Paying the costs of sexual abuse

The allegations of child sexual abuse against former Bay Shore teacher Thomas Bernagozzi are enormous. So are the potential costs for that school district, which will be on the hook for any civil damages his victims may win in the 45 cases filed under the state Child Victims Act.

The legislation enacted in 2019 created a legal window to allow anyone who was abused years ago when they were children to file for compensation. Bay Shore faces more lawsuits under this act than any Long Island school district. The window for filing these lawsuits closed in 2021.

Unsurprisingly, that extraordinary change in the law had consequences that only now are being quantified. It allowed lawsuits that otherwise would have been barred because of time limits to be filed against schools, nonprofit organizations and religious groups like the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, which recently filed for bankruptcy because of the huge penalties it faces for child sexual abuse by former clergy members.

Recognizing the fiscal devastation likely to be caused by these payouts, the State Legislature is considering a bill that would provide $200 million in a special fund to bail out government entities facing this problem. It would partially reimburse damages — not covered by insurance — that juries and judges award to schools and state-contracted foster care agencies that are found negligent. It is designed to relieve the crushing financial impact from victim compensation on individual districts where wrongdoing took place and instead spread the fiscal burden among all of the state’s taxpayers.

POORLY CONCEIVED FUND

Undoubtedly, those who suffered proven sexual abuse should be properly compensated, to the extent any money can be a salve for the terrible emotional and physical toll from abuse. But this proposed $200 million fund and its financial impact on taxpayers seem poorly thought out, similar to the way the backers of the 2019 Child Victims Act failed to consider the full…