The office of women's services may allocate money to local family violence programs and must set standards, process applications, distribute funds on set timelines, evaluate programs, report annually, and may deduct up to 5% for administrative costs.
§2127. Programs for victims of family violence; administration A.(1) The office of women's services is authorized to allocate monies to local family violence programs. Allocation of such monies shall be such that the maximum allowable amount of monies available for distribution during any fiscal year to local family violence programs serving any parish or parishes from the additional license fees shall be the amount of fees collected in that parish or parishes during that fiscal year. (2) Monies generated by fees collected in a parish during any fiscal year which have not been distributed to local family violence programs for services to that parish during that fiscal year shall remain to the credit of that parish and shall be available for distribution to local family violence programs serving that parish. B. The office of women's services shall: (1) Establish minimum health, safety, and program standards for eligibility of local family violence programs to receive monies, in addition to those established in R.S. 46:2128. (2) Receive applications from eligible local programs for such monies. (3) Approve or reject each application within sixty days of receipt of the application. (4) Distribute monies to the local programs within forty-five days after approval. (5) Evaluate each local program annually for compliance with the minimum standards. (6) Evaluate local programs on a competitive basis in order to distribute additional allocations authorized by Paragraph (A)(2) of this Section. (7) Adopt rules and regulations necessary for the implementation of this Section. These rules and regulations shall be approved by the oversight subcommittee of the House Committee on Health and Welfare and Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, acting jointly or separately, prior to their implementation. (8) Report annually to the House Committee on Health and Welfare and Senate Committee on Health and Welfare on the administration of the programs. C. Prior to any allocation or distribution of monies as provided in Subsection A of this Section, the office may deduct no more than five percent of the amount appropriated from the fund for administrative costs. Added by Acts 1983, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 60, §1, eff. March 1, 1983; Acts 1985, No. 772, §2, eff. July 19, 1985; Acts 1986, No. 1056, §1, eff. Sept. 1, 1986; Acts 1992, No. 984, §13; Acts 2018, No. 206, §5.