BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
JEFF DENHAM, CHAIRMAN
Bill No: SB 418
Author: Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs
Version: As Introduced
Hearing Date: April 14, 2009
Fiscal: No
Consultant: Donald E. Wilson
SUBJECT OF BILL
Clean up language for Military and Veterans Code Section
699.5
PROPOSED LAW
Detach code section 699.5 from code section 972.1.
EXISTING LAW AND BACKGROUND
County Veteran Service Officers (CVSO)s are a joint venture
of different levels of government to help veterans claim
their veterans' benefits.
California has an agreement with counties to pay 50% of the
cost. At the time the agreement was made 50% equaled $5
million dollars. The state has never met its commitment
and has never given more than $2.6 million in spite of the
fact that 50% of the cost now equals $23 million dollars.
Because of the lack of support and help the state has given
veterans in attaining benefits, there have not been enough
CVSOs hired to help all the veterans in California file
their claims. Not surprisingly other groups have sought to
come forward to help veterans. Over time these groups have
also asked the state for money to fund their efforts. The
end result was that these groups were fighting over the
same pot of money.
Eventually an agreement was reached that when the CVSOs
received their full $5 million funding, then a joint effort
would be launched to help all groups receive funding to
help relieve the backlog of veterans' claims in California.
The agreement resulted in 699.5 of the Military and
Veterans Code, which references section 972.1 of the code.
In 2008 SB 1778 was offered as clean up language for
section 972.1 but ran into problems because cleaning up
section 972.1 would have altered the agreement in section
699.5.
COMMENT
1. This bill is simple clean up language that makes a
technical but nonsubstantive change to section 699.5.
SUPPORT
American Legion, Department of California
OPPOSE
None received
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