States Extend Perks to Military
Legislators OK tax checkoffs, hunting licenses, help with insurance, housing
Bob Dart
Cox Washington Bureau
Friday, March 11, 2005
Washington — From Rhode Island to South Carolina to Michigan, taxpayers can check their state income tax returns to earmark a portion of their refund for needy families of deployed National Guard or military reservists.
In South Dakota, children of military families get special privileges in hunting deer and antelope. Louisiana gives military families tax credits to help pay their car insurance.
And on Thursday, the Georgia Senate passed a bill that would provide college scholarship money to Georgia military personnel serving in foreign wars and their children.
With extended deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan creating hardships for more and more military families, states are increasingly providing an assortment of perks to help out, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“There are so many initiatives across the nation that it’s hard to keep track,” said John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States.
State legislatures from Alaska to Alabama have passed or are considering bills to provide benefits ranging from life insurance policies to free fishing licenses. The Georgia measure approved Thursday, Senate Bill 43, would give tuition grants of $2,000 per year, for a maximum of $8,000, to guardsmen and reservists who have served 181 days or more in a combat zone, and their children ages 25 and under. It heads to the House for consideration.
“It’s a small way of providing a benefit to those people who are out there fighting for our freedom,” said Sen. John Wiles (R-Marietta), one of the bill’s sponsors.
Last week the Georgia Senate Budget Committee last week endorsed the creation of a tax checkoff similar to those in other states.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski has proposed a tuition bill similar to Georgia’s. His “appreciation package” would also include free hunting and fishing licenses and auto registration and a state-purchased $250,000 life insurance policy.
“Having a family member away from home is difficult in itself,” said Thomas Winfield, a Rhode Island state representative and sponsor of that state’s Military Relief Fund. “We need to do everything we can to ensure their families here in Rhode Island don’t have to endure any additional hardships due to lost wages or other issues.”
Sacrifices noted
Twenty-five states have at least 5,000 dependents of National Guard members or reservists on active duty, according to Operation Home Front, a relief program started by Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn.
In Georgia — which has 12,000 residents in the National Guard and more than 4,000 deployed in Iraq, leaving behind more than 11,000 dependents — Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor has introduced a legislative package that includes a tuition measure similar to the one that passed Thursday. His Historic Economic Relief for Our Exceptional Soldiers — or HEROES — package also includes a tax checkoff box and proposals to exempt guardsmen from state income taxes if they are called to active duty for at least 90 days and to pay the monthly cost of their death benefit.
“Illinois started the tax return checkoff program, and lieutenant governors of states across the country have taken up the cause,” said Goheen of the National Guard Association.
At a National Press Club news conference last year, lieutenant governors urged every state to adopt military family relief funds.
“This really all started in the aftermath of Sept. 11,” Goheen said. “America has gotten to know its National Guard. People have seen them in airports, mobilized to go to Afghanistan and Iraq. They’re hearing from their neighbors. Probably for the first time in generations, they realize the sacrifices they’re making.”
States need Guard
States have a self-interest in keeping their National Guard ranks full. Guardsmen help out in local emergencies as well as overseas battles.
“Governor Jeb Bush in Florida is real glad he had a National Guard” when a series of hurricanes battered the state last year, Goheen recalled. “And the Guard helped provide security when the G-8 Conference was held on the Georgia coast.”
New York provided one of the earliest and most extensive aid packages. It prohibits evictions of members of a soldier’s family during any period of active duty and similarly forbids mortgage foreclosures for six months following deployment. It offers incentives for merchants to give discounts to families of deployed service members. And among other things, it permits military personnel to terminate car leases if called to active duty.
New York’s Patriot Plan provides “our courageous servicemen and women and their families with the additional support and protections they need and deserve,” Gov. George Pataki said as he unveiled the program.
Staff writers Sonji Jacobs and Carlos Campos contributed to this article.