Vernon County votes to fund domestic abuse program after federal funds abruptly pulled

July 6, 2025

VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – In May of this year, Vernon County officials learned that the federal government would no longer reimburse the county for expenses related to a domestic abuse program that was part of $200,000 federal grant awarded to the county almost two years. Last month the Vernon County Board of Supervisors voted to replace those federal dollars with local funding that will allow the Help End Abuse Response Team (HEART) to operate through the rest of 2025. The county also made a commitment to search for ways to keep the program funded moving forward.

The original funding for the HEART program came from the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) Rural Violent Crime Initiative through the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The initiative was the result of a collaboration between the Family & Children’s Center’s Domestic Abuse Project, the Vernon County Sheriff’s Department, local law enforcement, and Stonehouse Counseling. Amy Oliver with the Vernon County Community Development office helped write the grant. Oliver told the County Board of Supervisors back in 2023 when they received the award.

“We actually applied for $150,000 and got $200,000,” said Oliver. “In my years of grant writing that doesn’t happen very often so this must be one compelling program they put together.”

Vernon County Sheriff Roy Torgerson read a letter from the state agency the administers the grant at the June 3, Vernon County Public Safety Committee meeting.

“Dear Vernon County, and the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative team,” read Torgerson. “The Department of Justice terminated its Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative training and technical assistance award from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. … in accordance with DOJ notice of termination, you must immediately stop work under your contract with LISC. We will not be able to reimburse you for obligations incurred or expenditures made after Tuesday, April, 22.”

“We were anticipating the grant funding to last us through the end of this year,” said Oliver. “We were counting on almost $59,000 to carry us through this year. And we have participants in the middle of the program right now.”

At the committee level, as a resolution worked its way up the ladder to the county board, Sheriff Torgerson expressed his whole hearted support for the program and said the program is effective at reduce the number of times officers need to respond to repeat domestic situations. Torgerson said they had a domestic program in the past but it fell by the wayside and was not as complete in treating victims and abusers.

“I don’t think the assessments were being done (in the past) and that abusers program that died out many, many years ago,” said Torgerson. “So we were kind of out in that no man’s land, and this operation, getting the HEART program with the volunteers, that part of the program doesn’t cost a lot of money. It costs a lot of volunteer time and effort, but some of the true costs come from these assessments. But you know, how do you treat someone and how do you make them more productive and not re-offend without that clinical information?”

At another meeting Torgerson said the Department of Justice “kind of pulled the rug out from under us.”

Torgerson said he and others immediately contacted Congressman Van Orden’s office when he learned of the cuts to see if they could look into the reasons for the loss of funding, and as of June 3 had not heard back from his office.

By all accounts the program was a huge success and was making an impact on the lives of Vernon County residents. Susan Townsley with Stonehouse Counseling was instrumental in getting the program off the ground said the program had received national, and even international recognition.

“We’ve had an incredible amount of recognition,” said Townsley, “We were invited to the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference to present to an international audience about our programming. That’s a really competitive conference to get into. There was an article written in the Wisconsin Counties Association magazine about our program. The sheriff and I were interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Today. We were also interviewed on WTMJ. And we have just recently been asked to consult with South Dakota to help them replicate some of the work that we’ve been doing. So we’re getting a lot of attention for what we have done,”

According to Townsley the program has 24 volunteers and is reaching people and changing lives.

“We’ve had 107 referrals since the start of the program,” said Townsley. “We’ve conducted 46 assessments. Had 25 group members, 14 have graduated, and of those who have graduated, we’ve had no repeat offenses so far. That may sound like small numbers, but it’s really important to understand the ripple effect of how many partners, potential, future partners, children, that involves in our county. So that number is much larger.”

Townsley said one of the key components of the program is the intervention that can be provided in crisis situations.

“We know at the moment when a victim actually calls for help, if we can actually get in there and intervene in that moment, that makes a tremendous difference,” said Townsley. “So officers go into the scene, a volunteer is called to help the victim to know they have resources and understand the cycle of violence.”

In addition the program has been able to go into area schools and offer a “healthy relationships” curriculum to proactively work to end abusive cycles of behavior.

“Many of the participants in our groups who have become offenders say to us, I wish I had known better communication that could have lessened the impact of violence on my children a long time ago, before I ever got into this situation,” said Townsley.

The program also helped train local sexual assault nurse examiners. Townsley said the county had none in the past and there are now two in Hillsboro, eliminating the need to send sexual victims to La Crosse.

Townsley said another crucial outcome of their work has been the coordination with the court system and all the stakeholders to improve approaches across the board.

