To one point six billion dollars plus after two o'clock today, My early voting continues with your balloting, but until then. Over the years, I've done some work with the Claremont County Veterans' Service Commission and also with Butler County, and each time I did it, I noticed there were many Hamley County veterans that were going to Claremont County, in Butler County and Warren County in order
to get services, which generally included transportation. How do you get through the morass the myriad of difficulties with the VA referral for a doctor's appointment, etc. And each of the organization has told me separately something's wrong in Hamlety County with a Veteran Service Commission, and so not much came of it. I put it in the back, so well down the road, we'll see what
happens. And it's a great thing that Craig McKee of Channel nine has done an ITEAM type investigation of the Hamley County Veterans Service Commission and specifically the executive director, guy by the name of It appears that all the public moneys through real estate. I think it's point five mills that are paid into this organization and if the money's not used, it just goes to the general fund and get stuck in with a bunch of other stuff. And so, Craig McKee
of Channel nine, We're nine stands for news. You're joining us now, and Craig McKee, welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. And can you tell the American people in general what caused your ITEAM investigation of the Veteran Service Commission here in Hamilton County. Well, Bill, it's a pleasure to be on with you today to talk a little bit more about this. Ultimately, you know, we need to be giving our veterans a hand up. And that's
where this all starts. A number of complaints veteran who said that he went there many years ago, tried to get assistance and was pretty much blown off because he didn't have an appointment. That turned me then to of course, the world of social media and the internet, and I started I just put a fishhook out there basically to say, hey, any other veterans had any issues with any VSO in the Southwest Ohio area. And immediately some of the
initial responses were don't go to Hamilton County. Go to Butler County, go to Claremont County, go to Warren County. You're not going to get help in Hamilton County. I never have had to use I'm an Air Force veteran. I've never had to use the services through the Hamilton County Veterans Service Commission or the VSO. Even I've gone through the Cincinnati VA Medical Center and gone
through that process, but I've never had to use this office. But it was clear that there was some concerns for veterans, so I immediately began reaching out. And when I reached out, the initial call to the office to speak to the executive director, William Betcher, I basically received a return phone call from the administrative assistant there, who told me that he told her that
he didn't have time to sit down and referred me to their website. And if you look at their website, their website actually had outdated information on it on when their next meetings were going to take place, so the website didn't
have a lot of information. There are places to click, you know, to try to apply for financial assistance and things like that, but that was not the best answer I was looking for, clearly, because I wanted to do a sit down conversation and talk about the services they offer veterans, and they wouldn't do it. And to go back a little bit, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong that point five mills in real estate
taxes are paid by all property owners. And many many decades ago, the lawmakers in Columbus and all eighty eight counties created the Veteran Service Commission with Veteran services organizations and the money goes into the pot point. It's not very much, but it adds up in Hamleton County to tens of millions of dollars. And I think the executive director, William Betcher, is paid north of one hundred thousand dollars to administer this. And I've heard for years something's wrong in
Hambleton Counties. So let's get into the numbers you have in your story. Give me the numbers of veterans serve compared to the other counties that surround Hamilton. All right, So Hamilton County serves right now, according to their data from twenty twenty to forty one, one hundred ninety nine veterans. It's more than double what Butler County serves at twenty thousand, three hundred and forty four
and Warren County follows up at twelve one hundred and eighty one. Now mister Bencher receives one hundred and twenty three thousand, eight hundred ninety one dollars for his salary. And they could have requested we referenced the point five mills. They are allowed to request up to seven million dollars in change, so seven point zero eighty four and change they could have requested. Now they did request one point three almost one point four million to then only spend nine hundred and
thirty thousand dollars. In comparison, when you look at say Butler County, a Butler County, you know, comes in second with a number of veterans that they're serving. And while they too sent money back to the general fund of two point five million dollars, they were allocated four point four million dollars in change. Obviously, you know, property values differ from county to k
and different counties spend different percentages. But Hamilton County said to the bottom of how much they spend of what they're allotted by the point five mills at eighteen percent of the funding and they spent, which was kind of astonishing. And again every county is different. You know, Hamilton County does have a metro
bus service and other rural areas won't have those types of services. But you know, when you look at Butler and Claremont County, they have transportation systems set up where they can get veterans from door to door, they can pick them up at their home, take them to critical medical appointments, and get them back home. Whereas Hamilton County relies on the metro bus system and they spent five hundred and thirty eight dollars on their own reporting for those services in
twenty twenty two, Whereas you have Butler and Warren County. Warren County spent over a million dollars on transportation and Butler County spent over a quarter of a
