As of right now I plan on attending a meeting between the BOCC and the Park County Service Officer. They are whining about her expenses.
She gets paid a small 600.00 dollars a month plus expenses. The 600.00 is partially paid by the state, the rest by the county. Her expenses are usually for things like driving Veterans down to the VA hospital to help them get into the system and started, or driving them down to make sure they make their appointment. There are times when the only time she can meet with a veteran is during the veterans lunch hour where they meet at a cheap ole resturant. She does buy some office supplies, like pens and paper, but most of the forms etc she gets from the VA so Park County does not pay for that. They gave her a small office in Bailey which is good. She still does alot of work out of her house also as this is not your standard 8-5 job. Tons more involved in getting the Veteran taken care of.
Then we look at their montly CC statement and I see alot of BS on there, you know it is BS, yet they are telling her she has a problem with her expense report. So here we go again, lets take away from the Veterans while the BOCC lets things run wild and they are worrying about redoing the bike path. I cannot wait for this meeting. Her expenses are quite small for a year.
Our VSO brings more money in this district than any commissioner brings in. This really upsets me that they are going after the person that brings in the most to our county and get paid pennies. By the way the State pays part of that money so the county is re-reimbursed for a good portion of that money. We hear how the commissioners spend to go to conferences and nothing has been spent like that from our VSO. She works over 16 hours a day helping our Vets and they pull this. This is completely WRONG!!!!!!
I question why the county should have anything to do with vetern'a affiars. It is not the responsiblilty of the county to get these people to their appointments.
Each county supplies a VSO they help with anything the Vet needs. Since the VA is so messed up with the ratings and back logged, the VSO is on overload, just trying to settle the cases that are before the newest war. Any way the state and counties pay for the VSO so they have some compensation for all the hard work they do. Now just getting the word out that there are VSO s that are there to help us is another thing. So word of mouth is needed. This certain VSO we are talking about, helped my husband out with his rating. They released him with a 10% rating and of course they don't tell you what rights you have. So years later talking with the VSO, we learned that we had rights and we could get him rated higher. Well, she did and she fought long and hard for my husband. He is now 100% disabled with proof and it was taken all the way to Washington. 33 months later with back pay, I have insurance, my husband now can feel comfortable in knowing he can now support his family and he deserved every bit of it.
So if you consider the Vets just like my husband that she has helped and the amount of revenue brought in from those Vets to our county, I would think they need to get their heads out of where ever they are and look again.
We are VERY LUCKY to have this VSO that knows the LEXUS/NEXUS for Veterans Affairs inside and out, she brings the laws with the claims together so there is no questioning what is going on. Not Every VSO can do that! Oh! by the way she has to buy her own Updates and law books out of her own pocket and does not charge the county.
There are a lot of Vets that are home bound and she has to go see them, does that mean that gas money should come out of her pocket, or what if the Vet needs to go down to the hospital should she ask a vet that has nothing right now to give her money? Any Way this would be a very bad thing to do to her and our county.
YES SHE IS GOD BLESS HER. I will let you in on a little thing that happened on saturday. I was on another website that is an adversary and found a gal that needed help and it had been there a while. I sent her a pm and told her if she hasn't gotten any help yet call me and gave her my number. I barely turned around and she called. She sure has had a run around so I put her on conference with the VSO and now something is being done!!!! No one knew she was even here to help her or if they did they sure didn't and that's a shame. Any way now there is help and she can sleep knowing it is being handled. :Happywave: :hands:
Ronbo wrote: I question why the county should have anything to do with vetern'a affiars. It is not the responsiblilty of the county to get these people to their appointments.
Every county has its own Veterans Service Officer. Getting a few of the Vets down to their appointments is a very small part of what she does. It is not up to the county to do this. Her job is to assist the Veteran to hep solve thier problems, claims, get earned benefits etc. There are some Vets that do not have means to get down there, so she gets them down there. Then there is the problems that come up once the Vet gets down there, and gets the run around, she knows the laws, the regulation, etc. It makes a huge difference in how Vets get treated. We go down there and alot of times some of us get treated like second class citizens, she changes all that.
Ronbo wrote: I question why the county should have anything to do with vetern'a affiars. It is not the responsiblilty of the county to get these people to their appointments.
Every county has its own Veterans Service Officer. Getting a few of the Vets down to their appointments is a very small part of what she does. It is not up to the county to do this. Her job is to assist the Veteran to hep solve thier problems, claims, get earned benefits etc. There are some Vets that do not have means to get down there, so she gets them down there. Then there is the problems that come up once the Vet gets down there, and gets the run around, she knows the laws, the regulation, etc. It makes a huge difference in how Vets get treated. We go down there and alot of times some of us get treated like second class citizens, she changes all that.
That all sounds good but why the hell is the county even involved? In my opinion the county should stop all funding for this as it is not the counties responsibility.
:Happywave: :hands: 
