Morano asks if legislation needed and about eligibility determination timeline
Morano asks if legislation is needed for the certificate and how eligibility is determined. Nicole confirms it falls under DVS's charter authority, requires no new legislation, and would be executed by the LGBTQ+ claims liaison with a target of mid-next year for implementation.
Do we think this would require legislation, or is that something that the agency could do on their own?
So this is something that's actually in our charter to be able to do.
So this is something that we are now acting on.
out from the charter.
This is also something that is required by the state to do and they execute it as a letter.
So we'll be executing it as a certificate along with a letter.
How would eligibility be determined?
Yeah, so the individual cases would go to our LGBTQ plus claims liaison who would take account of all the different service paperwork, who will even be able to verify the DD-214,
who has experience dealing with cases like these as well as being military culturally competent, and then they will be executing the certificate.
And is this being developed specifically for LGBTQ plus veterans or for LGBTQ plus New Yorkers generally?
This is specifically for LGBTQ plus veterans.
Do you guys have a timeline that you envision for implementation?
Yeah, so this is something that we're in active conversations with the mayor's office of LGBTQ plus IA affairs, as well as we have now identified the benefits and are connecting with the agencies who will be receiving these certificates.
So we are hoping by mid next year to be able to actually execute probably before, but we want to ensure that we're having the correct conversation so that there's no barriers in using this.