million for transportation for veterans according to their reports. So the forty one thousand veterans in Hamilton County, by the taxpayers, should have available to them up is seven million dollars a year out of the Veteran Service Commission slash Veteran Services Organization, and they Hamilton County in twenty twenty two spent nine hundred thousand,
which is a pittance compared to the other counties. Now, as far as your services, can you tell the American people, Craig McKee of Channel nine, what are specifically the services that we taxpayers want to provide the veterans? What kind of services give me two or three or four things we should be providing. If we had a competent Veteran Services Commission in Hamilton County, what
are the services? Well, the interesting thing here, Bill is that the law says that they have to provide services for processing paperwork, applying for benefits, transportation and other things. But there's no guidance. Each VSO or VSSE and every single county can operate how they choose, So there's not a set template by the state that says you need to provide XYZ. When it comes to transportation, they leave it up to the Veterans Service Commission to decide and
then ultimately with the Executive Director to decide what is best for veterans. Now, since this story ran on Monday, I can tell you that I have had my inbox flooded with veterans and my voicemail flooded with veterans who had years and years and years of frustration tied to the VSC in Hamilton County. And the problem is that they got so frustrated that they actually went to then Butler
or Warren or Claremont County. And I've had VFW commanders reach out to me on email saying that they send their veterans to other locations because they know the problem. The issue is there are no official complaints on file when you do a public records request, there isn't a laundry list of public at least according to the records that they've kept. There are no official complaints about the process because veterans get frustrated with the process and then they go elsewhere instead of filing
an official complaint. That's the quagmire right now for so many looking at this that there's an entity in their county. The Hamilton County commissioners are looking at this now. Hamilton County Commissioners approve the budget in the sense that the commission the VSC submits their budget of what they plan to request, they submit it to Hamilton County, and Hamilton County basically rubber stamps it, so to speak. Hamilton County Commissioners have no fingers in the game plan of what VSC is
executing in their county. So right now Hamilton County Commissioners are trying to figure out how can we help veterans more with the services, and they've asked that the executive director himself, William Bill Betcher, comes in or representative of the VSC to the commission meeting today. And I've been told just a little while ago that they do not plan to attend this one PM meeting the Hamilton County
Commissioner. When I did some work with Claremont County Veteran Services Organization, what they did was if if there was a veteran having mental health problems immediately there's forty forty or fifty veterans every day that kill themselves, that they would have an emergency meeting with other veterans. Some other veteran may be down on his luck and need money to pay the rent for two months, and so he would make an application in Claremont County that veteran, and there's a board and
Clairemont County would say, is this legit? We have to know this guy. Someone might have a car payment due that he can't make, and the group would get together and say, you know what, we got to help Tony Bender. He's served in Vietnam, he's down, he is seventy eight years old, and let's make a car payment. But we got to work
with this guy to make sure he's up on his own. Clairemont County and Butler County and Warren County, I've worked with them, do fabulous work with veterans and helping They do events out there where they have a bake sale, they raise the election. It's a very active organization. And every time I would say what about Cincinnati Hamilton County, and they just their eyes would roll.
And it comes down the executive director, William Betcher, is getting paid one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars a year to serve the needs of veterans. And either the guy doesn't care or he borders on in confidence because he's not getting the job done. And the fact that at one o'clock today, in about forty five minutes, your sources tell you that haven't been requested to appear before the Commission, that Betcher and his band is not going to show
up. That is correct, That is correct, And you know, I do want to be you know clear here that what they're doing is not technically illegal their operation correct. It's an optics issue. If other counties have you know, lower they don't have seven million dollars to spend. However, they are running all of these other programs to help veterans and have more staff members in their office to process claims. You know, it's an optics issue.
And all we want to know. All I want to know on behalf of the taxpayers and veterans in Hamilton County is what are they doing and why do they think what they have set up is the best game plan to help veterans and to give veterans a hand up that they deserve. That's the essence of
it. And maybe William Betcher's the best thing since slice bread. Who knows, But everyone you talk to around the Try States say, boy, don't go to Hamlet And County if you're a veteran because and you have something in your story about a veteran showed up at the office I think and spoke to a woman there and the veteran tried to help getting through the VA morass and benefits kind of describe what happened with that with that veteran. Yeah, as
Ernest Coleman went there again. He didn't have an appointment. He showed up out of the blue, unclear of even how to navigate the process. So, like so many veterans when we get out of the service, especially, it's a little bit better now, but when I got out of the service in two thousand, it was pretty much there's the door, see you later.
