La. lawmakers may enhance veterans’ benefits - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

La. lawmakers may enhance veterans’ benefits

BATON ROUGE, La. — Lawmakers are considering whether to broaden a program for permanently disabled veterans and to loosen rules on Louisiana’s free college tuition program so more veterans can be eligible, members of the House and Senate veterans affairs committees said Thursday.

The more complex matter involves a program for Louisiana National Guard soldiers who become permanently disabled on active duty.

They are eligible for $100,000 under current law, but disabled soldiers say the criteria are too strict and don’t reflect when guardsmen are deemed permanently disabled by federal officials. A lawsuit has been filed over the matter.

“We’re the veterans that served in the beginning couple years of the war. We’re the veterans who fell through the crack,” said Chad Battles of Gretna, who served in Iraq from 2004-05 as a member of the Louisiana National Guard.

Battles, who has suffered spinal cord and knee injuries, is one of the soldiers who filed a lawsuit challenging the state eligibility criteria for the $100,000 disability payment. He said he’s been declared permanently and totally disabled by federal officials, but it took four years for the determination so he wasn’t deemed eligible for the state payment.

Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Lane Carson said state law makes few disabled veterans able to receive the $100,000 payment. Two people have been paid, and another dozen have been denied.

Carson told lawmakers that current statute is tied to a federal determination that a guardsman was considered 100 percent permanently and totally disabled, and that decision must be when federal veterans officials make the initial assessment of a person’s condition, even if that assessment is changed later.

The state also gives $250,000 to families of Louisiana National Guard soldiers who died while on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001. Both the death and disability benefits apply only to Louisiana National Guard members and their relatives, not to members of the Army or other military branches.

The second situation under review by lawmakers is tweaking the standards for the TOPS program, the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, to make soldiers who re-enlisted eligible for the free tuition aid when they leave the military.

Under current law, students have one year from the time they graduate high school to be able to receive the TOPS scholarship. Those who enter a branch of military service immediately after high school are given five years to continue TOPS eligibility.

But the law doesn’t allow a veteran to re-enlist and receive a TOPS award after the completion of service, said Melanie Amrhein, executive director of the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance.

Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, chairman of the Senate veterans affairs committee, said veterans should be eligible for TOPS, even if they re-enlist for a longer stint in the military.

Adley said lawmakers will revisit these provisions to decide whether they will file proposals to change both the disability payment and TOPS eligibility requirements in the 2012 legislative session.