Changes may be coming to the Seward County Veterans Service Officer and Public Transit Director position.
Currently, the two roles are combined into one full-time job, but the county board of commissioners is considering splitting the position into a full-time public transit director and a part-time veterans service officer.
Veteran advocates, including Seward County’s Veterans Service Committee and the state VFW adjutant/quartermaster, are saying a part-time VSO isn’t enough to serve the county’s 1,000-1,100 veterans.
“We are working on how that might look, how it might be able to be separated,” said Commissioner Misty Ahmic, who serves as the liaison to those departments and the veterans service committee.
Ahmic said the driving factor behind the split is to allow veterans to be better served. Currently, the position allows for 16 hours per week to be spent on veterans service and 24 hours per week on public transit.
“If you’re juggling two roles, it’s really hard, and those are very different roles,” Ahmic said. “Being able to split the two positions gives veterans their own department.”
The proposal before the board would increase hours for both departments, Ahmic wsaid, bumping public transit up to full-time and moving the veterans service officer to 20-25 hours per week.
“As it stands right now, it’s adding hours,” Ahmic said.
She said the veterans service office also employs a veterans assistant for 32 hours per week.
“That position would not change,” she said.
Matt Starkey, a 24-year retired Army veteran, served as Seward County’s VSO for just over two years. His last day in the office was Friday, July 7, as he will now become the VSO in Kearney.
Starkey said a VSO’s job covers a wide range of assignments related to veterans and their wellbeing.
“VSOs are here basically to provide assistance to any veterans in the county or wherever they come from. That can range from healthcare through the VA system, veterans disability compensation, education benefits, loan guarantee questions, questions about state benefits and access to state veteran homes, about burial benefits from VA, or if they are going to a national or state veterans cemetery. It’s everything from service to death for all the benefits for the veterans, and it continues to cover if that veteran passes away and has dependents. It continues for their spouse. There’s a lot,” he said.
The amount of work for both roles has increased over the past few years, Starkey said. He started in the role during the COVID-19 pandemic when fewer people were using public transit services and veterans weren’t coming into the office as much.
“Since we’re really starting to come out of COVID now, the volume of work is increasing to the point where it’s very difficult to do in a 40-hour week, and the complexity of both has increased,” he said.
The VA, or U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, has moved many of its functions online to be more efficient. For Starkey, that meant providing extra assistance for older veterans who are not tech-savvy.
In August 2022, Congress passed the Honoring Our PACT Act, or its Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics.
“Basically it’s a movement toward making sure the veterans who were exposed to toxic hazards during service are taken care of, everything from healthcare to disability,” Starkey said.
The act includes benefits for veterans exposed to Agent Orange, burn pits, radiation and nuclear testing, and contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
“When that passed, that generated a lot more veteran traffic and a lot more questions,” Starkey said. “It has definitely increased the tempo of the office.”
On the public transit side, Starkey’s responsibilities were to write applications for federal and state grants, oversee operations with one dispatcher, 10 drivers and four vehicles, and ensure the department complied with all federal rules and regulations governing transit.
“We have three drivers on duty every day moving people about within the county,” he said.
The department also transports residents to Lincoln for medical appointments and other errands.
A big part of the job is reporting information and tracking grant reimbursement.
“There was an audit in the state of Nebraska a couple years ago that has caused us to look closer, resulting in more reporting,” Starkey said.
Public transit operates mainly through federal and state grants, which could allow funding for a full-time director position.
“The county has very little expense when it’s all finished,” Starkey said. “The VSO position is out of the county’s general fund. It’s that way in every county.”
He said the Veterans Service Committee would like to keep the VSO position as a full-time position.
Since Starkey has left Seward County, the committee appointed Jeff Baker to represent the office as the commissioners work through a decision.
Baker served as Seward County’s VSO for more than a decade prior to Starkey and now serves as the Veterans of Foreign Wars adjutant/quartermaster for the state of Nebraska.
Baker said the added cost to the county to make the VSO its own full-time position would be around $26,000 per year.
He said the VSO and public transit director positions were combined in 2010.
“When we combined them, it was a very, very part-time transit position and a full-time veteran’s position,” Baker said, adding that a veterans service officer has served Seward County since 1948, and the position was full-time since at least the 1970s.
Bake said the workload for both offices has increased since they merged.
“It’s really been two full-time jobs put together, and both have struggled a little bit just because of time availability,” Baker said. “We are seeing Seward County’s veteran population, we’re one of the few that grew last year. We’ve grown two out of the last three years. Most counties in the state can’t say that. With our numbers continuing to rise, it shows that Seward County is a place that veterans want to live.”
Baker said the veterans service committee asked the commissioners to split the positions two years ago, but the board chose to keep them as one.
Ahmic said at that time, the office did not have a veterans assistant like it does now.
“I believe a VSO should have that. There’s been some growth to that department,” she said.
Baker expressed frustration at the board’s timing in considering a change now.
“Now they’re looking to do it during budget time when there’s no one in the position and no one to advocate for it,” he said. “Obviously it’s important for veterans to be served in their local communities. The VFW takes that responsibility seriously. We want veterans to be served by educated, dedicated service officers.”
Ahmic said while the proposal is before the board for consideration, no decisions have been made as to whether the roles will be split or remain as one full-time position.
“We do care about and want to support our veterans,” she said. “We want to make the right choice and we want to do better.”
