AUGUSTA, Maine — A new report released Friday recommends expanding and revamping Maine’s Bureau of Veterans Services to better serve the state’s estimated 140,000 military veterans.
It’s been over 15 years since the bureau has received updated policies or targeted funding, and younger veterans — those from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — are often frustrated as they try to piece together the state and federal benefits available to them as they return to civilian life, the report states.
The report is the result of a special Legislative commission that met five times during the summer and fall of 2015, and focuses on enhancements for the bureau, rather than a critique of the bureau’s current work.
One key recommendation of the report is to permanently fund a marketing and outreach coordinator for the bureau, and change the law that will define outreach duties for the bureau.
“We have to increase coordination and communication,” said Rep. Jared Golden, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “One of the biggest findings was that young veterans were feeling ignored.”
Golden sponsored the legislation that led to the creation of the commission in 2015. The commission included a broad selection of lawmakers, other state officials including the state’s newest Commissioner of the Bureau of Veterans Services Adria Horn, as well as a generational cross-section of Maine veterans.
Golden co-chaired the commission with Sen. Ron Collins, R-Wells.
Collins agreed that “one of the very big issues of the whole proceedings was the lack of information that our veterans have about what is available to them as a veteran.”
Collins, who is not a veteran, said that information gap “rang out to me on a number of occasions, so that is one of the things we’ve got to change.”
The report also suggests changes to the state’s Medicaid program, MaineCare, to allow some transportation costs for veterans seeking medical services at Veterans Administration facilities to be covered by the program.
Transportation issues became an overarching theme, Golden said, and the report also recommends the state develop a long-term transportation policy using existing regional transportation programs, like bus networks, but with a focus on veterans.
“No matter what issue we were addressing, whether it was talking about jobs, homelessness, talking about education — the people that came in to talk to us always brought up transportation as a barrier to veterans accessing health care, getting to work, for homeless veterans they often have no access to transportation,” Golden said.
It also makes a recommendation that a University of Southern Maine program that helps student veterans be replicated throughout the University of Maine System and be developed for the state’s community college system as well.
The report, according to Golden, has broad bipartisan support and could lead to several different bills in the weeks ahead.
The final price tag for that legislation has yet to be determined but could be between $2 million to $5 million additional each year for the bureau.
Golden said the commission chose to focus on issues members felt most important and improvements likely to be accomplished quickly.
“The breadth of issues is so great, we recognized we weren’t going to be able to get to them all, so we tried to identify areas where we thought the state could really step in and take some action,” Golden said.
He said the report is a recognition the agency had reached capacity.
“The report is no way a reflection or a critique on the incredible work the bureau currently does, but an acknowledgment the bureau is lacking the resources it needs to fully accomplish its mission,” Golden said.
For example, Golden said, the bureau is still largely dependent on paper records. He said the number of outreach coordinators — the seven bureau staff that connect veterans with services or benefits — is lower per capita of veterans in Maine compared to other states.
In Massachusetts, for example, there is one outreach worker for every 12,000 veterans in the state — in Maine, the ratio is one staff person for every 20,600 veterans.
“They are dramatically underfunded,” Collins said. “And we’ve got to correct that and I’m sure that will be one of the recommendations put into a bill.”
Golden also said the report recommends the state do a better job when it comes to caring for homeless veterans by trying to get a more accurate count and ensuring a specific agency is responsible for helping them and coordinating among state departments that help the homeless.
The report recommends more than a single, once-a-year, point-in-time survey of homeless veterans, now done in January, and instead multiple surveys to establish a more accurate count of homeless veterans.
“Success at resolving chronic homelessness among veterans should be determined by actually placing veterans in stable housing, not just creating the capacity to do so,” the report states.
Collins said he was pleased and proud of the bipartisan work the commission achieved, as well as the strong bipartisan support he was seeing for the recommendations.
“I can’t say enough about that,” Collins said. “It was across party lines, it was in both chambers working for a common goal and that is improved services for our veterans.”
Golden said one frustration for the commission was members felt like they did not have the time they needed to fully address issues around mental health concerns for Maine veterans.
“There are certainly sometimes gaps and issues that arise and should be looked at,” Golden said. While veterans’ concerns are largely a responsibility of the Veterans Administration, Golden said commission members felt the state should have a role in ensuring its veterans can access the mental health services they may need.
“We are hoping to have a work group or a task force that tries to get real in-depth on some of those issues, and at the very least bring some of those issues to light and share them with our federal [congressional] delegation,” Golden said.
Golden and Collins will appear before the VLA Committee on Monday at 10 a.m. to present the commission’s report and its findings.