Delaware County has once again been awarded a Victims of Crime Act and State Victims Assistant Act grants.

According to Nicole Ford, executive assistant and office manager for the Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office, the county will receive $171,191.36 in grant funding from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office that will be used to fund three positions in the Victim Services Unit.

The county has been awarded the grant funding every year since 2008. The amount awarded this year is more than double what the county received in 2014, she said. Delaware County received $80,000 for the grant last year.

“These grants will allow us to continue to fund and employ our victims assistant, Megan Powell, and our civil protection order specialist, Jackie Brown,” Ford told county commissioners Thursday. “These two positions are extremely valuable to the Victim Services Unit and we could not sustain our unit without them. Due to the large increase of funds given to the AG’s office this year, we were able to include our victim services director, Trish Wright, to be paid from the grant as well.”

Ford said there is a local match in the amount of $33,817.07. She told commissioners that the local match amount will decrease since the state Attorney General’s Office is able to provide more funding after receiving more money from the federal government for victim services. The local match percentage decreased from 25 percent last year to 20 percent this year.

In total, Ford said, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office received $7 million in federal money this year to fund these types of grants. In the past, the pool of funding was about $2 million annually.

The grant is in effect from Oct. 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016. Ford noted that the prosecutor’s office will be able to apply for the grant again next year at the same level of funding.