Iowa County Veterans Service Offices

Iowa's county veteran affairs offices are the front door to almost everything else in this file, and chapter 35B tells them what they owe you. Their duties to you. Section 35B.6, subsection 1, paragraph "d" gives the executive director, administrator and employees three duties: "Inform members of the armed forces, veterans, and their dependents of all federal, state, and local laws enacted for their benefit." "Assist all residents of the state who served in the armed forces of the United States and their relatives, beneficiaries, and dependents in receiving from the United States and this state any and all compensation, pensions, hospitalization, insurance, education, employment pay and gratuities, loan guarantees, or any other aid or benefit to which they may be entitled under any law." "Complete and submit all forms required for federal, state, and county benefits." Note the second one: "all residents of the state", not only residents of that county, and it expressly reaches relatives, beneficiaries and dependents. It is free, by statute. Paragraph "e", one sentence: "The department of veterans affairs or county veteran affairs offices shall not charge for any service provided to any individual." Anyone charging you a fee for help with a claim in Iowa is not a county office, and chapter 546B may make what they are doing unlawful. They are federally accredited. Paragraph "a": "The state department of veterans affairs shall recognize the executive director or administrator as a county veterans service officer of a veterans' service organization recognized pursuant to 38 C.F.R. §14.628(c) for the purposes of assisting veterans and their dependents in obtaining federal and state benefits." That is what lets them file with VA on your behalf. Certification is mandatory and enforced by removal. Paragraph "c", as rewritten by 2025 Iowa Acts chapter 11, requires the executive director or administrator to comply with all of the commandant's directives on training and certification and to obtain a personal identification verification card for access to the veterans benefits management system. An executive director or administrator "shall be removed from office if, after one year of employment" they have not obtained certification, obtained the card and completed the directed training. The commandant may extend the card deadline on request for extenuating circumstances. Continuing education must come only from entities the commandant approves, and failure to maintain certification or system access "shall be cause for removal from office." Minimum hours, by county population. Section 35B.6, subsection 3, paragraph "b": no fewer than 20 hours a week in a county of 30,000 or fewer; no fewer than 30 hours in a county over 30,000 and under 60,000; and no fewer than 40 hours in a county of 60,000 or more. Counties sharing an officer under a chapter 28E agreement must provide those hours for each county. The office must be "in a public building owned, operated, or leased by the county", and "The hours that the office established under paragraph 'a' is open shall be posted in a prominent position outside the office." A county cannot bury the office in another department. Subsection 2, paragraph "c": neither the board of supervisors nor the commission "shall place the administration of the duties of the county commission of veteran affairs under any other agency of any county." Money follows the hours. Section 35A.16, subsection 3, paragraph "a" allocates $10,000 a year to each county commission, or to each county sharing an officer under chapter 28E, to provide services under section 35B.6 and to maintain federal accreditation, funded by a standing appropriation of $990,000 from the general fund under subsection 1, paragraph "b". Paragraph "b" is the enforcement: "If a county fails to be in compliance with the requirements of section 35B.6 on June 30 of each fiscal year, all moneys received by the county pursuant to this subsection during that fiscal year shall be reimbursed" to the state fund. Paragraph "c" forbids using the money to supplant existing county funding and requires a maintenance of effort rule. Subsection 4 allocates a further $3,000 per county for national training of county veteran service officers, funded by a $300,000 transfer from the veterans trust fund under section 35A.13, subsection 6. Who serves on the commission, widened in 2026. Section 35B.3 used to require every commissioner to be a veteran. 2026 Iowa Acts chapter 1088 (S.F. 93, approved May 15, 2026) rewrote it to allow three classes: a veteran as defined in section 35.1; an Iowa resident who is a current member of the Iowa national guard or an Iowa unit of the reserve forces "whose service is satisfactory according to a letter of recommendation from the commander of the person's current unit"; and an Iowa resident who is a former member of the Iowa national guard or an Iowa reserve unit discharged under honorable conditions as evidenced by a DD-214 or a commander's letter. The commission is three or five persons as the board of supervisors decides, and "If possible, each member of the commission shall have served in a different military branch." The same act narrowed the executive director requirement in the opposite direction. Section 35B.6, subsection 1, paragraph "a" previously said the executive director "must possess the same qualifications as provided in section 35B.3 for commission members". 2026 Iowa Acts chapter 1088 struck that and inserted that the executive director "shall be a veteran as defined in section 35.1". So the new guard and reserve routes opened commissioner seats and did not open the executive director post. A person employed as an executive director before July 1, 1989 is exempt from the qualification. Your file is confidential and misusing the list is a crime. Section 35B.10, subsection 1: claims go to the board of supervisors "with all personally identifying information redacted", and "All applications, investigation reports, and case records are privileged communications and confidential, subject to use and inspection only by persons authorized by law in connection with their official duties relating to financial audits and the administration of this chapter or as authorized by order of a district court." You may sign a release to open your own. Quarterly reports filed with the county auditor show case numbers and amounts, not names. Subsection 3: using any list, name or information from those reports "for commercial or political purposes" is a serious misdemeanor. Section 35B.6, subsection 2, paragraph "b" separately forbids publishing the names of veterans or families who receive chapter 35B benefits. Free copies from the recorder, new in 2026. 2026 Iowa Acts chapter 1106 (H.F. 2490, approved May 15, 2026) added to Iowa Code section 22.3 that "A county recorder shall not charge a fee for the examination and copying of public records necessary to complete and file claims for benefits with the Iowa department of veterans affairs or the United States department of veterans affairs." Note the limit: it binds the county recorder, not every records custodian. How the state watches the counties. Section 35A.5, subsection 14 requires the department to report annually by August 31 to the governor and general assembly on county compliance with the training requirements, the weekly operating schedule of each office, the hours of service provided by each executive director or administrator in the previous fiscal year, the population and veteran population of each county, and the total compensation, disability benefits and pensions received by residents of each county under VA-administered laws, with an analysis across years. Copies go to every board of supervisors and every county commission. That report is the public record of whether your county office is meeting its hours. How the department finds you. Section 35A.5, subsection 15 requires the department, on receiving a certificate of release or discharge from active duty, to create a roster with the member's name, address of record and county of residence and to send it to the county commission within thirty days. Section 321.189, subsection 8 separately requires the driver's licence office to notify your county commission when you get the veteran designation using a DD-214, and the commission "shall initiate contact with the licensee."