North Dakota County Veterans’ Service Officers

Section 37-14-18 does not permit a county to have a veterans' service office. It requires one. "The board of county commissioners of each county of the state of North Dakota shall appoint, employ, and pay, on a full-time or part-time basis, an officer to be known as a county veterans' service officer." One individual may serve more than one county, and the appointment is made with the prior advice of the Commissioner of Veterans' Affairs and in accordance with the veterans' preference in 37-19.1-02. That is a real difference from the states in this catalog where the county office is optional and coverage follows county budgets. In North Dakota there is a service officer for every county by statute, and the Department of Veterans' Affairs also works with tribal veterans service officers. Accreditation is compulsory and time-limited: every county service officer must be accredited by the National Association of County Veterans Service Officers or by the Department of Veterans' Affairs within twelve months of appointment or employment. Accreditation is what allows a person to act on a federal VA claim at all, and federal law bars charging a fee for preparing an initial claim. Anyone offering to prepare a North Dakota veteran's initial claim for a fee, or for a share of retroactive benefits, is operating outside this framework, which is why the Department runs a fraud hotline for exactly that. The duties are defined broadly: to become acquainted with state and federal law enacted for the benefit of returning service members, to assist in the presentation, proof and establishment of claims, privileges and rights, and to cooperate with and coordinate the activities of state and federal agencies in the county. One conflict-of-interest rule worth knowing. A county veterans' service officer may not serve as a conservator for an individual receiving benefits or services from the state or federal Department of Veterans Affairs, except where that individual is the officer's spouse or immediate family member. The same restriction is placed on Department employees by 37-18-14. Practically, the service officer is the entry point for almost every other state benefit: the veterans aid loan, the hardship and IMPACT grants, the housing grant, the service dog grant, the dependent tuition waiver, the driver's licence veteran indicator verification, and the plate eligibility certification all start there. None of it costs anything. Two funding notes that explain why the state programs survive. The veterans' postwar trust fund under 37-14-14 is a permanent trust fund whose investment income is appropriated on a continuing basis for programs benefiting veterans and their dependents, and a veterans organization may donate to it specifically for homeless veterans' services. The veterans' aid fund under 37-14-03 is a separate permanent trust fund whose revolving account makes the loans.