 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name's Adam Payne. I'm County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Mike Van der Steen. Veterans Day is gonna be here November 11th, so the timing of this program is real nice because not only is that gonna be here soon or when this program is airing, but Charlene Cobb, our Veteran Service Officers, with us today and she's now with Sheboygan County. I understand three years this month, this month October. We're taping this mid-October right now. So Charlene, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Well, thank you. Pleasure to be here. Three years. Did it go by quickly or? Extremely quickly. Has it been excruciatingly slow? Oh, no, not my office. Well, it's a pleasure to have you. Charlene's been our Veteran Service Officer for, again, the last three years. Been doing a wonderful job and a very important responsibility in the county's smallest office. As you know, we have 20 departments ranging from Health and Human Services to the Sheriff's Department to some of our smallest departments, the smallest being the Veteran Service Office. Small perhaps in size, but not in responsibility. Please start a little bit, Charlene, telling us about yourself and the mission of the Veteran Service Office. Well, about myself, one of the requirements to be a county Veteran Service Officer is I have to have served in the United States military. So I'm retired Navy. I spent 21 years as an air traffic controller in the Navy. And I think that really helps with my job because I spent a lot of years reading rules and regulations with air traffic control, keeping planes safe. And that translates well into reading the federal rules and regulations that I have to deal with and read helping our veterans with the benefits because they're dealing with the bureaucracy as well. The office is the smallest one in Sheboygan County, but I agree with you, Adam, that I think it's one of the most important in our county. And it brings in a lot of money to our county for people to be spending in the stores and businesses here in the county. This last year, I believe we brought in over $10 million in benefits, federal benefits. Federal benefits that you help pass on to local veterans. Correct. So I helped our local veterans to receive benefits from our federal government. And in turn, the federal government compensated them and provided monetary benefits to them. Like I said, over $10 million of revenue coming into the county to be spent on homes, cars, food, clothes, electronics, whatever. And benefits they've obviously earned thanks to their sacrifice. How many veterans approximately do we have in Sheboygan County and what types of programs do you help them with? Well, according to the federal VA rule stats, they say we have about 9,000 veterans. I think their figures are on the low side. I would say we're up into double digits for veterans. And my office, not only do we help the active duty in the retired or no longer serving veterans, but we also help their family members. So it's very important for our listeners to realize that even if they aren't personally a veteran, if their parents were veterans from World War II or Korea, Vietnam, there may be benefits available for their aging parents from the Veterans Administration as well as with our current veterans that we have a lot of education benefits can be transferred to their children under certain circumstances or to their spouse. So we actually help spouses and children and get benefits for either a veteran of family member or that they're eligible for themselves just by being a family member of a veteran, a wartime veteran. And what kind of programs are we talking about? What type of assistant could a veteran receive or a loved one of a veteran receive if they contact you? They range from healthcare benefits. Most of the time with our healthcare benefits, that's a federal program, and that's for the veteran themselves. There's certain circumstances if the veteran is retired that those benefits also carry to their spouse or dependent children. Education benefits, there's both state and federal education benefits. Home loans, home improvement loans, personal loans, retraining grants if somebody is laid off or their job is downsized or outsourced, they may be eligible to utilize state benefits and get some reeducation to be able to get a new job. We provide assistance for needy veterans, dental grants, help them get hearing aids for our older ones that have a loss of hearing. So there's a wide variety. Our disabled veterans in the county may be eligible for a park pass that would allow them to go to one of our state parks and not have to pay the nominal fee for getting into the park. So earlier we were not really joking, seriously, your department is the smallest, the airport department I think is a similar number of staff, but you have that pride of being the smallest department in Sheboygan County. You just mentioned we have somewhere between nine and 10,000 veterans. Not only are you there to support them, but they're family members. So you must have an immense staff. Just how many staff do you have in Sheboygan County? I have myself and my secretary in my office. So we are extremely busy in there and we take a lot of phone calls and people that just walk in and mail that we get, we get stacks of mail that we go through, paperwork that's come in or requests for information. Which is again remarkable and obviously you have to be a very knowledgeable person to be in that position. Your assistant I know has become very knowledgeable over time. Of course we all have learning curves. And then from time to time, don't you also bring in a limited term employee or a project specialist? I'm very fortunate with working in the veterans office that it's a benefit that our veterans have while they're going to school and utilizing federal education benefits that they can apply for what they call work study. It's a win-win for both the veteran and for the office that they are able to work in. The federal government pays their salary. They come and work in my office for several hours during the week. And the only thing that I have to do is be aware that their primary mission is to be utilizing their education benefits and going to school. So