Bill Cook's SB 664 seeks to reform a corrupt domestic violence system in the state | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Bill Cook has introduced SB 664 which is entitled "Consolidate DV Commission/Council for Women." To the residents of Senate District 1 who care about victims of domestic violence, Cook should be a hero. His bill seeks to correct an unjust, dangerous and corrupt system of cronyism that has plagued the state's services for domestic violence and sexual assault victims for a long time. Nobody has suffered more than the victims in the Second Judicial District, of which Beaufort is a part. Three women are dead today who might well still be alive had they had access to a shelter, and countless others continue to suffer in abusive situations because of the lack of effective alternatives.

    How do I know that? I served for four years on the board of directors of the former non-profit that provided these services but was shut down because of political maneuverings to abscond with the money that Options to Domestic Violence received for over twenty years to provide a shelter and services in Beaufort County.

    Options went out of business when the state moved the money that had been going to the five counties in the Second Judicial District (Beaufort, Martin, Hyde, Washington and Tyrell) to Pitt and Dare counties. Just coincidentally Pitt was, at the time represented by Marian McLawhorn in the House, who just so happened to serve as co-chair of the Joint Committee on Domestic Violence and Dare was represented by Marc Basnight, the Senate President Pro Tem. Follow the money and you see why Cook's bill is needed.

    The excuse the state bureaucrats who control the state's DV/SA funds used to move the money from the Second District to Pitt and Dare was that Options refused to return some fifty thousand dollars the bureaucrats said was owed. A vicious character assignation campaign was waged against Options but three external audits found no indisputable misuse of funds, except for a $35 bill for flowers sent to the funeral of a staff person's family member.

    The reason the Options board refused to return the money was because the assessment was an error. It was based on the state computing the "local match" for grants at 25% when the correct amount, as provided by law, was 20%. Options blew the whistle on the bureaucrats who made the mistake so they waged a vicious campaign against Options and ultimately convinced McLawhorn and Basnight to move the money in order to shut Options down and make it go away. For four years Beaufort and the other counties have been without a DV/SA shelter, until recently a church-based group has opened Ruth's House, but the state has not returned the state funds to that non-profit. It still goes to Pitt and Dare. Cook's bill would change that.

    What SB 664 would do is allocate state DV/SA funds on a county by county basis, with the larger counties getting more and the smaller population counties getting a standardized allocation. The allocations would go to the county. The County Commission would then decide who to award the funds to carry out the prescribed DV/SA services. In other words, the secret political deals that have prevailed in Raleigh would be ended. Every county would be treated the same and the decision about the best way to provide local services would be made by local people who actually know what is happening in the local communities.

    Anyone who doubts the need for reform need only spend some time, as did we, trying to find out how the decisions were actually made on which non-profits would be awarded the state grant funds. What you would find is that the decisions were made by a small group of people who themselves had a vested interest in who got the money (often it was the members of the DV Commission/Council for Women themselves). And of course the paid staff of these boards did their bidding. Cook's bill would stop that self-serving cronyism. No member of these boards or their families would be eligible to receive the funds, unless the local County Commission saw fit to award it to them.

    Essentially what Cook's bill does is insure that every county gets a fair share of the state grant money. It then makes the non-profit that gets the money and provides the prescribed services accountable to the local County Commission.

    What the bill will not do is eliminate the politics of money. But what it will do is move those politics closer to the voters who can respond if another "Options" debacle happens. The bill should be supported.

    But don't count on it being supported. A vicious battle will be waged by the vested special interests that now control the "pot of gold." Count on it.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.