{"id":161270,"date":"2026-02-19T15:18:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T15:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/161270\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T15:18:21","slug":"orange-osceola-state-attorney-challenges-funding-cuts-impacting-domestic-violence-victim-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/161270\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange-Osceola state attorney challenges funding cuts impacting domestic violence victim support"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell held a news conference Wednesday morning where she addressed a sudden and drastic change to the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA)<\/a> federal funding contract that supports victim advocates in the Ninth Judicial Circuit.<\/p>\n

Worrell explained that the VOCA application process began in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat application was accepted by the attorney general\u2019s office and our deliverables were approved. The contract was issued and our office signed it,\u201d Worrell said. \u201cAnd then without warning or explanation, that contract was changed. In December, our approved contract was unilaterally rewritten.”<\/p>\n

Worrell said the modification slashed funding for domestic violence victim services by approximately 81%, reducing the number of victims the office is permitted to serve from 3,750 to just 689. At the same time, Worrell said that Attorney General James Uthmeier\u2019s<\/a> office added new, \u201cunrealistic deliverables,\u201d requiring the office to serve 1,000 child abuse or neglect victims despite only 46 such cases being handled the previous year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese numbers are detached from real data, unsupported by case volume, and impossible to meet,\u201d Worrell said. \u201cEvery other judicial circuit in Florida received VOCA funding based on actual crime data. Ours was the only one subjected to arbitrary and unachievable requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite repeated requests for clarification and meetings from December through February, Worrell said the Attorney General\u2019s Office declined to explain the rationale for the changes and instructed the Ninth Circuit to sign the modified contract or lose funding. <\/p>\n

She called on the attorney general\u2019s office to \u201crestore our VOCA contract to its original approved terms based on real victim data\u201d and urged the public to demand fairness in victim services funding.<\/p>\n

The attorney general\u2019s office sent News 6 a statement following Worrell\u2019s news conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe VOCA grant funds are available whenever State Attorney Worrell is ready to sign the contract. In fact, the Office of the Attorney General is offering more than double the amount that her office requested last year.<\/p>\n

We hope she does the right thing and accepts the nearly half-million dollars our office is willing to provide on behalf of crime victims.”<\/p>\n

Isabel Kilman, Deputy Press Secretary, Florida Office of the Attorney General<\/p>\n

[WATCH<\/a>: Triple shooting suspect defied treatment order, Worrell says]<\/p>\n

Last month, Worrell marked her first year back in office with another news conference<\/a>. In it, she emphasized a significant reduction in the Ninth Circuit\u2019s backlog of non-arrest cases<\/a> and described a tense but not acrimonious relationship with state figures typically critical of her, such as Uthmeier and Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve reached out to the attorney general, as well as the governor\u2019s office, on multiple occasions, asking for meetings. I will do that again before I go to Tallahassee,\u201d Worrell said in January. <\/p>\n

You can read Worrell\u2019s letter to the attorney general and other documents in the media player below. <\/p>\n

Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell held a news conference Wednesday morning where she addressed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6271,1335,139,141,140,1976],"class_list":{"0":"post-161270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-monique-worrell","9":"tag-orange-county","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-news","13":"tag-osceola-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}