Senator Marx, Representative Nolan, Senator Gordon, and Representative Delany, and members of the Veteran’s and Military Affairs Committee, my name is Alison Weir, and I am the executive director of the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center and a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. I am here in support of the following bills:

– SB 344, an Act Concerning Certain Federal Veterans’ Benefits and Income Eligibility Determinations for Certain Public Assistance Programs
– HB 5402, an Act Excluding from Veterans’ Income Calculations certain benefit payments for the purposes of eligibility for certain state and municipal programs, with modification,
– SB 348, an Act eliminating service in time of war as an eligibility criterion for certain state and municipal benefits
– HB 5405, an Act Establishing a Task Force to Study Providing a Property Tax exemption to Certain permanently and Totally Disabled Veterans

And in support in part and in opposition in part to:

– HB 5403, an Act Concerning Military Protection Orders and other Interpersonal Violence Protections.

The Connecticut Veterans Legal Center provides free legal assistance to low-income Veterans living in Connecticut. Our mission is to support, empower, and improve the lives of Veterans by providing free legal assistance to remove barriers to housing, healthcare, income, and recovery. Approximately 44% of our clients have a service-connected disability rating from their service and receive VA disability benefits.

Because several of the bills regard Veterans benefits and findings of disability in the VA system, I want to spend a little time explaining the VA disability system and unpacking some terms. Veterans qualify for a number of different benefits. These include education benefits (including the GI Bill which pays for tuition and a living stipend, and Veteran Readiness and Employment (formerly known as Vocational Rehabilitation,) training for Veterans who are severely disabled and unable to work in traditional employment), access to special home loans, service-connected disability benefits for injuries received during service, and non-service-connection pensions for indigent Veterans. Some of these benefits are means tested, some are not. Some are specifically for those who have a disability due to their service, and some are not. Not all benefits administered by the VA are the same, nor are the Veterans who receive them.

Of special note: the non-service-connected pension is different from the retirement pensions Veterans who retired after 20 years of service receive from the Department of Defense. Although there is some variation depending on when a service member joined the service, for the most part, Veterans who have retired from the Armed Services (“retirees”) receive 50% of their base pay after 20 years, and if they serve beyond 20 years, they receive an additional 2.5% of their pay for each year served. I, for example, am a retiree. I served 20 years in the Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. From the day I retired, I have received a retiree pension from the Department of Defense that is 50% of my base pay as a lieutenant colonel, as adjusted by cost of living increases over the last 17 years. I receive this despite the fact that I have had other employment after my retirement. In contrast, a Veteran receiving a pension administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs likely has little if any other income and is over 65 years old or disabled.

The VA nonservice connected pension, often referred to as the VA pension, is means tested and administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Eligible Veterans must have assets less than $155,356 and incomes less than the maximum allowable pension rate, which is based on one’s level of disability and dependents. It is available to Veterans who do not have a dishonorable discharge, served during a period of war, and are over 65 years old or permanently and totally disabled or live in a nursing home or receive either SSDI or SSI. Aid and Attendance is an additional pension amount available to Veterans who qualify for nonservice-connected pension who need assistance with the activities of daily life (ADLs) or are bedbound or have very limited eyesight. Because the maximum allowable pension rate under Aid and Attendance is higher, the income limit for this means tested benefit is higher than a basic nonservice connected pension. There is another additional pension program, the Homebound pension, that is short of Aid and Attendance in that it is available to any veteran who qualifies for a VA pension and is homebound due to illness or disability, but not necessarily bedbound or reliant on assistance with ADLs.

When people discuss VA disability benefits, for the most part they are referring to service-connected disability benefits, which provide a monthly payment based on the disability rating for the injury. The payment is intended as income replacement due to more limited employment opportunities due to the disability. The VA disability rating system is governed by the Veterans Benefit Administration and a very formulaic process, with a rating established for each level of impairment, ranging from 0% to 100% usually increments of 10%. The system addresses bodily and mental ailments and injuries, and ratings can be increased as injuries become more severe with time or reduced if the veteran recovers. Veterans can have multiple injuries each with a different rating that can combine to a total rating that is larger than any single rating, but it is not directly additive. Disability benefits are not means tested.

Totally disabled means that the VA has determined that the Veteran’s incapacity renders it impossible for the average person to follow a sustainable gainful occupation. It does not have to be service connected. Permanent disabled means that the VA has determined it is unlikely the Veteran’s disability will substantially improve.

With this backdrop, I’d like to address SB 344 and HB 5402. From my reading of these bills, it appears that both bills are intended to exclude more VA pension benefits and, in the case of HB 5402, disability benefits from income calculations when applying for state benefits like Medicare Savings, medical assistance, and energy assistance programs. I agree with what I believe is the legislature’s intent to enable Connecticut’s most impoverished Veterans to qualify for easily for state support, but neither bill, as drafted, quite hits the mark.

SB 344, by referring to “all federal pension benefits administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs that are granted to a veteran, as defined [under] in section 27-103, or the surviving spouse of such veteran” seems to expand the very limited exclusion of Aid and Attendance, which is available only to those who need assistance with ADLs, are bedbound, or have severely limited eyesight, to disabled and elderly Veterans who are indigent and receive nonservice connected pensions. But the qualifying clause that follows, namely “for which veteran or surviving spouse said department has decided that Aid and Attendance assistance is required,” undercuts that expansion and limits the special consideration of Veterans benefits to Aid and Attendance benefits. Veterans who receive nonservice connected pensions, but not Aid and Attendance, are very much in need of additional state support. They are elderly and/or disabled and have limited incomes. A single Veteran receiving a VA pension can have an annual income of no more than $16,551. Any pension he receives is the difference between his income and that amount. Veterans receiving the Homebound pension are likewise unable to discount their limited income from eligibility calculations for state benefits, under this formulation. If, as I suspect, the intention is to discount the means-tested pensions from calculating eligibility for state benefits, striking the “for which veteran or surviving spouse said department has decided that Aid and Attendance assistance is required” would open this consideration to all the indigent, elderly or disabled Veterans who receive nonservice connected pensions from the VA.