So the guidance the veterans today receive is better than it used to be, But for so many veterans, you know, trying to navigate the process on how you get benefits and how do you apply and what boxes do I need to check on this form? And how do I submit the form? Well, I mean he went to the office he the according to him, the receptionist was very rude, did not provide any information, hammered him about
not having an appointment and just coming in. And then when he asked for a supervisor, as he explained, and another older gentleman came in from the back, and he says, pretty much gave him the same run around, and then he was like, that's that's it. I'm going elsewhere. And he actually went up to Dayton to get some information instead, And you know, he's not alone. There are so many veterans that go through this process.
In fact, Congressman Winstrip who I've spoken with on many veterans issues, he even had his own, you know issues when filing claims and going through his process, and he's a representative. So this goes across the board that that you know, it's not a simple task. And while the government is has tried to streamline this process for veterans and it is better today than it used to be, it's still a process. And if you are unsure how
to navigate that process, we need people in offices. And it's nothing against the Veteran Service officers who are doing the work doing the work in Hamilton County. The men and women in the offices there are that are filing the claims, that are doing what they're supposed to do. And so many of these vsos across the Southwest region and even across the state, they are doing great things to process claims because I see the numbers of claims that they have all
processed. But that said, clearly, Hamilton County appears from the outside, you know, when you compare them to other operations, they just aren't doing necessarily what they could be doing, there's so much more money left on the table that they could be using. And just to let your viewers not because I know you have a broad range of viewers that listen online as well. We actually mind the data for five years. That's where the third over thirty
one million dollars comes from. The it's unspent over the five year mark. Hamilton County VSC did not request They left thirty one million dollars on the table, so to speak, did not request that for any services tied to veterans. And again many counties do return money. But we have put in this story online at WCPO dot com slash home front. In this story is a
graph for every single county in the state of Ohio. You can go click on your county and it'll tell you how many veterans are there, how much money they spent, how much money they didn't spend, and how much went back to general funds and other data as well. So I encourage your viewers that are in other counties to definitely go check out and see what their own county is doing, and if they have any concerns, certainly reach out to
me. And lastly, Craig McKee, I would say that when the money is not spent or not requested, it goes into the general fund, which is hundreds of millions of dollars, and a set of we taxpayers who put zero point five mills, which is a very small amount each into the end of the pot to help veterans, that simply has sucked into the whole system. And there needs to be a refe of the Veteran Service Commission. And lastly, I would say that at this point it appears from your story Hamany
County commissioners requested somebody coming at one o'clock. But they're a separate organization. They're not part of the Haminy County Commission. In other words, they're just by themselves out there, and like Alisha raised an each three house, they're not in charge. They can hey, they can request it, maybe the county prosecutor. There's nothing criminal here we're talking about, I don't think correct. And so it's like one of these government entities is floating around exactly.
And I've reached out to the Ohio Department of Veteran Services as well with additional public records requests. Somebody at the tipster on the inside has told me that these vsos are not even audited. There's no kind of checks and balance. I've obviously reached out to the state to verify that information and to see if there are audits taking place, give me copies of them, let me know
what you are keeping an eye on. And there's certification questions as well that have popped up, and whether or not certifications that are required, whether or not they're in place. So we are continuing to ask the questions and push for answers to make sure that our veterans again are getting the hand up that they deserve in our community. Too many vets slip through the cracks, and
we can't let that happen. Well after the election, there's so much going on, which youry now on Tuesday, and of course Mike Dwine, I got him coming on, I got Frankle Rose coming on. He's a veteran. After the election, state government's got to put some teeth, some audit. Something's got I'm sure Mike DeWine will do it, Frankle Rose will do it. Bill Sites will do it somehow. Because of your investigation, this needs to rise up to a higher level where since it's public money being spent,
we have to have audits. We have to know what's going on. At this point, they're on their own doing their best. But after the election, let's work together with political contacts or whatever, change the law so that veterans the forty one thousand in Hamlin A County are treated as they should be. Craig McKee, great work, and thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. And let's touch base a week or two after the election. That sounds great, Bill, Thanks for having me. All right,
God bless you. Let's continue with more zero point five mills. I don't know what that is. It's about. Each taxpayer is paying about one hundred and ten dollars a year in Hamilton County for veteran services, and we have a department here that's not functioning properly by any fair estimate, and we can't you can't get answers. There is separate entity, so state government's got to get involved. They created the entity, now they need to improve it.
So let's work on it together after the election when things calm down, if they ever calmed down. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WULW Genesis Diamond's biggest and last seat