The State Benefits Division within the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs (MDVA) is most known for its administration of the State Soldiers Assistance Program. This program administers eight program activities that deliver much needed benefits and services to Minnesota Veterans and their families in times when they need it most. Our team works tirelessly to provide Veterans and their families with benefits and services ranging from routine dental care; grants for housing to include, stabilization, attainment, and repairs; and tuition waivers to Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.

So far this fiscal year, through the month of November, the State Soldiers Assistance Program has received 2,562 requests for benefits and issued over $1.88 million in benefits. Our core team assigned to administer the State Soldiers Assistance Program is comprised of two full-time Office and Administrative Specialists, two Student Worker Clericals, and six Veterans Assistance Coordinators.

Our team is dedicated to fulfilling President Abraham Lincoln's promise, given in his second inaugural address, "to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan." As such, we are constantly striving to make improvements to increase the transparency of our programs, access and response times to our programs, and to better develop training and promotional materials to ensure that Veterans and their families have the best access to the resources they deserve.
Some of our current initiatives that we are involved in right now to support these process improvements are:

1) The creation of a state-wide Homeless Veteran Registry in an effort to end Veteran Homelessness by 2015.

2) The implementation of a new SharePoint site for the State Benefits Division. This new site will provide different levels of access for teams across the board. Allowing more collaboration to better serve Minnesota Veterans and their families. Access will be open to all state employees to visit the site and receive basic information and updates regarding the State Benefits Division. The new site will also have compartmentalized sections for certain MDVA employees and County Veterans Service Officers (CVSOs) to receive more specific detailed information, reports, training materials, and other shared information to assist them in performing their duties more efficiently.

3) Paperless systems are also just around the corner. The State Benefits Division is currently involved in an initiative that will transition our hard-file paper storage system to a digital paperless system. This initiative may also bring us the capability to move components of our program administration into the digital age by allowing us the capability to have CVSOs submit their applications on-line which can reduce processing times by days.

4) A review of our policies, procedures, and forms to reduce unnecessary administrative requirements.

We look forward to 2015 and the coming changes to our program that will allow us to better serve our Minnesota Veterans and their families. We encourage all Veterans to visit their CVSO to discuss with them the state benefits that are available to them through MDVA. Veterans may locate their CVSO by visiting http://www.macvso.org/.