Leaders with Alabama veterans’ groups said they were not consulted on a bill to change control of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs and called for legislators to slow down the process before voting on the bill.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, said he would work on changing the bill in response to their concerns.
The House Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, which Oliver chairs, held a public hearing on the bill Wednesday but did not take a vote.
Oliver said the bill, HB154, might be considered by the committee next week.
The same bill was debated and amended in the Senate on Tuesday.
The Senate sponsor, Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre, asked Tuesday to delay a vote on his bill, SB67, to allow senators and public to review the changes.
Gov. Kay Ivey supports the bill, which comes a few months after Ivey overruled the State Board of Veterans Affairs and fired ADVA Commissioner Kent Davis in a dispute that played out publicly over a couple of months.
Ivey mentioned the bill during her State of the State address on Feb. 4, saying the goal was to improve services for veterans and their families.
Davis, a retired admiral in the Navy who led the ADVA from 2019 until he was removed by the governor in October, attended Wednesday’s public hearing but did not speak.
Davis has said he opposed HB154, partly because he said veterans groups were not consulted. He said it marked a drastic change in the structure of the agency that has been in place since 1945.
Under current law, the State Board of Veterans Affairs hires the commissioner and sets policy for the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs. The board has 17 slots and is chaired by the governor. The board members represent groups including the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, and others.
The board hires the commissioner who runs the ADVA.
HB154 would change the board to nine members, seven appointed by the governor and one each by the House speaker and Senate president pro-tem. The board would change to an advisory role.
Under the bill, the governor would appoint the commissioner, rather than the board.
About 10 representatives of veterans groups spoke at today’s hearing.
They generally said the current structure has worked well but acknowledged changes were needed. They did not oppose making the ADVA commissioner an appointee of the governor. But they were concerned about changing the board, reducing its authority, and reducing the role of veterans service organizations on the board.
“We acknowledge that commissioner should serve as part of the governor’s cabinet,” said Willie Rogers, commander of the American Legion Department of Alabama.
“But the board was created to provide checks and balances to ensure fair representation for all veterans’ organizations. Under HB154 the board is reduced to a mere advisory role, stripping it of their ability to oversee budgets, policies, and key decisions about veterans.”
Robert Schmidbauer, a commander with the VFW Department of Alabama, said HB154 was prepared by a small group of legislators and rushed into committee.
Schmidbauer said the VFW supported elevating the commissioner to a cabinet-level appointment by the governor, a change he said would increase the influence of the ADVA through state government.
But he said the VFW wanted the state board to maintain its role overseeing the ADVA, rather than becoming advisory only, because he said that would best ensure accountability and prioritizing needs for veterans.
Former Mobile Mayor Mike Dow, a Vietnam veteran, urged legislators to slow down and take care with the bill.
“Let’s craft this thing so you do something extremely good so you that you can help the veterans of our state,” Dow said.
“Let’s don’t rush into this and do something you don’t understand. Please, don’t take veterans off our board and put people who don’t understand who veterans are. We need people leading us and people beside us who understand who veterans are.”
The bill sponsor, Oliver, was a helicopter pilot in the Army and served from 1979 to 2010.
Oliver said the goal is to make the ADVA more responsive and offer more and better services for veterans.
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