Chester County crime survivors are being victimized a second time by Harrisburg’s budget indecision. An exodus of underpaid staff and a growing vault of IOUs is leaving them out in the cold without critical help, according to a Daily Local News report by Michael Rellahan.

“Current staff are completely overwhelmed trying to take up the slack, tending to those victims devastated by traumatic, life-altering victimizations,” Crime Victims’ Center of Chester County Executive Director Peggy Gusz wrote in a plea to the state House of Representatives.

CVC has lost four staff members, run a $100K line of credit dry and is $20,000 behind in paying vendors, all because the commonwealth is holding out on money it already promised to give.

“It is inconceivable that we are still, at this late date, without a state budget,” she wrote. “The long-term damage of this impasse is immeasurable. Some agencies may never recover. Indeed, some have already closed their doors.”

But not hers.

“We are barely getting by,” she said. “(But) I am not going to close the doors. I am not going to shut anything down.”

All she can do is hope Harrisburg acts quickly.

“It is ridiculous,” she added. “It’s destructive. This is not what politics was meant to be. This is doing a lot of harm to the community and to the state in general.”

Read more about CVC’s plight in the Daily Local News here, and check out VISTA Today’s ongoing coverage of the Pennsylvania budget impasse here.