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The Indiana House Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill Monday that would limit how a legal services provider may use funds from the state’s civil legal aid fund.
Senate Bill 222 would remove the distribution formula of the civil legal aid statute and have the funds be distributed through a grant-based approach.
“Moving to this grant based approach ensures accountability for service, quality, outcomes and impacts, stability for funding for civil legal assistance organizations, adaptability to address emerging needs and opportunities, coordination of services for statewide approach or statewide approach and innovation to use technology and other tools to maximize service delivery that perhaps weren’t available before,” the bill’s author Sen. Cyndi Carrasco, R-Indianapolis, said during the committee hearing.
The civil legal aid fund was created by the Indiana General Assembly in 1997.
Charles Dunlap, president and CEO of the Indiana Bar Foundation, testified in favor of the bill. He said the current model for the funds isn’t flexible.
“The formula does not lend itself to accountability looking at outcomes and measurements. It’s very strict and very sort of prescribed as to who gets what dollars based on what counties they’re performing services in,” Dunlap said. “Because of the ability to have sort of innovative approaches now with technology, the county borders and the county lines are not quite as relevant as they were when this formula was created previously.”
The bill is scheduled for second reading in the House at 11 a.m. on March 13. There aren’t any proposed amendments to the bill at this time.
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