More concerns in Green Country over deep cuts in federal spending that will kick in at midnight.
Associate Director of
DVIS in Tulsa, Donna Mathews, tells FOX23 she worried about how the sequester would affect the center.
“We were concerned that there might be an impact on the current grants,” said Mathews.
Employees and volunteers with DVIS provide intervention and prevention services to men, women and children affected by domestic violence and sexual assault.
Donna says she received a letter from the Office on Violence Against Women in the U.S. Justice Department regarding the sequestration.
“They told us that the current grants that had already been given to us would not be impacted and we would still receive them,” said Mathews.
Mathews explained that business will remain as usual at DVIS and the funding from the federal government still be allocated for this year. Staffing, funding, hours and services will all remain the same, said Mathews.
Beyond this year, however, it is difficult to know what the cuts will mean.
“For the grants that we might apply for in the future, those may very well be for a less amount of money than we had expected of had seen in the past because of all of this,” said Mathews.
Mathews says that she doesn’t know what lies ahead, but the mission inside of the walls at DVIS will remain the same.
In 2012, 579 women and children stayed at the DVIS shelter for year. 32,000 calls were placed to the 24-hour crisis hotline in 2012.
