“Wisconsin Reporter” - Chief's resignation not the end of VA problems
March 29, 2011 Wisconsin Reporter
March 29, 2011
http://www.leadertelegram.com/news/daily_updates/article_65628387-61be-5afe-ad27-d206577c44fd.html
The resignation of Ken Black, the embattled secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Veteran Affairs, is just the start of necessary fixes to the inefficient, mismanaged agency, veterans said Monday.
"I'm not trying to create a monster out of an individual," said John Hoeft, commander of the Wisconsin Disabled American Veterans, adding, "As an individual, (Black) and I are very good friends. As a secretary, he and I had our differences in terms of the goals ... for the DVA."
DAV member Anthony Hardie, who worked with Black in 2008 and 2009 as the agency's executive assistant, was more blunt.
"It was the two of us at that leadership level and, to be quite candid, I'm not sure that I've worked with anyone that incompetent," said Hardie, an Onalaska native who served in the U.S. Army in the first Gulf War and in Somalia.
WDVA spokeswoman Kathleen Scholl said Black had no response.
Nor did Black give any indication of the controversy that has surrounded him when he announced his resignation, effective Friday.
"I am honored to have led Wisconsin's Department of Veterans Affairs over the past 17 months," Black said in a statement. "It has been a sincere privilege to serve the men and women who sacrificed so much for this nation, and I want to thank the veterans community for this opportunity."
Black's tenure, though, hasn't been popular.
Appointed in November 2009, Black was expected to face a no-confidence vote at the April 14 meeting of the Council on Veterans Affairs, a statutorily created board that advises the state on veterans issues.
In some cases, Black has seemed out of step with the state's largest veterans groups, as when he criticized Gov. Scott Walker's budget, which would transfer some funds from veteran homes to the nearly bankrupt Veterans Trust Fund, or VTF.
The VTF funds everything from military funeral honors and the Wisconsin Veterans Museum to educational grants and personal loans.
The fund, according to the agency, "is the state's primary means of providing essential programs, benefits and services to the state's over 417,000 veterans."
Under Black, the WDVA has been condemned for not hiring enough veterans, particularly disabled veterans.
An audit released in February revealed that about one-third of veterans homes' purchases violated state requirements.
The state's two veterans homes served 887 veterans and their spouses as of December 2009, according to the audit, and spent $89.7 million in fiscal year 2008-09. A third, 72-bed home is being constructed in Chippewa Falls and is expected to be completed by November 2012.