Many Pennsylvania nonprofits, schools and services like Pittsburgh Regional Transit are stuck in limbo, awaiting the outcome of the state's already-overdue budget negotiations to set budgets of their own. And while one group of social-service agencies has at least some clue about how much funding to expect, they aren't happy either.
The state budget, due July 1, is now almost four weeks late. Earlier this month, the state House passed a budget bill to the Senate, where Republicans gutted almost all of it. Only one item remained: an appropriation for $11.9 million for the state's 47 rape crisis programs. That's the same amount the centers have received since 2021, said Kelsey Leigh, of Pittsburgh Action Against Rape.
But if lawmakers thought leaving the money in place would show solidarity with sexual assault victims, center leaders said, they were mistaken.
"While we had a brief moment of feeling proud" over the apparent bipartisan support, Leigh said, "we don't want to be recognized as a pawn or a token in these political games. Survivors of sexual violence deserve better: They deserve an increase."
Sexual assault response groups offer counseling and legal aid to survivors as well as preventative education services. They have shared a pot of nearly $12 million, most of which goes to nonprofits in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, said Leigh.
The Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect lobbied Harrisburg this year for an additional $8 million — a 66% increase — to split among the crisis centers, partly to keep up with inflation.
"[Rape crisis centers] haven't had an increase in five years, [and] they show up for victims all the time, so they're already kind of feeling the pinch," said Allegheny County state Sen. Lindsey Williams.
The centers are required by state contracts to operate on-call around the clock. And Williams said that because many crisis centers are small nonprofits, "Any delay [in funding] is going to be immediately felt" as a strain on their operations.
Williams joined anti-sexual violence advocates in the state Capitol last month to call on lawmakers and the state Department of Human Services for a funding increase, calling their work a response to "a public health crisis."
"Even in this building, women like me are warned not to be alone with certain men," Williams said.
Spokespeople for the leadership in both the House and Senate Appropriations committees did not respond to an inquiry Thursday about whether they expect crisis center funding to remain unchanged in the final budget. (For his part, Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters Wednesday that this year's talks between the Republican-controlled Senate and House Democrats have been "cordial" and "respectful," but he "wish[es] it didn't take this long.")
Most crisis centers are "doing their best to hold things together with a very small amount of money," Leigh said. "Because rape crisis centers have been flat-funded for five years … there's a lot of stress and strain."
Last year's budget did include a $2.5 million increase for domestic violence services, and some crisis centers provide assistance to victims of both domestic violence and sexual assault. But Leigh notes that money for one purpose can't be used for the other.
"That puts staff and administrators in an impossible situation," Leigh said. "Do you prioritize domestic-violence phone calls … because you can pay staff for that?"
Meanwhile, Leigh said, wages at some centers haven't been able to compete with job offers from elsewhere.
" Several centers have talked about losing employees to Amazon and Sheetz because they pay about the same," she said. Such work has other advantages too: "There's no need to be on call" and "no vicarious trauma."
While agencies located in urban areas can rely on individual donors and private events to help fill budget holes, she said, "Centers in smaller counties don't have access to that. So for them it is a matter of keeping the lights on or not, a matter of making payroll or not."
Other social-service groups are struggling too, Williams added.
"Our systems of support … are all interconnected with federal dollars, with nonprofit dollars," she said. "And as you take one out, the rest suffers."
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