Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 10/17/2023
HOLYOKE — Veteran Services Director Jesus Pereira and South Hadley Veterans Agent Mike Slater joined the Holyoke Public Service Committee’s Oct. 10 meeting to continue their outreach to establish a collaboration with surrounding communities to improve service to veterans.
Pereira and Slater have been going to committees and boards in their communities and surrounding communities looking to build a “district” for veteran services in Western Massachusetts.
Pereira explained in Holyoke, he and the city’s veteran services team have been able to leverage the federal benefit side to offset a lot of the income that veterans in the city are needing to reduce its Chapter 115 layout.
Chapter 115 for veterans in Massachusetts is given to veterans with little income and helps pay for daily living expenses, medical costs, housing and other necessities. Local veteran service officers can play a big role in being the bridge to veterans and these resources. A more cohesive unit for the region would benefit this aspect of veteran’s services and more according to Slater and Pereira’s pitch.
Pereira said at one point during his tenure the city was spending about $400,000 per year on Chapter 115, but now that number has gotten down to around $250,000.
“What has happened as a consequence of that is we started seeing veterans coming in from neighboring communities looking for assistance with the federal claims, or benefits assistance, which we did from the bottom or our heart for quite a long time until it started to become more work than we were expecting,” Pereira explained. “We were doing free work for other communities and I think it’s time to sort of regionalize and start offering these services to neighboring communities but while also increasing the amount of full time employees in the city, increasing pay and bringing in quite a bit of money from surrounding communities through an IMA [inter municipal agreement].”
An inter-municipal agreement is an agreement between municipalities that outlines the scope of work for what duration and how much and then it is signed by the top elected officials in each community.
The two veterans service administrators presented a proposal with the numbers that they’ve collected from the five surrounding communities that could be involved.
Pereira added that the bottom line was the city spends about $215,000 a year just for services in the department but if they are able to get the other communities on board for the district, that $215,000 would become better priced $166,000.
“All while getting about $40,000 from one community, $125,000 from another community, $32,000 from another community, $28,000 and $120,000 from another community. All those dollars would come right into the city of Holyoke to of course offset higher salaries, another full-time employee in our services,” Pereira said. “This is just an opportunity to take our talents to the region since we’re helping out the region anyway, and reducing the outlay that the city of Holyoke has to put out for the department.”
Slater said a key thing to look at from an outside community looking in is that all of the other communities so far mentioned are single staff offices, or without a current person in the position. He added this model that would add four or five full time employees to regional work would provide redundancy in office that no community would go without veteran services.
“It gives smaller communities access to those services that they can’t afford on their own, so it allows them to buy into a bigger program office and be able to better serve those veterans in those communities. I think that’s really one of the best things about a larger regionalized office is that redundancy in positions and providing a higher level of service,” Slater added.
After opening up the discussion with the board, Pereira added his last day in the city of Holyoke will be at the end of the month as he is taking a position in Illinois starting Nov. 1. Ward 3 Councilor David Bartley asked if there was a successor ready to pick up this work on behalf of the city to which Pereira said he has briefed his staff throughout this process and that this change had nothing to do with him but about what the department that Holyoke is trying to offer to surrounding communities.
Pereira added his National Service Officer Wilfredo Melendez and Investigator Luz Ortiz-Rivera were “phenomenal employees,” and “they’re the ones who carry the workload.”
Bartley then asked if the formation of a district such as this has been attempted elsewhere. Pereira said it is not new at all and there are already 20 established districts in the state of Massachusetts for veteran services, notably Greenfield and Northampton are both communities in the region already in a district.
Periera added districts can have as many as 20 towns within them.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re just using better models and we’re using a better pricing mechanism than what other districts have which is why it’s so enticing for other communities to join us,” Pereira said.
According to Pereira, other districts charge by the total population of a municipality and their portion is pro-rated by the size of their town rather than the veteran population. This proposal from Pereira and Slater uses the veteran population model.
“So, if you have 40 veterans, we’re going to charge you that percentage based off of the total amount of veterans that we have in the district,” Pereira explained.
Bartley then asked if there would need to be a city ordinance change to allow for this and Pereira explained that any town that comes together to form the district would have to go through the Executive Office of Veterans’ Services for approval. Following that, the district uses an inter municipal agreement as its mechanism to create and outline the scope of work, and how to enter and exit the district.
Pereria said they were still waiting to meet with the town of Hadley but said they have heard some form of buy in from Granby, South Hadley and Amherst officials. He added with Holyoke City Council support they could move forward on creating an official agreement between the communities involved.
“These numbers are flexible, nothing in this proposal is set in stone. There’s variables here. Right now, we only have four full time employees, once we do become a district — because Mike would join our district — the city of Holyoke would be the host community for the time being,” Pereira said. “Either way it’s a significant savings for the city.”
Bartley asked what direct feedback has been from veterans and Slater explained with the current situations in different communities a regional district would be more efficient with helping veterans. He added some of the smaller towns have someone working as a part-time employee for services that often require more consistent availability, which also leads to a backup in work for the agent.
After a Holyoke City Council approval, Pereira said then city solicitors from each community would then need to get together and draft a plan that everyone can approve on. He added this is where the details matter because there will be different officer hours for different communities depending on their needs.
The committee members were all in favor of moving the proposal forward to the City Council where it is expected to be voted on in their next meeting.