State compensation fund struggles to meet demand for payment Martha Quillin, Staff Writer RALEIGH – As if wounds or grief were not enough, the victims of violent crimes are often left with medical bills and other expenses they can’t pay. Thousands of them seek help each year from a little known and chronically underfunded state agency. The N.C. Victims Compensation Commission gets more requests for payments — to ambulance services, hospitals, doctors and funeral homes — than it can fill.

For the year ending last June, the commission had a budget of just under $9.5 million. From that, it paid outstanding claims from the year before, and an additional $7.3 million in new demands. It ended the year with hundreds of unpaid claims. (more…)