| IN MICHIGAN, BUDGET
CUTS AND MORE NEEDY VETERANS
One county DVA Director says, "The
activity load is overwhelming."
NOTE from
Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org
... For more about how the economic downturn is affecting
veterans' services, refer to our
Sign of the Times page.
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VA’s load continues to increase as state cuts hit
By Roland Stoy
The Daily Reporter
Coldwater, Mich. - The workload
at the Branch County Department of Veterans Affairs continues to
increase following $2,029,200 in state cuts from Gov. Jennifer
Granholm’s sweeping executive order in May.
The state faces an estimated $1.4 billion deficit in the fiscal
year beginning in October.
Local VA director Charles Scott touched on the cuts and other
matters as he presented his 2008 annual report to the Branch
County Board last Tuesday at the courthouse.
“The activity load is overwhelming,” he told commissioners. “We
are currently getting more veterans coming home from the Iraq war
with disabilities and keeping the work load maximized at all
times. The activity load of veteran’s widows has increased.”
The report showed 3,895 veterans in the county for fiscal year
2008, with VA expenditures of $11,083,000.
Of this, county vets and
families received $5,416,000 in compensation and pension benefits,
$5,357000 in medical assistance, in addition to other
compensations and benefits.
The state cuts come after years of the necessity of beefing up
staffing at regional VA offices to handle the ever-increasing load
of paperwork from local veterans affairs offices, such as that of
Scott.
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TOPICS:
veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs,
Sign of the Times, bad economy |