the hours that they work in my office have to be around the hours that they have to go to school. And by being a part of the work study program, it's not the same as a regular employer where the regular employer could expect them to be there every single day from eight to noon or from one to four. My office, we have to be a little on the flexible side with there's a test coming up or there's this project due or that project due that they're required to spend time in a lab or whatever their case might be that I work their work hours with me around their school hours. But it's beneficial in that I do have somebody in the office to help answer phones, to help hand out paperwork, to do some of the filing, some of the things that could kind of push to the back burner on a normal basis. Now, our viewers might be wondering, well, a staff of two for all these veterans and right now we're seeing more and more coming back as we were talking about off the air from Iraq and Afghanistan and these are people in need who need that service. Number one, they need to be patient and certainly if you're a veteran and you've served in the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines, you've probably gotten used to standing in line from time to time so hopefully folks are gonna be patient with you. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. That's the military motto. My dad's a veteran and I know that was one of his pet peeves is all the times you hurry up and wait but in addition to the Shaboygan County's veteran service office, then we have the VA. There might be some folks out there wondering, well, what's the difference? Are they redundant to one another? What's the difference between your office and the VA office and where do they go? Where do they start? And there's three different separate entities and they are separate entities. They don't have, they work together but they don't have anything to do with one another and that's the Federal Veterans Administration which is located in Milwaukee. And then you get with the federal VA, there's two separate parts of the federal VA. There's the medical center world and then there's the regional office and they sit next door to one another and they have the same first name but they don't talk to one another most of the time. But that's the federal entity. Then we have the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, they have their own programs that they manage and control and run. They're located in Madison and they don't have anything to do with the federal programs. Sometimes a state program will run in conjunction or kind of supplement a federal program but their state programs, each state is allowed to choose and do their own so you start looking on websites between us and Wyoming, Nebraska and totally different for the benefits that are available through the state. The federal would be the same regardless of what state you lived in but the state benefits are different. And then my office, it's mandated by state law but I'm a county employee. So our listeners, you all pay my salary, thank you very much. And I am very proud to be the Shabuigan County Veterans Service Officer and I thank all of our residents here in Shabuigan County. I think we do a phenomenal job of recognizing and supporting and taking care of the veterans that we have here in the county with a lot of different programs that we have available here. And you do a phenomenal job. I agree with you 100%. The importance of taking care of our veterans and I think a lot of people think of veterans as, well, those older men and women from World War II or Korea or now Vietnam, my dad's in his 70s, he's a Vietnam veteran and we have so many new veterans now coming from Iraq, from Afghanistan. And how is that impacting your office? How is that impacting the community? It's a huge impact. One of the things that has come out of this current conflict, this war is extremely different from the other wars that we have fought with this country. The main thing is, is that because of the technology that we have available to us and the skill of our medical personnel, some of our soldiers that would never have made it off the battlefield in a previous conflict is being triaged and given out of the battlefield and to some of the best medical facilities in the entire world. And their lives are being saved, which is great because they're coming home to their families and to the people that love them. But on the other side of that, they're coming home with serious illnesses and injuries that require a lot of care. And the VA is working really hard to provide assistance to family members because we're finding that a lot of these veterans, they don't end up in nursing homes. They come home to families, parents and spouses and siblings that are caring for their loved one and becoming a full-time job to care for someone. And we've seen the TV shows of the extreme makeovers where Ty Pennington and his group will come in and redo somebody's house to make it handicapped accessible so that the veteran that has the serious injury from war has a place to live and be able to stay at home with their families. But I think it's a responsibility that we have to realize as citizens that we need to take care of these veterans and their families and provide for them, provide the care that they need. Last question before I turn it over to Mike, I've always really appreciated the veteran service office mission statement to serve those who served. It's one of the few mission statements I can remember of all the departments because it's just so short and to the point to serve those who served. In just the three years you've been here, how many veterans do you think you've served? And what kind of impact do you think that's having? It must be a very gratifying position to be in to help folks like that when they come to you and need to get resettled or get pointed in the right direction for some program or some type of benefit. It's the absolute best job in the world, bar none. I tell people that all the time. I think I work harder at this job than I ever have in my entire life and I love it more. It absolutely is. And my counterparts across the state, we all feel the same way, that it's the absolute best job to have in the world to be able