WASHINGTON — After her daughter died in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Marsha Kimble said nothing could ease her profound grief.

But Kimble said counseling she obtained through a program partly funded by the federal Crime Victims Fund helped her start coping with her loss.

"Too often those who survive are thought of as a separate and less critical element of the crime and are left to deal with the long-lasting impact without proper assistance," Kimble said during testimony before a Senate committee last month.

So Kimble is upset that President Bush wants to siphon $1.26 billion in surplus funds from the Crime Victims Fund this year, shifting the money to the U.S. Treasury where it could be used for other federal budget needs.

Kimble, whose daughter, Frankie Merrell, 23, worked on the third floor of the doomed Alfred P. Murrah Building and left behind a 2-year-old daughter, said every victim should be offered help to overcome the trauma.

"It has taken a very long time to build the infrastructure," Kimble said in an interview this month. "If they take the funds away, the victims' services will collapse. It would be disastrous."

Mississippi administers the program through a division of Attorney General Jim Hood's office and through grants obtained by the state Department of Public Safety.

Janet Kennedy, director of the Victim Compensation Division of the state attorney general's office, said that for Mississippi, loss of the funds would be "devastating to victims of violent crime and their families."

"Mississippi paid out about $2.21 million in financial assistance from federal and state victims compensation funding in Fiscal Year 2005," said Kennedy. "The federal government pays about a third and state government pays two-thirds."

Kennedy said the average payout to Mississippi victims of crime is $3,668 and covers such items as medical expenses, funeral expenses, transportation, lost wages and other eligible expenses incurred by crime victims and their families.

"It's important to note that these funds are earmarked for 'innocent' victims of crime, not those killed or injured while engaged in unlawful conduct or whose behavior incited or provoked their injuries," she said.

Kennedy said one recent feature of the program is that the program now pays for sexual assault forensic medical examinations - so called "rape kits" for victims of sex crimes.

"The current administration has attempted to redirect these funds before and, as I said, the loss of these funds to Mississippi crime victims would be devastating," Kennedy said.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has rallied to keep these funds intact, saying the withdrawal could jeopardize future federal funding for 4,400 victim assistance agencies around the country.

"Do we really think the program is simply going to be terminated?" Coburn asked in a statement. "Not when congressional, law enforcement and state government support for this program is so strong."

President Reagan signed the Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA, into law in 1984. The law created a fund that has provided services ranging from counseling to money to cover lost wages, medical and funeral expenses for 3.8 million crime victims or their survivors.

The program is funded by proceeds from criminal fines, fees and property forfeitures.

The fund has carried a surplus since 2000 that now totals $1.26 billion. Bush's budget proposal for fiscal year 2007, which begins Oct. 1, calls for a permanent revocation of the surplus. This is the second time the administration has tried to use these funds in two years. Congress killed the plan last year.

If the surplus is redirected, services will not be cut, said Paul Corts, assistant attorney general for administration at the Justice Department, which manages the fund. The administration expects the fund will continue to collect enough money to meet program obligations, which were capped at $625 million this year, he said. The fund took in $834 million in 2004 and $668 million in 2005, Corts said.

"We are committed to ensuring the solvency of the fund and adequate funding for victims programs," said Corts, testifying last month before a Senate subcommittee.

Victim advocates and some lawmakers are not as confident. In fiscal 2002, 2003, 2004, the fund collected less money than it spent on programs and had to draw money from the surplus, said Steve Derene, executive director of the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators. Lawmakers such as Leahy also said a "rainy day" victim surplus is essential in the event of another attack on the scale of Oklahoma City or 9-11.

Sens. Leahy and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, are circulating a "Dear Colleague Letter" to get enough support to defeat the proposal. When they get enough signatures, they will send the letter to Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Justice Department, Leahy spokeswoman Erica Chabot said.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, founder and co-chairman of the Congressional Victim's Rights Caucus, is leading a similar House push to stop the Bush proposal, spokeswoman DeeAnn Thigpen said.

Private citizens are organizing, as well, across the country.

Brothers Dan and Howard Levey were tight.

"We were very close - we worked in the insurance business together," Dan said of his older brother. "As adults we would get together every Sunday at each other's houses."

The relationship was violently severed when Howard was shot to death during a Phoenix carjacking in 1996. Howard, 40, was sitting in his Mercury Sable, waiting to play a pickup basketball game. He left behind a wife and two children.

Dan Levey said little acts of insensitivity - from rude comments from a hospital nurse to the police officer who asked his brother's widow to retrieve his car - compounded his family's grief.

Levey became a victims' rights advocate so he could perhaps help others deal with similar incidents. He is president of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children, Inc.

In Mississippi, Kennedy said that most crime victims learn of their eligibility for victim compensation and assistance through local law enforcement agencies. But she encouraged crime victims and their families to contact her office if they believe they are entitled to assistance.