At a Friday meeting of the Government Operations & Military Affairs committee, members reviewed a draft statewide survey for veterans and service organizations and agreed to change wording and response fields to better distinguish former, current and retired service members.

Committee members said a single yes/no “Are you a veteran?” question would mix people with materially different benefits and needs, and recommended asking “Have you ever served in the military?” with a follow-up about retiree status or years of service. Committee members discussed adding a drop-down or checkboxes for years served (for example: 0–5, 6–10, 11–20, 20+), and noted that a 20-year service level commonly aligns with retirement benefits such as lifetime TRICARE and pension.

The change aims to make survey responses more useful to staff and lawmakers drafting veteran services policy. One committee member summarized the edit request: “So should we say, have you ever served in the military? If so, did you retire?” That line of questioning, members said, would capture early medical retirements and other exceptions that produce retirement benefits even when total years served is shorter.

Members discussed technical distinctions that affect eligibility for federal benefits: service activated under Title 10 (federal active duty) generally confers veteran status for many federal programs, while Title 32 (state National Guard service) does not always do so unless certain activations or deployment thresholds are met. A member reported a contact at the Vermont Veterans Association saying Vermont aligns with the federal definition and that qualifying active-duty service often requires a Title 10 activation of roughly 180 days or more.

Committee members proposed structural edits to the draft: leave the initial question broad (have you ever served) and add an expandable follow-up that asks whether the respondent is a retiree, plus an optional years-served field under branch-of-service. They also suggested the survey include issue buckets respondents can select—members specifically recommended adding transportation to the list and emphasized education, health care and dental access as likely priorities.

No formal motion was taken. Committee members signaled agreement on the suggested edits and asked staff to prepare an updated draft for distribution to the stakeholders who had provided contact information at prior public hearings.

The committee will circulate the revised survey to veterans service organizations and other contacts identified by the Speaker’s office before the committee finalizes the instrument.