I’ve spent too much time looking in the VA budget for the line item for grant payments to VSOs without success.  The VSOs serve under the VA’s Office of General Counsel as accredited partners and have read-only access to CAPRI and veterans health and compensation records.  They are congressionally chartered, non-profit organizations.  They get perks like free rent and hold their own conventions in vacation spots.  But what federal department funnels funds to them?  Are they buried in the massive discretionary funds categories?

In states like Michigan, VSO’s can apply for grants funds.  See page 16 for the size of recent grants awards. http://www.house.mi.gov/hfa/briefings/MilitaryVets%2010-11.pdf

In Pennsylvania, VSO’s may use their grant money for salaries and benefits (4).   Some private SOs are unpaid volunteers; others are assumed to be paid staff (accreditation form 7B by the VA.  County SO salaries are paid by state budgets.  VSOs like the VFW, get large donations from corporate sponsors and small ones from citizens who donate during the poppy drives.

A consortium of VSOs publish an “independent budget” that calls for better salaries and HR training (more Orlando parties?) for VA workers as a critical issue!  What’s weird about the VSO budget is that it doesn’t present even one spread sheet.  It’s all words as bland and sugarly as a Twinkie.   http://www.independentbudget.org/2011/CI_2012.pdf

There is no question that VSOs help active military and veterans in many ways and I’m grateful for their efforts.  But the monetary relationships between governmental entities like the VA and VSOs should be an open book.  And the qualifications of SOs working under the OGC need to be improved given their high denial rates.  At the BVA level, attorney’s have the lowest denial rates.  To see which VSOs rates best, re-read Average Joe Vet’s post. https://asknod.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/vsos-report-card-for-2011/ 

At the RO level, veterans are denied the right to a qualified attorney in this special legal arena and the denial rates reflect this fact.

Ed. note: Wheeeeeeew, doggies. She sure touched a sore nerve there. I know, too, that the chartered VSOs get funds from VA (read congress) for representing Vets. They obtain these via the Form 21-22 POA. That is why VSOs are constantly trolling for more. It’s their cash cow that feeds them. The actual sum seems to be hard to discern. I talked at length with the Washington State PR gal at the Dept. of State Vets Affairs last year in pursuit of an answer. She danced around a number but would not commit to an actual sum.  All she would say was that it was paltry. In government, paltry can be $2000.00 a head. Government types have difficulty quantifying paltry. To them, no sum is too exorbitant where their salaries are concerned.