Massachusetts Veterans’ Agents and How a Chapter 115 Refusal Is Appealed

Chapter 115 is administered by a municipal officer, and the quality of that officer decides how well the system works for a veteran. Massachusetts has built more structure around the role than any other state in this catalog. Section 3 requires the mayor of each city except Boston to appoint a veterans' agent, for a term of up to three years, eligible for reappointment. A town's select board may appoint one. Two or more contiguous towns may appoint a single agent and apportion the cost, and sections 10 to 15 let municipalities form veterans' services districts with their own boards, treasurers and audited accounts. In a town with a part-time agent, the town clerk must receive applications and assist applicants and pass them to the agent. In Boston the role sits with the veterans' benefits and services commissioner. Section 3B, which is the certification provision, is the one worth knowing about. A veterans' benefits and services officer must be trained and certified within six months of appointment, must attend training every calendar year, and must pass a test at least once every three years. The test is formulated with the Massachusetts Veterans' Service Officers Association and covers chapter 115 benefits, federal and local benefits across employment, education, health care and retirement, and alternative resources including Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability and federal pension and compensation entitlements. The enforcement mechanism in section 3B(d) is unusual and it is aimed at the municipality rather than the officer. Failure to comply reduces the commonwealth's reimbursement to the town from 75 per cent to 50 per cent. Subsection (e) then holds the withheld money in a trust account and pays it over once the town comes into compliance. The town has a direct financial reason to keep its agent trained, and the veteran is not the one who pays for a lapse. Section 3B(f) creates a confidentiality rule that reads like a professional privilege. A veterans' benefits and services officer shall not disclose information transmitted in confidence between a veteran and the officer, except where disclosure is for the benefit of the veteran, is reasonably necessary to assist the veteran, or is under lawful order. The protection covers communications, reports, records, working papers and memoranda arising out of providing assistance. A veteran can describe a financial or medical situation to the agent without it becoming municipal record fodder. Applying. Section 4 requires every application to be in writing, signed under the penalties of perjury, filed with the veterans' agent for the city or town from which benefits are sought, and forwarded by the agent to the Secretary. The second paragraph requires the agent, if the applicant agrees, to complete a public assistance or MassHealth application under chapter 118E as well, to file it if the veteran chooses that route, and to advise the applicant of their entitlement to both. The agent is obliged to explain the alternative rather than simply refusing chapter 115. Recording a discharge. Section 3 requires the veterans' agent, on the request of any veteran, to record the veteran's discharge or release papers without charge in books kept for that purpose, to keep an index, and provides that attested copies are admissible in evidence to the same extent as the originals. That is free, permanent, local insurance against losing a DD Form 214, and almost every benefit in this file needs the document. Section 3A separately authorises the use of photostatic copies of discharge papers. Now the appeal, which is the most veteran-protective procedure in this catalog. Section 2 gives the Secretary of Veterans' Services the power to decide a controversy between an applicant and a veterans' agent about the validity or the amount of a claim. Section 2A then says what happens when the applicant wins. The veterans' agent shall forthwith make payment in accordance with the decision, notwithstanding any appeal by the agent. If the Governor and Council later sustain the town's appeal, payment stops from that point, and the amounts already paid to the applicant are reimbursed by the commonwealth to the town under section 6. Read that again, because the allocation of risk is the point. A veteran who wins before the Secretary gets paid immediately, keeps what they were paid even if the town ultimately wins, and the commonwealth absorbs the cost. Almost every benefits appeal system in this catalog works the other way, with the money waiting until the last appeal is exhausted and an overpayment recoverable from the claimant. The Secretary's decision may also be enforced by the superior court on a petition in equity. One small provision with teeth. Section 3 requires an agent to notify the Secretary within three days of receiving an application for special care, on the Secretary's forms, and provides that an agent who refuses or unreasonably neglects to give that notice shall be punished by a fine of twenty-five dollars.