New Jersey Department of Veterans Affairs, Service Officers and the Veteran Advocate

If you are dealing with a New Jersey veterans agency, the name on the letterhead probably changed this year. What happened. P.L.2025, c.139, approved September 11, 2025, established a principal Department of Veterans Affairs headed by a commissioner who must be an honorably discharged veteran. Section 100 made it effective 120 days after enactment, which was January 9, 2026, and the old Department of Military and Veterans' Affairs' website now carries a notice dated that day saying it "has transformed into two separate departments": the Department of Military Affairs at military.nj.gov for the Guard, and the Department of Veterans Affairs at veterans.nj.gov. N.J.S.A. 38A:21-6(e) makes every reference anywhere to the Department of Military and Veterans' Affairs mean the Department of Veterans Affairs. What it runs. N.J.S.A. 38A:21-11 gives it the three veterans memorial homes and the state veterans cemetery, the liaison and field offices at the VA medical centers, and public information on veterans' programs. N.J.S.A. 38A:21-23 adds the blind and paraplegic allowances, the veterans' loan authority and the state tuition programs. The service medals stayed with the Adjutant General and the Department of Military Affairs. Service officers. The department's Veterans Service Offices, one or more in each county and at the East Orange VA Medical Center and the Newark VA Regional Office, help with VA claims, state benefits, burial and housing at no charge. The department's benefits guide, first edition January 2026, lists them with direct numbers; the main line is 888-865-8387 and the Veterans Benefits Bureau is at [email protected]. The Veteran Advocate. P.L.2025, c.172, approved December 19, 2025 and effective immediately, created an Office of the Veteran Advocate "in, but not of" the department and independent of its control. Under N.J.S.A. 38A:21A-5 the Advocate is an ombudsman who receives and investigates complaints from veterans and their families about veterans' services from any state entity or state-funded private provider. N.J.S.A. 38A:21A-3 lets the Advocate investigate a death, near death or serious injury of a veteran in the department's care, issue subpoenas and sue the department on probable cause. For the Advocate's purposes a veteran is a resident discharged honorably or under general honorable conditions. What has not caught up. Many statutes still name the Adjutant General or the Department of Military and Veterans' Affairs: the Veterans Diversion Program, the paraplegic allowance, the driver licence designation and the paid claims agent disclosure that N.J.S.A. 56:8-228 requires businesses to read aloud. The Division of Taxation's forms still give the old department's phone numbers. The memorial homes' admission rule, N.J.A.C. 5A:5, still cites sections of chapter 3 of Title 38A that the 2025 act repealed. None of this changes an entitlement.