I feel it is a much bigger financial problem than settling child abuse cases.
In 1990 the WTS stopped charging the rank and file for publications, magazines, and CDs, DVDs, and other high cash items. Food was not longer provided for cash and the free food never matched the donations at the conventions.
The WTS lost a large base of regular cash flow every month and nothing replaced it. jws are notoriously bad in the donation category....my husband was an accounts servant in several congregations and saw how few donated at all, not even $5/month (people who paid $20 a month renting movies). Even now some are reporting that their elders are moving the cash they have out of the reach of the WTS.
I was in one congregation where they were told to give their savings of $50,000 to another congregation to building a KH, a congregation that had made many foolish financial decisions. That congregation refused. No elders removed so far.