“We had a lot of funding for training, for law enforcement and for what we call our Coordinated Community Response Team,” said Towsnley. “We meet regularly with all the stakeholders at this table, the Sheriff, and the Family and Children’s Center. Janice (Turben – Family and Children’s) runs those meetings, the District Attorney, the Judge, the Family Court Commissioner, the Department of Corrections. We’re all at the table together to say, how are we doing? How do we do it better? What needs to change in the system? We really worked hard to change that system. We now have improved our lethality assessments via stalking warning letters, and one of the biggest things that we have done is working with the District Attorney’s Office and officers to get good quality probable cause statement into the District Attorney. We now put almost all, when there’s really high lethality risks they go straight through the criminal justice system, but anybody else is getting put straight on diversion. They’re then sent for really good clinical, full assessment. That assessment is really important in our trajectory to change people’s behavior because it tells us clinically, what does this person need to not re-offend. Once those assessments are done they usually go right into one of our groups.”

Townsley read part of a letter from one of the men who participated in the program and was saw positive changes in his life, and asked that it be continued.

“We have to ask ourselves, are we simply looking to punish those who have made mistakes, or are we truly hoping to help correct that behavior while providing a positive example of what is expected? And we have to ask, what are the most effective ways to assure that goal is achieved? Gaining the perspective necessary to make changes is a matter of being able to work through prior conditioning of our thoughts and what we have built up through the examples we have seen in our lives, and those examples are not always healthy. So working through these thought processes to accept they may be unhealthy takes work, and it takes help that no one can do alone. If someone is willing to take responsibility and open themselves up to making those changes as a society and community, Shouldn’t that be something with our time, effort and resources to aid in to further the overall and general health of our society and community, families and home.”

Townsley said one of the most expensive parts of the program is for assessments, which are very detailed, take time, and can cost as much as $6,000.

Townsley said they have worked to reduce costs as much as possible so they can run the program for the rest of the year, and they have been searching for other funding sources, but there are currently have had 16 people on a waiting list that were promised services, and they typically get about five referrals a month.

HEART program coordinator Janice Turben spoke at the June 3 Vernon County Public Safety Committee meeting about why the program is so important, and has shown success.

“I refer every domestic violence arrest to the offender program,” said Turben. “And why we did that is kind of like the theory of the OWI, right? Not every OWI offender is a true alcoholic. Well, domestic violence, we needed to get in there, have them assessed. Is it a mental health? Is it a substance use issue? Or is it domestic? And for my victims, I can tell you when they hear that there’s an opportunity for those who don’t want to leave, and they know there’s an opportunity for their offender to get some help, they are very happy to hear that. We can’t fight it from one side. The offenders have a right to get the education and make a better choice in their life. And so this grant has not just helped that, these programs, the communication throughout the system has helped made this successful.”

Turben said the need is there and it would be well worth the investment in the program for the county.

“This has been a dream come true,” said Turben. “There’s a reason we have articles about us, and you’ve been asked to speak at places because the team works together so well. Because it takes a whole community, and it takes more than just me meeting with the victims. We really need to work with the offenders and the same nurses, and which is also part of the grant for sexual assault nurses.”

County Supervisor Bruce Kilmer said he recently learned how important these programs were to the county at a Public Safety Committee meeting when the Sheriff and others gave a report on what the program does and why it is needed.

“I can’t deny I had no idea what a big deal this service provided by the community is,” said Kilmer. “And I know everyone in this room prides themselves on work that we do to keep our community safe and our our friends and and neighbors safe also. So if we’re going to talk to talk, we need to walk the walk. And I believe very strongly in supporting this, continuing this program, and we know that grant funding is going to be finished going forward the way the trend is. And as part of our long range county planning, we need to start working some of this stuff again if we’re going to sustain the program. They’ve had people part of the way through the program, and it just doesn’t seem to be the correct thing to do to just cut it off and let those people go adrift. I don’t believe that’s how we do things here at Vernon County.”

County Board Supervisor Mary Henry also spoke in favor of funding the program at the county level.

“I too strongly support this because we need to stop or have an intervention at the point of crisis, or before crisis, because the rippling effect lasts forever,” Said Henry. “Then we have to break the habits and find other ways to cope with stress, because if we don’t then they’re going to end up with Roy (Sheriff Torgerson), and then those children are going to have a home that’s broken or without a family. And it affects the schools, it affects the community. It isn’t just 1%, it affects everybody that has come in contact with the person that has the lack of skill-set or the lack of help.”

County Board Chair Lorn Goede voiced his support for the program.

“I was at that organizational meeting a few years ago, and I got my eyes wide open,” said Goede. “I had no idea that Vernon County had a problem, because we live in our little isolated communities. But when you start looking at the numbers, it’s just like we need to do something. It sounds like it’s working, and I’m going to support it.”

The resolution unanimously approved by the Vernon County Board of Supervisors was to use $47,197.50 in unobligated Ho-Chunk funds to carry this program out through the end of the year. (Vernon County receives $1.2 million per year from the Ho-Chunk Nation as a payment for lands held in trust within the county)

Oliver said she and all the stakeholders will continue to work toward finding long-term sources of funding including other grants and private sector support, but there will likely still be a need for some county investment in the program.