Issue of this Month—Service for Veterans in our County

I was pleased to be nominated to the first Kent County Veteran’s Advisory Committee when this department was established in 2008. I was honored to serve as its first chair. We continue to meet to plan the continued improvement in the service functions. One thing we have realized is that our county is not providing sufficient funds to meet the need. Unfortunately, this pressure to help county veterans comes at the same time the state is cutting funds for veterans services. We have begun to discuss the possibility of finding other sources of funds to help serve the needs of low income and homeless veterans. One possibility is to ask the County Commission to levy a small increase in its Headley Act allowable millage. Essentially it would be possible to levy the difference between what the county currently levies, and the upper limit allowed by Headley—approximately .007 mills. Our committee will be taking that issue up in the next couple of meetings. One factor that will be a major consideration is the amount of revenue sharing we will end up receiving from the state. If we are cut by the estimated $4 million revenue sharing recommended by the Governor, we will be hard pressed to add any additional funding requests to our county budget.