she has written a letter to Criminal Justice Services contesting that funding cut.
"I'm delighted with getting anything extra," said Barbara Slaydon, executive director of Offender Aid and Restoration Services of Richmond, Inc., who had lobbied against VA CARES' lock on PAPIS funding. Her agency will receive $127,000 - $58,000 more than last year.
But Edlich has maintained that the funding would not have existed at all had VA CARES not fought for it years ago. Until 1987, the funds were undesignated. Other agencies could have bid for PAPIS funding then, she has said.
Said Slaydon, "If it's money [VA CARES] fought for, then it's money fought for services to the offender population, particularly those releasing from incarceration.
"I really would hope that they are not concerned about who provides it, as long as services are being provided."
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