Ingham County Department of Veterans Affairs and Soldiers and Sailors Relief

The Ingham County Department of Veterans Affairs is the county's department of veterans affairs under 1953 PA 192 (see the Michigan entry on county departments). Its Veterans Affairs Committee, five members appointed by the Board's Human Services Committee for four-year terms, hires the director, is subject to the Board's control, and "administers relief to indigent citizens through the Soldier and Sailor's Relief". It meets on third Tuesdays at 10 a.m. at the Human Services Building in Lansing. The director is Amy Pocan. What it does. Its staff file VA disability compensation, pension, health care, home loan and survivors' claims and help with the State property tax exemption and county relief. The relief follows MCL 35.21: honorably discharged indigent wartime veterans and their indigent spouses, minor children and parents (see the Michigan entry on the county veterans relief fund), with a 15-day appeal to the circuit court (MCL 35.23). The department's pages for financial assistance, transportation and benefits are empty, and it publishes no county burial amount; the State floor is $300 (MCL 35.801). Call for the rules in force. How the relief is paid for. The county levies 0.0328 mill for veterans each summer, authorized in 2017 with no expiry, by its tax rate sheets; on the 2025 taxable value of about $11 billion that is roughly $361,000 a year. It is not a voted millage. The rate sheets label it "PA 363 of 2004", but that act is the Military Family Relief Fund act, a State fund that authorizes no county levy; the levy is the veterans relief tax MCL 35.21 lets every county board set, up to a tenth of a mill. Clinton County. Clinton County has no department of its own, and the Board's Resolution #26-178 (April 14, 2026) renews a 2026 agreement under which Ingham's department serves Clinton County residents, with Clinton paying $106,177.95. The department's State county veteran service fund grant was $58,535 for 2026. Where. 5303 South Cedar Street, Lansing, 517-887-4331.