VETERANS AND THE MILITARY

By:

Veronica Rose, Principal Analyst

2004-R-0597

July 30, 2004

This report provides brief highlights of public and special acts affecting veterans and the military enacted during the 2004 regular and special sessions.

Not all provisions of the acts are included; readers are encouraged to obtain the full text of acts that interest them from the Connecticut State Library, the House Clerk’s office, or the General Assembly's website (http: //www. cga. state. ct. us/default. asp). Complete summaries of all public acts passed in 2004 will be available in the fall when OLR’s Public Act Summary book is published; some are now available on the OLR website (http: //www. cga. state. ct. us/olr/publicactsummaries. asp)

All acts summarized here are effective October 1, 2004, unless otherwise noted.

PORTABILITY OF CERTAIN VETERANS’ PROPERTY TAX BENEFITS

This new law allows active duty servicemen and veterans or their immediate family members to keep receiving certain veterans' property tax exemptions when they move to a different town during the assessment year. It does this by requiring tax assessors to give each person receiving one of these exemptions a certificate attesting to their eligibility for the exemption for that assessment year. A person moving to another town can establish his claim for the exemption in that town by giving its assessor a copy of the certificate. The assessor must give the exemption if the person would otherwise qualify for it based on statutory criteria. The eligibility criteria for the exemptions subject to the new law’s certificate requirement are set in statute and apply uniformly across towns (PA 04-40).

VETERANS’ AFFAIRS BOARD OF TRUSTEES

A new law increases the membership of the Veterans’ Affairs board of trustees from nine to 16, giving one additional appointment to the governor, who appointed all the members under prior law, and one to each of the top six legislative leaders. It specifies that World War II, Korean, and Vietnam Era veterans must be among the veterans on the board. It also requires the board to submit to the Public Safety Committee, instead of just the governor, its annual reports on its activities and recommendations for adding new programs and improving service delivery to veterans (PA 04-41).

VETERANS’ HOME AND HOSPITAL

A new law increases the number of veterans eligible for (1) burial in the state veterans' cemeteries and (2) admission to the state Veterans' Home and Hospital, which the law renames the Veterans' Home. It does this by eliminating war service as a criterion for both benefits and instead requires veterans to have been honorably discharged from active-service status in the U. S. Armed Forces. Also, a veteran does not have to serve for a minimum period to qualify for either benefit (PA 04-169).

CONNECTICUT NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS

A new law explicitly allows honorably discharged Connecticut National Guard members to participate in the Soldiers, Sailors and Marines' Fund under the same terms as other eligible veterans by defining the National Guard as part of the U. S. military service. By law, honorably discharged military service members (i. e. , veterans) are eligible to get benefits from the fund if they served at least 90 days of active duty (or met an earlier separation requirement) during a time of war, as defined in law (PA 04-195).

VETERANS’ HOME LICENSE AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR ACTIVE DUTY RESERVISTS

A new law allows the veterans’ affairs commissioner, on behalf of any facility she operates for the care of veterans, to apply to the Department of Public Health (DPH) for a license as a nursing home or an assisted living services agency. If she does so, the Veterans’ Home and Hospital may keep its existing chronic disease hospital license.

DPH must process any such application in an expedited manner. And any Veterans’ Home project undertaken pursuant to such a license application is exempt from other statutes requiring a certificate of need application and approval otherwise applicable to nursing home services such as beds, additions, and capital expenditures (PA 04-258, effective July 1, 2004).

This new law also requires Deprtment of Mental Health and Addiction Services, in collaboration with the Department of Children and Families, to provide transitional behavioral health services for members of a reserve component of the U. S. Armed Forces who have been called to active service for Operations Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom and for their dependents. These transitional services must be provided as long as no Department of Defense coverage for them is available or the member is not eligible for the services through the Department of Defense. The services must continue until an approved application is received from the federal Department of Veterans’ Affairs and coverage is available to the members and their dependents (PA 04-258).

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