Fairfield County Veterans Service Commission: Financial Assistance

The Fairfield County Veterans Service Commission is the county's commission under Revised Code chapter 5901; see the Ohio entry on county veterans service commissions. Its office is Suite 301 of the Levacy Center at 1550 Sheridan Drive, Lancaster 43130 (740-652-7920, fax 740-689-6203), weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed 1 to 4 p.m. on the third Friday of each month for staff training; the board meets the first and third Wednesdays at 3 p.m. The commission moved to the Levacy Center on October 27, 2025, a move its director told the commissioners gave it more square footage than the space the county had leased before. Its director is Justin Messinger, named in the commissioners' minutes; no service officer or board member is named on the site, whose officers are said to be certified by the National Association of County Veterans Service Officers and the Ohio Department of Veterans Services. What it pays. Food, fuel cards, utilities (electric, water, gas and trash; programmes such as HEAP and PIP are excluded), heat bills or heat supplies, rent and mortgage, emergency tooth extraction, emergency home repairs and clothing. Bills must be past due, but the commission pays no re-connect fees. It does not pay personal taxes, phones, cable or streaming, personal loans, insurance, medical bills, graduation or holiday costs, legal fees, court fines, bail or child support, automobile payments or repairs, or medication except as the commission approves, and it pays no relative of the applicant living in the same household. The commission's own caps. A lifetime cap of $15,000 for mortgage, rent, utilities, gas, oil, electric, water, trash and other approved non-food items; a lifetime food cap of $7,500 (raised from $5,000 on January 1, 2022, not retroactively); and a lifetime fuel cap of $2,500. Rent and lease deposits are once a year at the commission's discretion, and utility deposits are limited to first-time deposits. Application limits. Up to three applications in a 12-month period, with no exceptions; an applicant who has applied in two continuous calendar years is ineligible for one calendar year; and no application is accepted within six commission meetings of the last one. A release of information is required to file. Who qualifies. The statute's test, in Revised Code 5901.08 and 5901.01(B): a veteran discharged under honorable conditions whose active duty was for reasons other than training (or a training disability recognised as service-connected), an active-duty member, or the spouse, surviving spouse, dependent parent, minor child or ward of either. The checklist requires the DD-214 (all of them, if multiple) and proof of 90-day residency in Fairfield County. The bills requested must be in the veteran's or spouse's name, with the spouse in the same household, and a theft claim needs a police report. A dependent is a spouse, minor child, mentally dependent child, or a child up to age 23 verified as a full-time student. Submission of false information "may lead to criminal prosecution, as well as automatic rejection of the application for aid." The county's money. The adopted 2026 budget appropriates $1,937,075 to the commission division, including $750,000 of relief assistance, $464,365 of employee salaries and $45,500 of board-member salaries; a second organisation inside the division carries $45,000 for burial expense and $50,000 for grave markers.