Department of Veterans Affairs: veterans' services.

Existing law requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to disburse funds, appropriated to the department for the purpose of supporting county veterans service officers pursuant to the annual Budget Act, on a pro rata basis, to counties that have established and maintain a county veterans service officer in accordance with the staffing level and workload of each county veterans service officer under a formula based upon performance developed by the department. This bill would define a workload unit for purposes of these provisions to mean a specific claim activity that is used to allocate subvention funds to counties, which is approved by the department, and performed by county veterans service officers. The bill would appropriate on an annual basis the sum of $7,000,000 from the General Fund to the Department of Veterans Affairs to be available for allocation to counties to fund the activities of county veterans service officers, as specified. The bill would also delete obsolete provisions and would make conforming changes. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.