The second Lake County Board of Commissioners action meeting of September featured a presentation on the Lake County Veterans Services Department’s start, what’s changed recently, its current status, and what its goals are for the future, courtesy of County Veterans Service Officer (CVSO) Brad Anderson.
A brief timeline of the department starts in 1945, with Minnesota authorizing CVSOs, followed in 1946 by the establishment of Lake County’s Veterans Services Department. The County had only one appointed CVSO for most of the past 80 years, until the appointment of an Assistant CVSO in 2023. Anderson described the change as positive, greatly increasing the amount of work the department could do. It also, however, made more apparent a potential flaw in the current system: consistency. Anderson’s goal and the focus of much of this year’s presentation is to create “shared standards and documented practices so that Veterans receive consistent service regardless of which VSO assists them.” This would apply not only with two VSOs operating simultaneously right now, but beyond, “so that current staff, future staff, and future CVSOs have the benefit of what we have learned, the system we have developed, and the relationships that we have built,” Anderson stated.
Although the Veterans Services Anderson works for is a County Department, most of the groups it collaborates with to aid Veterans are not, with him summing it up by saying, “Service may be local, but the system is not.” They tap into resources ranging from the state level, such as Minnesota’s Department of Veterans Affairs (MDVA) grants, homes, and cemeteries, to the federal level’s Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and Veterans Health Administration (VHA). They also work closely with local community resources including Veterans organizations, nonprofits, health care providers, and volunteers. “A single client’s situation may involve several of these environments at once,” Anderson pointed out.
The CVSO’s role, he continued, is not simply providing direct services, but understanding how the different services work together and making use of partnerships to provide the most effective help to Veterans. “Knowing where our responsibilities begin and end, and helping Veterans and their families navigate the appropriate resources.” He added that this includes keeping in mind that local Veterans are County residents first, and should take advantage of County benefits before turning to Veterans Services where possible.
Veterans Services does provide a number of ways it is able to help, largely through direct client assistance, claims and benefits advocacy, and helping find health care, outreach, education, and other resources. They often start, Anderson said, by “sitting down with Veterans and their families to determine what they’re trying to accomplish,” and figuring out what benefits or resources would be of use to that Veteran. “We’re often helping the individual understand the system, move through it, and determine what comes next.” Families and caregivers are included in the process as well and can also benefit from Veterans Services.
But the Department’s role can go well beyond a one-time check-in or help putting together a claim. Service can continue through the Veteran’s life, and as disabilities and life circumstances change, benefits available such as health care and housing may also change. Services do not end at death, either: benefits can include help with burial and cemetery affairs, as well as providing support to surviving spouses and dependents.
The amount of care needed by each Veteran has such large variation that a simple head count of the applicable population is not a good indicator of workload, according to Anderson. And although the VA has estimates on the Veterans population at any given time, their numbers are not exact and can be too delayed for accurate statistics. Furthermore, in Anderson’s experience, the estimates tend to range lower than the actual numbers of those needing services.
Lake County Board Chair Rich Sve asked Anderson his opinion on the reason for delayed accurate numbers on Veterans, but Anderson was unsure of the exact cause. He noted the federal government had revised the way they did their reporting last year, in both presentation and information given. He also expressed concern that recent VA numbers appear to be delayed by several months comparatively, making the data less accurate for the Department’s planning purposes.
As an example of the aid Veterans Services can offer, Anderson dug into the details of the process for helping a Veteran with VA disability compensation. Before filing a claim, the department starts by talking with the Veteran and making an assessment of their situation. Each case is unique and has many factors to consider, including the “need to understand [the] Veteran’s military history, their current medical conditions, prior VA decisions, existing evidence, and what may or may not be appropriate to the claim.”
After finishing their research, the case for the claim must be developed into a presentable state and filed. The department can stay in touch with clients during the claim processing to address issues and answer questions. Finally, after the VA’s decision on the claim, the department can help the Veteran figure out how to handle the result, whether positive or negative. “A disability claim is not a single transaction. It can be one part of a much longer relationship with a Veteran,” Anderson stated. “The VA makes the decisions, and our role is to help the Veteran develop, navigate, and understand the claim and what comes next.”
