Ashby calls for the prompt dispersal of veterans’ funds
Bill would streamline process of releasing donated tax funds
ALBANY — State Sen. Jake Ashby has had enough of the “same song and dance” over the delayed dispersal of taxpayer-donated funds for veterans’ causes.
“Here we are talking about funding that has already been donated by taxpayers,” Ashby said. “This funding exists.”
Ashby, a Rensselaer County Republican, has continued his months-long call for the release of funds — already collected through donation by New Yorkers through the tax check-off system while paying income taxes — by introducing legislation to address the delay.
Tax filers can choose to donate to up to 34 entities on their personal income tax forms. An audit by state Comptroller Thomas Dinapoli’s office in January found that only small portions of the funds are being spent on their intended purposes.
More than two thirds of the funds over the past six years have not been spent — though they are legally required to be dispersed within the year they were received, if possible — and the audit noted that spending has been “lagging.”
Ashby, the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs, said that the failure to disburse the funds — particularly from four funds that were set up to address veterans’ issues — has been the result of “apathy.”
Ashby’s bill, co-sponsored by Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh, would mandate that the donated money be paid out from the Department of Veterans’ Services, which is charged with helping veterans and their families access benefits.
The Veterans’ Home Assistance Fund is handled by the Department of Health and the Military Family Relief Fund is handled by the Department of Taxation and Finance.
The Department of Veterans’ Services was intended to be the “one-stop-shop for everything to do with veterans’ affairs,” Walsh said.
Ashby said that he believes the veterans’ services department has sufficient resources to handle the additional responsibilities that would come with the passage of his bill, but added that he believes the department should get more funding whether or not the legislation is enacted.
Ashby made comparisons between the spending on veterans in New York and in neighboring states, pointing to concerns that while New York has three times as many veterans as New Jersey, it spends half as much money on them.
Lawmakers Thursday detailed four tax check-off funds that deal with various veterans’ issues that have millions of unused money.
The cemetery fund has more than $1.5 million sitting in an account. The donations for homeless veterans total more than $1.3 million, while
nd the home assistance fund has more than $360,000 and the military family relief fund has more than $230,000, according to the audit.
Ashby said the push to release the funds has bipartisan support.
In February, Ashby sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul following the release of the audit detailing the lagging funds and calling for her administration to release donated money immediately. The letter went unanswered, Ashby’s office said, and was followed a month later by correspondence signed by the entire Senate Veterans Committee. The second letter, sent March 25, again pushed for the release of funds, adding that New Yorkers never intended for their donations to sit unused.
“Truthfully, we are surprised that you have let such an eminently solvable problem persist,” the letter said. “This situation is beyond parody.”
The audit from Dinapoli’s office also detailed that other tax check-off funds — which include money for cancer research, libraries and campaign finance — are also not being spent and many agencies charged with spending are failing to file required annual reports with the comptroller’s office.
Walsh and Ashby said that similar legislation to spend the money from other funds could be a possibility in the future. Walsh said that she is concerned that nearly $1 million dollars for autism awareness and research was accumulated in a fund, but that the audit found nothing had been dispersed for the most recent year.
Walsh said that she believes the relatively small amount of money in the funds — when compared to billions of dollars in the state budget — could lead officials to not see the dispersal as important.
“I don’t care if it’s $10 or $20, whatever it is. People cared enough to check a box and put that money out there,” Walsh said. “I never thought the state would have a hard time spending money, but, apparently in this case they are.”