CREATION OF CABINET-LEVEL STATE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ADVOCATED

          Harrisburg, November 11, 2007 -- As Pennsylvanians pause this Veterans Day to honor the service and sacrifice of those who have served in our nation's armed forces, Senate Democratic Whip Michael A. O'Pake (D-Berks) called for action on legislation (SB 28) to create a distinct and separate Cabinet-level Pennsylvania Department of Veterans Affairs.
          O'Pake, a cosponsor of the legislation to split the functions of the current state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said "the absolute need to elevate the current state Bureau of Veterans Affairs to departmental status and to provide additional resources to administer veterans programs has been thoroughly underscored" by a new 154-page report of the state's Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LB&FC).
          "Pennsylvania's war veterans past and present -- including those who have returned and those we pray will soon return from Iraq and Afghanistan -- deserve better," O'Pake said, citing the study's finding that the state's current administrative setup for veterans programs has put Pennsylvania "in the bottom one-quarter of all states in the receipt of federal funding" for veterans.
          "This is nothing short of an outrage considering that Pennsylvania has one of the largest war veteran populations in the nation.  Our veterans should not be at the bottom of receiving federal resources; they should be at the top," O'Pake said.
          The report found that the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs spent less per veteran in Pennsylvania than some 42 other states and that if Pennsylvania veterans had received just the average of what is spent per veteran nationwide "Pennsylvania would receive an additional $594.3 million worth of federal funds."  The full study and report can be viewed online at http://lbfc.legis.state.pa.us/.
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