RD105 - Virginia Department of Veterans Services Commissioner’s Fiscal Year 2011 Annual Report - December 1, 2011


Executive Summary:
I continue to be enthusiastic about the Department of Veterans Services and all the things we do for the 823,000 veterans of the Commonwealth of Virginia. With Governor McDonnell’s aspiration of making Virginia the most veteran-friendly state in the nation, the more than 700 full and part-time employees of the Department of Veterans Services – many of whom are veterans themselves – have rededicated themselves to serving those who served us so well.

We seem to be doing better every year by all imaginable measures. Our goal is to become even more responsive to veterans’ needs – from our elderly World War II and Korean War veterans to our newest and often youngest veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq. We are happy to be able to provide them help when they need it to thank them for serving all of us.

We continue to work with our aging computer systems but sincerely feel that this will be the year that our automated, encrypted, web-based solution will enable our agents to reduce the time needed to process veterans’ claims.

Thanks largely to Governor McDonnell’s enthusiastic support, our agency continues to enjoy bipartisan support from the Virginia General Assembly. We anticipate another good year in the legislature.

DVS provides a broad range of services – from assisting veterans and their families with the benefits claims process, helping wounded warriors, and supporting educational benefits for veterans, to caring for injured, ill, and elderly veterans and meeting their final needs through our cemetery services. This report details the accomplishments of each of the agency’s five areas of service. However, I’m proud to provide this quick snapshot of agency accomplishments during FY11.

• Filed 28,541 disability compensation claims, an eight percent increase over FY10. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (USDVA) adjudicated 15,962 claims submitted by DVS, and approved 12,063, or approximately 76 percent. Virginia veterans received nearly $58 million in retroactive claim awards during FY11, up more than 80% over the previous year.

• Disbursed $1.3 million in funding to five regional consortia to provide services at the community level to veterans with combat stress and traumatic brain injuries as well as to their families.

• Certified that almost 1,000 educational programs met G.I. Bill requirements. Virginia veterans received more than $562 million in educational benefits during FFY10, and Virginia ranks fourth in the nation in terms of the number of veterans using their G.I. Bill benefits.

• Provided 134,759 patient days of care at the Sitter & Barfoot Veterans Care Center in Richmond and the Virginia Veterans Care Center in Roanoke.

• Served the memorial needs of Virginia’s veterans by performing 1,091 burials at Virginia’s three state veterans cemeteries.

Our agency will continue to achieve major significant accomplishments in the coming months – moving forward on the addition to the Sitter & Barfoot Care Center, increasing the number of veterans and their families served by the Virginia Wounded Warrior Program, implementing our automatic claims processing system, and working with the McDonnell administration and our key partners to make Virginia the nation’s most veteran friendly state.

Paul E. Galanti
Commissioner