to help other veterans. And as far as how many I've helped, literally thousands. We take on an average about 20 phone calls per day and we'll have anywares from five to 10 people that just walk in as well as the four or five that we schedule for appointments and my appointments routinely take an hour or more and sometimes can take as much as two, two and a half hours depending on the complexity of what it is that we're having, you know, the file and do and as far as being gratifying, there are hundreds of stories. Not long ago had a phone call from the spouse of a veteran, they were risking, they were close to losing their home and had, because of his injuries, was not able to work and we had filed for benefits through the federal government and they were down to having only a few weeks left and they'd have been out of their home and they got the paperwork back from the VA that their claim had been approved and because of the length of time it took to process that claim, they were getting a back pay check all the way back to when they had initially filed their claim, so the money they received was enough to make their loan current with the bank and save their house as well as payback family members that had been helping them out with utility bills and things like that and she was literally in tears on the phone calling just saying you just don't know what this means to receive this check in the mail and know that we're gonna get to keep our house and we hear, you know, there's stories like that that we hear all the time. Very good, thank you, Charlene. Charlene, every year we celebrate federal holidays like Memorial Day, now many families will look at this as a time to get together with the family and to have a day off of work but they may not think about the real significance of a holiday like that. Why is it important to have public events like Memorial Day, Veterans Day which is coming up and also Pearl Harbor Day? I think it's very important as a British statesman Edmund Burke said, those who don't know history are destined to repeat it. And so I think we need to pass on the heritage, pass on the sacrifices that our veterans and their families have made. Less than 1% of the American population currently serves in the United States military and so they have no idea what's involved when somebody goes off to war and how devastating that is not only for them to be leaving their family but their families to be sitting here waiting. And so by us doing programs on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, it's an opportunity to spotlight the sacrifices that our servicemen and women make in support of our country. Now our World War II population of veterans is declining rapidly. How can people ensure that the sacrifices of these and other veterans are not forgotten and remembered at Veterans Day time? And I would say get involved. Not only with the events that come along, Memorial Day, the parades, Veterans Day, the programs that are around the communities but in the communities just to get involved in other projects, cleaning up a park, volunteering at schools. Anything that's community oriented that makes a better place, a neighborhood watch program, things like that. After all, those of us that have served in the military, that's what we want is we want communities that are wonderful places to live to be able to raise our families. So I would say, if you wanna honor your servicemen and women from this country, get involved in your communities. Make a difference where you're actually living. Now you told us before we went on the air a little bit about the quirk and the calendar this year. Why don't you tell the rest of the public about that? Oh, okay. The Veterans Day is always celebrated on November 11th and the armistice according to history was signed at 11-11 on November 11th and this year because it's 2011, we have 11-11-11 at 11-11. So most of the communities will be doing programs that will start right around 11 o'clock so that they're actually in the middle of their program at 11-11 on the 11th of November, 2011. That's great, it's real fitting to see that coming up and drawing a little extra attention to Veterans Day coming up this year. Are there, I understand there's different types of memberships, could you please explain a little bit about the requirements to join a Veterans Organization? And there are a variety of requirements and a lot of the Veterans Organizations have a specific purpose. So you'll have the AMVETs, which is short for American Veterans. The eligibility for that organization, all you have to do is have served in the military any place, anywhere, any time and you're eligible for that organization. For the American Legion, you have to have served during a wartime period, not necessarily in a war zone but during specific periods of history. So during peacetime, members weren't eligible to join the American Legion. And then for ones like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, you actually have to have a qualifying ribbon indicating that you were in a particular war zone as well as during a war period to be eligible for it. And then we have ones like the Marine Corps League and the Fleet Reserve Association that are unique to a specific service that makes you eligible to join. So there's a variety of requirements. A good way to check it out is to go online to the various organizations to see what their eligibility requirements are. Talk to your friends and neighbors that are also members of these organizations or they can come and ask me in my office where kind of information's central for Sheboygan County. Well, thanks for explaining the ins and outs of these different organizations and how they can find out about them and get connected with some of their fellow veterans and participate in the activities. With that, I'll turn it back over to Adam. So as you plan for the remainder of this year and looking down the road, what are some of the goals or aspirations you have for the Veterans Service Office? To get more people. Actually, just to be able to help all of the veterans that come through our doors to provide a good service to them, point them in the right direction. We don't have a lot of programs that we actually do here in Sheboygan County. We're just sort of