York County Department of Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the office every Pennsylvania county must have: a director of veterans affairs appointed by the commissioners (16 Pa.C.S. 15524) and holding VA accreditation (51 Pa.C.S. 1731). See the Pennsylvania entry on county directors. The county set it up by ordinance in 1989 (County Code chapter 347), which also requires the director to be an honorably discharged veteran, a notary who charges veterans nothing, and a deputy recorder of deeds. What it does. Its message is that every York County veteran and surviving spouse should talk to an accredited service officer with access to VA's systems. It handles VA compensation, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, veterans' and survivors' pensions, health care enrolment, vocational rehabilitation and burial claims, and the State programmes a county director takes: the real estate tax exemption (on the State's January 2025 form, which the office posts), Veterans' Temporary Assistance, and the blind and the paralyzed veterans' pensions. It pays the county burial allowance, provides grave markers and flagholders, buys the Memorial Day grave flags, and records DD-214s on the spot for the Recorder of Deeds (see the Hometown Heroes entry). How to reach it. 2401 Pleasant Valley Road, York PA 17402; 717-771-9218; [email protected]; weekdays 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call ahead for an appointment. Director Kevin Smyers. Outreach, on the office's schedule of July 9, 2025. Housing outreach at the home office every Wednesday 9 to 11 a.m. (717-771-9684); weekdays at For the Love of a Veteran, 219 York Street, Hanover (717-683-5339); the second Tuesday at the Roots for Boots military share, Hampton Fire Company, New Oxford; the fourth Wednesday at Delta Community Services; the fourth Friday morning at Stewartstown Community Services; and the fourth Tuesday at the Windy Hill Senior Center, Spring Grove. Call the number on the schedule first. Where the ordinance is out of date. Chapter 347 cites the County Code of 1955, which Act 14 of 2024 replaced with 16 Pa.C.S. Chapter 155 and section 15524, and places the office in the courthouse. Where the chapter and the statute differ, the statute governs; see the burial entry.