The fund to compensate victims of past clergy sexual abuse in Colorado’s three Catholic dioceses has received claims from 87 victims as of the Jan. 31 deadline.

Camille Biros and Kenneth Feinberg are the Washington, D.C.-based administrators of the fund. Biros said in October that the Catholic Church in Colorado did not put a limit on how much she can offer to victims with legitimate claims, nor will it veto her decisions. The administrators use survivor narratives, therapy records and information from the church in setting a compensation amount, which the victims accept voluntarily.

So far, Biros and Feinberg have paid more than $1.2 million to 10 victims from the fund. None has rejected the amount. The fund opened around the time that a report from former U.S. Attorney Robert Troyer found that at least 43 Catholic priests sexually abused at least 166 children since 1950 in Colorado.

“I am pleased that through this unique program, we are helping so many victims,” said former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown, who chairs the panel overseeing the fund, known as the Independent Oversight Committee. “The IOC is satisfied with the administration of the program thus far and looks forward to assisting the remaining victims in the program on their path to healing.”

After the claims have run their course, the committee will evaluate whether there is a need to reopen the claims process, including whether there was adequate notice to potential victims.

In the state legislature, there is a bill to remove the civil statute of limitations going forward for victims of sexual misconduct, of which childhood sexual abuse would be part. There is no provision to allow victims whose abuse occurred before the year 2021 to sue their perpetrator or the institution that harbored them. The bill’s sponsors cited failed legislative efforts of a so-called loopback window in the past, as well as doubts about its constitutionality.

Rep. Matt Soper, R-Delta, one of the sponsors of House Bill 1296, said that the fund, set up in consultation with the attorney general’s office, would allocate compensation more fairly in his opinion than individual court judgments, which could potentially bankrupt institutions before other victims could file suit.

“I think that the attorney general mechanism is actually a very equitable way” of compensating victims, said Soper. “Damages, money, never can recompense for what happened – the loss of your innocence – but it helps.”

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Denver, Mark Haas, pointed to the approximately $10 million that the archdiocese previously gave to victims before 2010. The church also worked to halt the elimination of the civil statute of limitations in 2006.

“While the Church did oppose legislation in the mid-2000s that only targeted private institutions (and not public), the Church did make a huge effort to work with victims,” Haas said.