Victims Fund

Town Halls discuss how to allocate money donated to Stoneman Douglas victims.

Which survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting should be considered victims of traumatic — but non-physical — injury could prove vexing for a committee deciding how to split millions of dollars donated for victims.

Relatives of students on the campus during the Feb. 14 shootings made contrasting arguments about who should qualify for money. How that’s settled will determine how many people will receive a share of the Stoneman Douglas Victims Fund raised by the Broward Education Foundation. Currently the fund is at $6.8 million, raised by more than 35,300 donors.

In the first of two town hall meetings Tuesday at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, the aunt of a student who was in the building where multiple killings took place said survivors closest to the tragedy should receive a greater portion of donations because they experienced more trauma than survivors who were not in the building.

But others at a second town hall Tuesday evening said eligibility for compensation should be broadened to include sufferers of trauma who didn’t receive traditional mental health counseling, possibly because they weren’t ready, or even extended to the entire student population, including teachers and students who weren’t on the campus during the shootings.

The steering committee overseeing the distribution said it would convene one last town hall at 7:30 p.m. April 17 in Parkland, at a location to be announced.

The draft plan was developed with help from the National Compassion Fund, which is helping the Broward Education Foundation figure out how to divide the money among survivors. Compassion Fund director Jeff Dion outlined the draft plan, which is modeled after others the fund helped create for victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in June 2016 and the Las Vegas concert shooting in October 2017.

The draft plan calls for the money to be equally divided among members of several tiers, with the top tier composed of next of kin of the 17 slain victims. Beneficiaries in that top tier would share the largest portion of the donations, followed by people in the second tier — victims with physical injuries who required overnight hospitalization. The third tier would be victims with physical injuries who received outpatient treatment within 48 hours of the shooting but weren’t admitted to a hospital.

Finally, the draft calls for distribution of money among victims who suffered emotional, but not physical, trauma. If they were inside the building where the shooting took place, they would automatically be eligible for a share of donations allotted to that tier.

The Stoneman Douglas draft plan also would include on the trauma tier anyone who was on the campus during the shooting who sought mental health treatment by April 30.

Comments about the draft plan will be reviewed through April 20, and the steering committee is expected to finalize its distribution plan by April 30.

Applications from potential beneficiaries will be accepted from May 1 to May 30, and those will be reviewed by June 30. Distribution of payments would begin on July 16. Anyone interested in becoming eligible for a share of donations should go to nationalcompassionfund.org and fill out the site’s request for information form, Dion said.