Increasing the crime victim and witness assistance surcharge, dedicating funds for crime prevention organizations, and creating local crime prevention funding boards. (FE)

This bill increases the surcharge by $20 for a misdemeanor and for a felony. The bill creates a part D, which is funded by $20 for each misdemeanor or felony and which a person who is assessed the surcharge may pay only after he or she pays parts A, B, and C in full. Under the bill, the clerk of court forwards the amounts collected under part D to the county treasurer along with the other parts of the surcharge, but the treasurer retains those funds in a crime prevention fund.

Under the bill, a county treasurer deposits the funds he or she receives from part D of the surcharge into a crime prevention fund. Moneys from the fund are distributed as grants at the direction of a crime prevention funding board (CPFB).

Under the bill, a CPFB is created in every county whose treasurer receives funds from a part D surcharge. Each CPFB consists of seven members: the presiding judge of the circuit court, or his or her designee; the district attorney, or his or her designee;

the sheriff, or his or her designee; the county executive, county administrator, or county board chairperson, or his or her designee; the chief elected official of the city, village, or town with the largest population in the county, or his or her designee; a person chosen by a majority vote of the top law enforcement officials of the departments that are located in the county; and a person chosen by the county's public defender's office. Members of a CPFB may be reimbursed for expenses but may not receive any other compensation. Members serve for a term that is determined by the CPFB.

A CPFB may solicit grant applications from certain specified entities and may award grants to such entities. At least one-half of the funds must go to one or more private, nonprofit organizations that has as its primary purpose preventing crime, providing a funding source for crime prevention programs, encouraging the public to report crime, or assisting law enforcement agencies in the apprehension of criminal offenders. A CPFB may direct that the rest of the funds be distributed to a law enforcement agency that has a crime prevention fund, if the contribution is credited to the crime prevention fund and is used for crime prevention purposes. The bill requires that a CPFB and any entity that receives a grant from a CPFB must submit an annual report to certain specified entities detailing the amounts spent, the purposes for which the grants were spent, and contact information for the entity and the entity's leaders. The reports must be distributed to the clerk of court for the county that distributed the funds, the county board, and the governing bodies of the cities, villages, and towns in the county.