Salcedo, 29, of Westerville, had to quit her job as a bilingual employment recruiter to take care of her son.

Without more than $40,000 from a state fund for crime victims, Salcedo said, she'd never have been able to give her son the attention and therapy he needed to recover.

While the boy, Julien Rader, is doing better, the fund that helped pay for his recovery is clinging to life.

Attorney General Richard Cordray, whose office administers the Crime Victims Compensation Fund, warned lawmakers in April that the fund will be empty in two years without changes. Cordray repeated those warnings in a Dispatch interview Friday.

"I've assured (crime victims) that whatever it takes, we will protect this fund," Cordray said.

All states and territories have funds for reimbursing crime victims for economic losses. Although there is no law requiring Ohio to have such a fund, Cordray said, dissolving it is not an option.

The fund held $38.6 million in 2001, but it was down to $11 million at the end of April. It draws most of its money from federal grants, court fees of $30 per felony and $9 per misdemeanor, and a $75 fee to reinstate drivers' licenses.

The squeeze on the fund seems simple: Most years since 2001, it has taken in less money while paying out more. But the reasons for the decreasing revenue have eluded Cordray, who took office this year.

He said his office is looking into whether courts are waiving the fees on larger numbers of indigent defendants, whether court clerks simply aren't collecting the fees, or whether other factors are at play.

"No one really seems to know what the reason is," Cordray said.

Victims of violent crimes might draw as much as $50,000 from the fund to compensate them for missed work, medical bills and other expenses stemming from the crime. The fund also has been tapped for anti-crime measures such as a DNA database for convicted felons. Families of Ohio troops killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan also can tap the fund.

Since the fund was created in 1976, crime victims have received more than $290 million.

Salcedo has received $41,311.37 for lost work and mileage to and from hospital appointments. She now works part time for the Franklin County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, where her son is in a rehabilitation program.

"There is no way I could physically or emotionally go back to work" after Julien's injury, Salcedo said. "He had so many appointments at the hospital. The crime victims' fund has helped me be able to take him to the hospital and to therapy."

Stacy Jones, 38, of Cincinnati, has received more than $30,000 from the fund to cover lost income after he was assaulted in a nightclub in 2004. Jones said the attack, most likely a case of mistaken identity, tore his retina and caused him to lose sight in one eye.

He had to leave his job as a municipal bus driver. He's now a bus mechanic and is earning more than he did as a driver.

"If it wasn't for the victims of crime fund, I don't know what I'd be doing right now," Jones said.

jnash@dispatch.com