HB 5402, on the other hand, is imprecise. First, it would exclude from income calculations all “disability benefits” administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but not pension benefits. This would seem to allow Veterans who receive disability compensation for service-connected disabilities to benefit from the discount, but leaves out Veterans who receive the non-service-connected pension benefit. The legislature should clarify this clause by naming the benefits to be excluded from calculation. Secondly, by including “(2) all federal pension benefits administered by the United States Department of Defense,” the bill would exclude military retirement pension provided to those retiring from the Armed Forces after 20 years of service from the determination of eligibility. Military retirees who spent twenty years in the service have achieved a certain degree of rank—the military promotion system is an “up or out” system, and service members who do not progress in rank are not encouraged to stay for the full twenty years. As a retired lieutenant colonel, I receive a pension that is approximately the same as the average annual salary in the United States. I received this regardless of any other income I may have. I am not disabled. Excluding my retirement when calculating income eligibility for state benefits would be a grave injustice to those who have a much better claim on the state’s benefits. Those who retired from the enlisted ranks have a lower base pay and thus a lower retirement pension. If the intention is to exclude retirement pay from the calculation, I would urge the committee to restrict it to those retiring as enlisted members rather than officers.

Additionally, there are service members who are medically retired due to injuries or other disabilities that impair their ability to serve on active duty, and who receive retirement benefits from the Department of Defense. With some exceptions, disability retirement benefits are received in lieu of VA service-connected compensation. This bill should specify that Veterans’ receipt of disability retirement from the Department of Defense, like Veterans’ receipt of VA service-connected disability benefits, be excluded from income.

In general, Connecticut Veterans Legal Center fully supports excluding the nonservice connected pensions and service-connected disability benefits from calculations of income for eligibility for the Medicare Savings Program, medical assistance, and energy assistance. For Veterans who were rendered disabled as a result of military service and have no other income but their disability check and those Veterans who are both indigent and disabled or old trying to get by on a very modest pension, such programs could fill critical basic needs. Some Veterans may be dissuaded from applying for a higher disability rating for fear of losing a housing subsidy or other benefit. Excluding veteran disability payments and Veteran pensions from income calculations for housing programs and DSS programs would go a long way to ensuring that Veterans who have been disabled can participate in programs designed to fulfill their basic needs.

HB 5405: We support property tax exemptions for permanently and totally disabled Veterans. Several states in the country currently provide sizeable property tax exemptions for Veterans with total disability ratings, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Texas. Virginia, South Carolina, and New Mexico. In contrast with the exemptions of full property value or at least $100,000 offered by these states to permanently and totally disabled Veterans, the $3000 off the assessed value offered to Veterans in Connecticut is a meaningless token gesture. Property tax rates in Connecticut are very high, high enough that those with limited income annually face the prospect of losing their home even after the mortgage has been paid off. We urge the committee to include personal property tax exemptions in this study, as well, since many permanently and totally disabled Veterans in the state may not own real property, but do own a car, which Connecticut towns tax as personal property.

SB 348: We support eliminating the requirement of service during “time of war” for benefits offered in the state and federally. It is long past time for us to remove the artificial distinction between service during a congressionally declared “time of war” and otherwise. For instance, the service members who served during the Cold War, officially not a “time of war,” faced the same rigors of training, exposures to weapons testing, and heightened readiness as those who served during a “time of war” in a stateside billet. They all exhibited the same willingness to serve their country and go where they were needed. As the recent expansion of the PACT act presumption of service-connected disability due to toxic exposure in stateside locations demonstrates, service members are exposed to risks during all times. Moreover, those Veterans who served during the Cold War are getting older and will soon be, if not currently, in need of assistance. For instance, an 18-year-old who enlisted in 1955 after the end of the Korean Conflict could have served 5 years and not served during a time of war. That veteran would be 87 years old now. Likewise, 20-year-old who enlisted in 1975, after the Vietnam War ended could have served 15 years and not served during a time of war. That Veteran would be now 69 years old, and if indigent, would be eligible for the non-service connected pension if they served during a time of war. As it is now, they are not. Veterans benefits should not be subject to whether one happened to be in the service when Congress declared a war or not.

HB 5403: While we support the apparent intention of the bill to protect those victims of domestic violence at the hands of service members and Veterans, we are troubled by the equation of military protective orders with civilian protective orders. Unlike civilian protective orders, which are issued by a court and protect an accused’s due process, military protective orders are issued by a commander unschooled in law and constitutional protections and afford the accused no due process. For this reason, military protective orders are not enforceable off base, while a civilian protective order is enforceable on base. Through our practice, we have seen many instances where service members have been denied due process in a commander’s decision making, and for this reason, we urge the Committee to strike subsection (1) of the bill. That said, we fully support Sections 2 and 3 of the bill. National Guard members who have been directed not to harass another person by their commander, suggesting a level of prior harassment extreme enough to warrant command attention, and persist, should be held accountable for their actions. Likewise, we applaud the provision of financial assistance to victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment who are often further taxed and traumatized by the process of testifying in against their assaulters.

I would be happy to discuss any of these bills in more detail. Thank you for your work to improve the lives of Connecticut Veterans.