Anderson turned back to the department’s overall goal of consistency. With two VSOs, he wants to ensure that a process like filing for disability compensation goes smoothly, even if the VSO handling the case has to switch out partway through. He also wants Veterans to be able to expect the same professional, educated level of service regardless of who is helping them. His work towards that goal has focused on creating several tools to help with consistency, including training resources, templates, and internal review processes. He emphasized that his focus was not to stop individuals from using their professional judgment, but to give their judgment a consistent framework to build upon.
He gave special notice to one new, complicated tool in particular: AI. His use of AI is carefully restrained to assisting with research and development, collecting complex information, and helping with drafting claims. He emphasized that even with AI as a tool, professional judgment is still a large part of the process: “The VSO still has to understand the Veteran’s circumstances, evaluate the evidence, and determine what questions need to be answered to decide how to best develop the claim.” Although AI helps gather information, “it does not make that professional decision; it does not replace the VSO.” In incorporating AI into the claims-making process, he found the need to have a “clearly defined methodology for how to develop claims,” polishing the process to ensure, once again, consistency and a professional level of quality regardless of who is putting together the claim. Perhaps most importantly, the process does not rely on any one tool, including AI; a claim can still be done using the new methodology even without AI.
The key to Anderson’s overall strategy is preserving and building institutional knowledge, which he described in three steps. First, building knowledge through experience, training, judgement, and lessons learned. Second, capturing that knowledge via policies, procedures, templates, and reference material. Finally, that knowledge from past VSOs can be carried forward and “to inherit the benefit of what we have learned.” “The goal,” he said, “is to document what can be standardized and preserved through context so that current and future staff understand not only what we need to do but why we do it.”
He delved into details on another vital part of Veterans Services: outreach with other groups and resources. He listed several recent local events as examples, including the Community Brain Train event this past May, the Lake County Fair, and the Veterans Home Car Show and Resource Fair. Through a consistent presence during events, they hope to have an opportunity to reach out to Veterans “who might not otherwise contact the office” and provide education about Veterans Services. In addition, the department writes weekly newspaper articles to keep Veterans up to date on recent affairs, and is always on the lookout for further partnerships with groups that could aid Veterans.
Those partnerships with local, state, and federal groups allow for strong relationships which let “a small office to extend its capabilities well beyond what two employees can provide on their own,” Anderson explained. He gave a shoutout to Operation V4V while listing local resources, along with Lake County’s HRA. The Lake County Veterans Memorial was used as another good example of partnership, with Veteran information requests leading to data practices review, education and process improvement, and collaboration with other Veteran resources to work on the project.
The Minnesota Association of County Veterans Service Officers (MACVSO) has also been a large help by giving access to expertise, programs, and other resources that do not exist at the county level. Anderson has been elected as their District 3 Representative for three years now, giving Lake County “access to conversations, resources, and experience from CVSOs across the state,” while in turn allowing Lake County’s knowledge to benefit CVSOs in the rest of the state.
Anderson is currently working with the Minnesota Department of Administration Data Practices Office, Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs, and MACVSO to develop CVSO-specific education and training, as “the challenges we are addressing are not unique to Lake County.” He continued on by saying that “new work creates new questions, those questions lead to education and review, and that work can ultimately improve Veterans Services both locally and statewide.”
Looking ahead, Anderson thinks the future of the department comes down to a few basic principles:
Consistency in the department’s standards and expectations, knowledge being documented and preserved, adaptability as “we need systems that allow us to learn, adjust, and continually improve,” and connection with other partners and professional networks including the state and federal levels.
He concluded by summing up his goal as “preserving what works, improving what can be improved, documenting what should be carried forward, and making sure that future staff have the benefit of what we have already learned,” by building a department with “strong standards, durable knowledge, productive relationships, and the ability to adapt regardless of who eventually occupies these positions.”
