Veterans fund founded in 1961 headed for bankruptcy

Veterans fund headed for bankruptcy?
March 16, 2011
By Matt Hrodey
Gov. Scott Walker and the Department of Veterans Affairs are at odds over how to correct the predicted bankruptcy of the state’s Veterans Trust Fund. The fund, the primary source of state funding for veterans programs in Wisconsin, is expected to go broke in 2013. Walker wants to grab savings from lower benefit costs for workers at the state’s two veterans nursing homes to prop up the Trust Fund and has proposed privatizing one home. Veterans Affairs officials object to both plans.

The budget repair bill, signed by Walker last week, paves the way for the state to realize large savings in state employee benefits by increasing employee contributions to pension and health insurance coverage. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said on Tuesday this will save the veterans homes about $13 million in the 2011-13 biennium, a portion of which could be used to keep the Trust Fund afloat. Walker’s 2011-13 budget calls for a change in state law that would allow the department to make such a transfer of funds.

The Trust Fund – founded in 1961 and periodically replenished with injections of state funding – hasn’t received such an infusion since 1988, according to a department report. The department requested about $2.9 million in additional funding to sustain the fund through the 2011-13 biennium, saying that was the “bare minimum,” but Walker denied the request.

The fund pays for an array of programs providing loans, health care grants and job training to veterans. It also provides funding for the state’s Military Honors Funeral Program, the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and the state’s three veterans cemeteries.

In a letter veterans Secretary Ken Black wrote to Walker earlier this week, he says that at a time “of unprecedented need in the veterans community, the budget proposal does not fix the structural deficit in the Veterans Trust Fund.”

The fund balance has wavered between about $20 million and $30 million going back to fiscal year 2004, but the fund is projected to contain just $13 million by the end of fiscal year 2011 (June 30).
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Veterans fund headed for bankruptcy