information central to guide them into the appropriate areas of whether it's a federal program or a state program that they're eligible for. And to really do some good, this is a great program here to get the word out to just have people coming in to see me and check to see what eligibility they may have for programs. And that includes family members as well as the actual veterans themselves. I had someone just the other day is a widow of a veteran. And had come in looking for information about something else. And as I was looking at the file, realized that her husband was 100% disabled when he passed away like 10 years ago. So I asked, I said, do you own your own home? And she said, yes. I said, have you applied for your property tax credit? And she went, what's that? Well, that answer obviously indicates that no, she hasn't. Individuals that are 100% disabled with the federal government, with the federal veterans administration, if they own their own home, Wisconsin, that's a benefit of Wisconsin, is they can get a refund of their property taxes on their primary residence. So the same thing. Now it's bringing state dollars back into the county because that they pay their property tax and then they apply for the refund. And it comes from the state government back to our veteran to be able to spend for other stuff. Is it 100% of their property tax that they get refunded? Correct. Wow, that's very significant. Yes it is. Very significant, I'll be darned. On their primary residence. The veteran has to be 100% disabled, but for individuals that have passed away, if they were 100% disabled at the time of their death, then their spouse, as long as the spouse has not remarried, is eligible to request the refund of their property tax. That's one of those benefits that carries over to a family member. As you know, Jim Riesenberg was the veteran service officer prior to you for a number of years. I can't recall anymore. I think it was like 21. Yeah, I thought I was gonna say over 20 years. And I know that the demands on his time were significant as well. You've brought more technological savvy to the office and have tried to streamline some things there, which we all need to be emphasizing more. But as I hear you give that little snapshot of veterans coming in and having to fill out those applications and it can take an hour and a half to really dive into what their needs are and correctly fill out the forms. That just takes a lot of people time. It's not something you're gonna just refer them to a website and hope they get through it all right. You made the comment earlier, you know, and I asked what goals? And you said more staff, more help. And though in county government, we're in this mode right now of streamlining and reducing expenses and trying to take fiscal pressures off property taxpayers as a whole. At the same time, there are real needs and areas that ultimately you do have to make adjustments. Law enforcement's a big one. Our sheriff's department certainly hasn't gotten any smaller over time and the veteran service office has really had two individuals for years now. I mean, I think 25 years or so, at some point, particularly with the current conflicts and if they continue or something else escalates, we may have to add staff. And the reason I point this out to the time I am here is because sometimes you just, you have to invest in areas to make sure that the help is there to get the job done. Now, with all that said, if I'm a veteran or a family member and I call your office, and I know the demands are high on your staff time, but if I call the office, what's the average weight to make an appointment? Oh, the average weight to make an appointment is probably about two or three weeks. Okay. And again, if you're going to make an appointment with a doctor's office or for a dentist appointment, it can be two or three months. So some of our viewers might be saying, well, that doesn't sound too bad. And I don't think there's been a huge upcry out there, but if it's a widow or a spouse of a disabled veteran who is about to lose their home, they may not be able to wait two or three weeks. Do you have some priority pecking order that you can put in place in emergency situations? And we do. I mean, I will work really hard, even if it means working through a lunch period or having somebody come in right at the end of the day where I don't get out of my office then until 5.36 o'clock because I've taken them, you know, squeezed them in because of a need that they have. The thing is, is most of the time we're having to submit that paperwork to the federal VA and then we still end up waiting. Just the turnaround time for the federal level. What we need to do is I try and get those through my office as fast as possible because that determines their eligibility date. So when they get that back payment as to how far it goes back, the longer it takes us to get all the paperwork and get it submitted, then the less money they get. So the quicker we get that in, then the earlier their eligibility date is if it's approved that the VA will go back to. But we do make a concerted effort that if it's something that we know is an emergency and the VA will also, if they're very good with homeless veterans working on getting them into some sort of a treatment program if that's needed and just working extra hours, extra time to make sure that happens to take care of our veterans. Well, Charlene, I just wanna say thank you because you've done an excellent job and you're a short three-year tenure and if there's a theme to this program today, it's that if you're a veteran or a family member or loved one of a veteran, the sooner you contact our Sheboygan County Veterans Service Office, the better because Charlene and her staff or one employee can help you guide you to certain programs and services that may improve the quality of your life and that's what the department's all about to serve those who serve. So Charlene, thank you for being with us today on behalf of the Sheboygan County Board, Chairman Mike van der Steen. We appreciate you joining us once again this month. Next month, we're gonna have Tom Eggebrecht here from the Health and Human Services Department, another very important department in Sheboygan County. Until then, thanks for joining us.