The 2022 Legislative Session started and ended with a flurry of activity! While this year was a short (60 day) session, the amount of work accomplished on behalf of veterans and their families was remarkable!
(A full bill summary is available here.)
There were bills passed that add Washington State to the Psychology and Occupational Therapy Licensure Compacts. These compacts are important for everyone transitioning to Washington State with licenses in other compact states; however, they are significant for our veterans and military spouses who transition to our state after their service or have a military move that brings them to Washington. Measures such as this make the process of gaining a Washington State license easier and allows these individuals to gain employment more quickly.
In addition, a bill addressing Veterans, Military and Family Member Suicides was also passed. This bill has several components that will impact WDVA as well as other state agencies, higher education institutions, and nonprofit partners. We worked closely with the bill’s sponsor, Representative Tina Orwall, and look forward to implementing the suicide prevention community-based services grant program, creating a database of mental health and well-being resources, providing a web-based application, reviving the Suicide-Safer Homes Task Force, creating a Suicide Prevention License Plate emblem, and several other deliverables. The bill also allows the Secretary of State to being collecting donations for a Global War on Terrorism Memorial which will include a component designed to reflect those who died by suicide. We will share more on the WDVA Suicide Prevention Programs and the GWOT efforts in this and future Veteran Voices editions.
Even though this was a Supplemental Budget and not a full Biennial Budget session, there were a number of budget items that will impact WDVA and how we provide service:
- $677,000 was provided for fiscal year 2023 in support of suicide prevention measures (described above). This funding is in addition to the nearly $900,000 we had already received for the current fiscal biennium to support statewide goals to reduce suicide among service members, veterans, and their family members.
- $300,000 was received for fiscal year 2023 to fund two additional veterans service officers, one each in eastern and western Washington. We received funding last year for two veterans service officers, so this doubles the additional service officers funded for fiscal year 2023.
- $257,000 was funded for DVA to contract with an organization to provide peer support training for veterans and community service members.
- Nearly $10 million was provided to address the revenue shortfall in our State Veterans Homes due to the 20% decrease in resident census we have experienced over the past two years as a result of COVID-19. This funding will help us recover our staffing levels and begin admitting the veterans and other qualifying individuals that are in need of our skilled nursing and dementia care services.
- Nearly $1.3 million to provide Nursing Assistant-Certified (NAC) Recruitment and Retention Incentives for the biennium. This funding includes federal VA grant and state matching funds i to assist in the recruitment of NAC staff to fill our vacancies and to provide incentives for the retention of our current NAC’s and NAC-Leads.
- $334,000 for IT Security and Infrastructure to ensure we are compliant with statewide security requirements, as well as meet basic required IT support services for DVA staff.
- $132,000 to hire a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Program manager who will focus on compliance with DEI-related Executive Order requirements for state government agencies.
I’d like to recognize the work of the Veterans Legislative Coalition who put in hours of work monitoring bills, testifying on legislation, and ensuring our Representatives and Senators understood how proposed legislation would impact veterans and their families.
As we look forward to the 2023 Legislative Session, WDVA will work to align the priorities in our Strategic Plan to our budget requests so that we can continue to build the capacity of our agency to provide the resources you need!