Georgia will provide more money to victims’ families to help them pay for funerals, under a bill passed Wednesday by the state Senate.
Senate Bill 79 would increase the amount to $6,000 available to families, and would also expand who is eligible to apply for money to include step-children or step-parents.
Victim compensation decisions are overseen by the state Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and generally involve major crimes such as murder. The state fund gets its money via fines and fees paid by convicted offenders in the state parole system.
The fund, which collected $17.5 million last year, can help families for things like lost wages, counseling and financial hardship. It can also help with funeral expenses, but the maximum award is currently $3,000 — and hasn’t changed in 20 years.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, said that's a problem because the average cost of funerals is now much more than $3,000. Instead, she said, it's around $8,000. Unterman said that while the bill doesn't match that average, it gets it close enough to significantly help.
The bill is projected to increase the fund’s payouts by about $900,000 to $1.2 million a year, something Unterman called “very manageable” considering the current balance in the fund is about $50 million.
SB 79 passed on a 50-3 vote and now goes to the state House for consideration.
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