How assistance to veterans varies by county
Ohio's 88 county veterans service commissions each set their own rules on when and how much to give needy veterans in emergency financial assistance. This means veterans in different part of the state have different access to help depending on where they life. Use this map to see how the average assistance awarded to veterans varies across Ohio. Click on a county to see how many veterans live there, how many were helped and how much was spent on aid for veterans.
Source: Ohio Department of Veteran Services
Lack of oversight for Ohio’s 88 county veterans commissions is being cited as a factor contributing to the controversies and complaints of unequal access by veterans seeking financial assistance.
Taxpayers spent $2.5 million more to help veterans with cash assistance last year compared to 2012, even as the local veterans agencies helped 13,000 fewer Ohioans, according to records obtained by the I-Team from the Ohio Department of Veterans Services.
The I-Team examination shows the way emergency aid is doled out continues to vary widely from one county to the next, raising questions about unequal treatment of veterans who have encountered financial difficulty.
Suzette Price, director of the American Legion of Ohio, said her agency is concerned with how county veterans service commissions are structured, and believes the state should help standardize services provided across counties.
“They should have some kind of oversight,” she said, “To, at least, create some kind of standards.”
The Ohio Department of Veterans Services did not return requests for comment.
‘Flawed’ process
County veterans services agencies are tasked with a variety of services, including helping veterans get transportation to medical appointments, giving the neediest vets as well as their widows direct cash aid and helping them file claims with the federal government.
Each of the state’s 88 county veterans service commissions is autonomous, governed by a five-member board appointed by local judges. Each sets its own rules on eligibility and emergency aid limits. The pay these board members receive varies as well. Warren County veterans board members get $1,000 a month. Greene County’s board is paid no more than $363 a month.
Local judges choose veterans recommended by local veterans service organizations to sit on the boards, which sometimes oversee multi-million dollar budgets. If a veterans organization doesn’t exist in the county or it fails to nominate someone, the judge can select a county veteran.
The level of oversight in some counties concerns state Rep. Rick Perales, R-Beavercreek, a veteran and former Greene County commissioner, who says state officials should give more guidance to judges who appoint commissioners.
“The selection of the commissioners is the most important part of this whole process,” he said.
Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser agreed. Gmoser recently encouraged the local vets board in his county to pass new travel and pay policies following a spat between the board’s former president and commission director.
“I know the appointment process is flawed,” Gmoser said. “It needs to be overhauled. It’s a little bit loose on how the veterans appointments are made. There’s an assumption that veterans will take care of veterans.”
Warren County Veterans Service Director Rodney Eversole said he’s been impressed with the commissioners appointed to his board in recent years. But he fears some judges and veterans organizations in other counties fail to thoroughly vet candidates for their board positions.
“It would go a long way with solving some of those other counties’ issues … if the people who were in charge of appointing these guys, if they actually got to know who they’re putting on the board,” he said.
Funding is also an issue. State law allows veteran services boards to set their budget at up to half a mill of county property taxes, with every cent they take coming from the same revenue source other county offices rely on. This means each agency has a different amount of money based on the county’s population and tax value, and some veterans commissioners are under pressure to keep their budgets low for the sake of other county offices.
“If they get the whole (amount), that means the sheriff’s office doesn’t get enough, or the auditor’s office doesn’t get enough,” Perales said.
Perales and Price both said the county veterans offices should have their own funding separate from the county to prevent any conflict with the appointing judges who also rely on the same pool of money.
Scandals and controversies
Two resignations — one of which was later rescinded — rocked the Butler County veterans board last month when Director Caroline Bier announced her resignation, citing disrespect from the board’s former president. That president later agreed to step down and Bier rescinded her resignation. Now, the county is hunting for a new commissioner and interested veterans have until Aug. 10 to apply.
Meanwhile, by the end of August, Montgomery County will have lost more than half of its governing board. A new board member pointed out earlier this year that the board had more members on its payroll — each of them paid $8,850 a year — than state law allowed.
The result is that the one-time 11-member board will be trimmed to just five commissioners.
Veterans Service Commission President Robin Titus, who will step down in August when her term ends, said the shake-up will “absolutely not” impact services to veterans.
“We work as a bigger unit or a smaller unit,” she said.
Controversy in Greene County reached a peak last summer when veterans services director Lance Woodward resigned amid accusations he wasn’t showing up to work, falsifying public records and misusing county property.
He was given a $6,700 severance package including accrued vacation leave and a month’s worth of salary.
“There was a lot of allegations of things going wrong within the office,” said Chris Chrystal, who took over as agency director. “The evidence was clear that he had violated these office work practices. He chose to resign as opposed to it going forward, and more than likely being terminated.”
Chrystal said services have improved since then with the addition of another employee to help
Tale of two counties
The data from Greene County raises questions about whether all veterans who need help are getting it.
The county last year extended aid to 110 veterans. Meanwhile, Warren County — which has roughly the same number of veterans — helped more than 700.
There was a distinct difference in the amount of assistance provided, however. The amount of assistance in Greene County averaged $1,605 — more than any other area county. The Warren County average was $605.
Chrystal said individual payments can tilt the average. For example, one veteran last year received about $7,000 to help him catch up on rent, he said.
“In most cases we would approve what they’re requesting, if it’s reasonable,” Chrystal said.
Chrystal believes so few veterans seek help in Greene County, which advertises its services with billboards and through other ads, because the veteran population tends to be retirees from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, who may not need as much assistance as veterans in other counties.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates as many as 1,100 veterans in Greene County have an income below the federal poverty level.
Fewer denials
Some area counties are turning away fewer veterans than in previous years, the I-Team found.
In 2012, Butler County denied half as many appeals for help as it approved, while Montgomery County said no to 325 requests that year — nearly a third of what it received.
But last year, Montgomery County only rejected 31 applications for emergency financial aid, while Butler County turned down 84, giving them an approval rating of 96 percent and 89 percent, respectively.
Butler County also more than doubled the number of veterans helped, as well as the amount spent helping those veterans.
Bier, the director, said media attention has pushed more vets through the door.
“Whether good or bad, it did bring more attention to the agency and made more veterans aware of the services we provide,” she said.
Meanwhile, Miami County has been working to reduce the amount of aid granted to veterans.
Starting in January, the county has limited the amount a veteran can receive in aid to $2,100 a year with a lifetime cap of $10,500. Last year, the agency also began requiring veterans to provide documentation proving their hardship, which brought the number of veterans asking for help down by more than a quarter and saved the county $167,290.
In 2013, Miami County doled out assistance to 868 veterans, exceeded only by Hamilton County in southwest Ohio.
“We are trying to get people off the system,” said Angie Gray, an administrative assistant with Miami County Veterans Services.
Different rules
The different rules from county to county mean veterans are treated differently depending on where they live.
“We’re spending more money than some of the largest counties,” Warren County’s Eversole said.
He said the county verifies each veteran’s need and has helped pay utility bills, groceries, rent and even helped get an air conditioning unit this summer. But he also pointed out that his county has a 4 percent denial rate, compared to other counties, such as Cuyahoga County, which has a 28 percent denial rate.
“That’s a lot of veterans to be turning away,” Eversole said. “Of course you’re going to have people that want to take advantage of the system.”
But, he added, “the vast majority of people come in here, hat and hand and embarrassed, have to swallow their pride, and ask for help.”
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