Podcast Episode: Serving Idaho Veterans

The Idaho Division of Veterans Services operates several skilled nursing homes across the state and helps Idaho veterans access resources and services. Chief administrator Mark Tschampl joins Logan Finney this week to discuss the staffing challenges faced by his agency, and plans to renovate Idaho’s state-run veterans homes.

https://soundcloud.com/idaho-reports/episode-serving-idaho-veterans-with-mark-tschampl

Editor’s note: This conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

Logan Finney, Idaho Reports:

For those who might not know, can you tell me about the Division of Veterans Services and what your agency does?

Mark Tschampl, Idaho Division of Veterans Services:

The Idaho Division of Veterans Services is a state organization, and this organization was established specifically to take care of Idaho veterans. So what that means is we offer five main services to our Idaho veterans. Number one, we have state veterans skilled nursing homes across the state. We currently have them in Pocatello, Lewiston, Boise, and our newest one is in Post Falls. A skilled nursing home has 24/7 care for those veterans that reach that critical need in their lives, and we take care of them there.
The other services we have include two state veterans cemeteries where we intern our veterans who’ve served honorably. Those are in Blackfoot and in Boise.

We also have the Office of Veterans Advocacy. Those offices are across the state and those have service officers that are specifically there to help veterans apply for and get the benefits that they’ve earned through their military service with the federal VA. So they represent those veterans, they put in all the paperwork, and they track their cases until they’re complete. If they need to go to a board to fight for those benefits, they do that as well. And again, top notch folks there across the state to help our veterans. Those services are all free. Everything we do is free. The state homes, there are a cost there, but it depends on your level of either disability or your service rating from the VA.

IR:

How many people statewide do you serve, across the veterans homes and helping people get federal services? What’s your user base look like?

Schampl:

Well, there’s roughly 140,000 veterans in Idaho, and typically, the services that we offer or the programs that we are involved in, we can touch just about every single one of those veterans with something that we offer or can help with. So I always say 140,000 veterans, because that’s our goal, is to help any veterans that are in the state of Idaho with whatever they might need, even if it’s a program that we don’t specifically offer. We’re tied into all the veterans service organizations across the state, and we can connect them to one of those organizations that can help them.

IR:

You were before JFAC this week giving your division’s budget presentation. You talked about the challenges that you have faced during the pandemic. Can you tell me about those challenges and what you were asking from the lawmakers?

Schampl:

Biggest challenges that we face coming out of the pandemic are: Number one, our skilled nursing homes require nurses to work in those homes and take care of those veterans that are there. We’re having significant problems finding those nurses and hiring those nurses, especially through COVID. There’s a number of things that didn’t help us out. Number one, a lot of nurses left the career field, and so you have less nurses. We end up competing with all the hospitals and everybody else for the same limited resource in terms of those nurses. So we’ve had to raise the wages that we pay those nurses significantly, which adds to the costs that we bear. Then, COVID itself and inflation have really raised the costs of everything that we do, and that has also meant a significant impact on our overall budget and our ability to continue to offer these services to our veterans.

So what I’ve been asking legislators for are help with some of the programs that we’ve come up with to try and attract nurses to our state homes: tuition reimbursement, increased wages, flexible hours. We’re also exploring other options in terms of our hard- and high-cost living areas, like Boise and Coeur d’Alene, some type of child care or housing subsidy that we might be able to offer. Those are still in the early stages of us trying to work through, and they’re a little bit more complicated, but we’re trying to do anything that we can to set ourselves apart and to get those skilled nursing staff that we need.

In terms of increased costs, basically what ends up happening is we just end up bearing that additional cost. We do it with cash reserves that we have, but those won’t last forever. At some point we’ll probably have to ask for additional support from the state if costs don’t go down at some point.

IR:

As you’re talking with lawmakers, discussing these ideas for support programs for staff like child care or help with housing, what sort of reactions are you getting?

Schampl:

I think positive for the most part. I think within the state, it’s difficult, a lot of things boil down to money, right? Like, how do we pay for that? How do we pay for it sustaining wise? And then how do we find those types of resources in those areas where we might need those? There is some precedence set for some of those things, specifically like with seasonal firefighters in terms of temporary housing and that kind of stuff. So, the state has some background in providing those things, but we have to figure out how we might actually shift that to skilled nursing care, and obviously, if we need to adjust any Idaho statutes to allow us to do that or not. We expect to keep working that over the next couple of years to try and bring that into fruition.

IR:

Are there more things, aside from money and benefits, that the state could do to help you and your department provide these services?

Schampl:

No, I actually think we get great support from the state, particularly Governor Little. He’s been a very strong advocate for our programs and what we’re trying to do. One of the things that we asked for, and were provided, was significant funding of $75 million so that we can actually redo our current three veterans homes in Boise, Lewiston and Pocatello. Completely rebuilding those homes into single-bed, single-bath facilities — which is what our Post Falls home is, our newest one — really to provide the best level of care and comfort to our veterans that are living in those homes, because right now currently they have to share bedrooms and share bathrooms.

IR:

Could you tell me more about the existing facilities and the plan to replace them?

Schampl:

Taking the Post Falls one out, because it’s brand new and we just finished it, and it is single-bed and single-bath. All our other current facilities are shared bedrooms and shared bathrooms. So typically, you have two veterans in a room, and then two sets of rooms connect to the same bathroom. You’ve got four individuals sharing the same bathroom. It’s okay.

IR:

It sounds like a college dorm situation.

Schampl:

Yeah, it is totally, but that’s not what we really want to offer them. We really want to offer them their own space — their own bathroom — and allow them that quality of life that they were used to as adults. We want to provide that. In order for us to retrofit our current facilities, it’s honestly very expensive. But again, part of Governor Little’s “Leading Idaho” program from last year was he granted the $75 million, which is the state matching funds that we need to combine it through a federal VA grant to redo those homes. So, the federal VA pays 65% of the cost to retrofit those homes, and the state has to come up with the 35%.

We are now in the stages of planning those those retrofits. In the case of our Boise home, we’re actually going to completely rebuild a brand new facility. It’ll be done in phases. We’ll actually build the new one around the current existing facility, because we don’t want to displace any veterans that we’re currently caring for. So we’ll build it around the existing facility, and when it’s done, we’ll move them into the new one and then tear the old one down. In Lewiston and Pocatello, those will actually be refurbished facilities, so we’re not tearing those buildings down. We’re just going to add to them and then refurbish the insides into that single-bed and single-bath.

IR:

What’s the timeline on these projects?

Schampl:

The Boise one will be the first one that we do, and we anticipate that we will hopefully be able to start construction around the fall of 2024. It depends on the federal funding that we need to get as well, but that’s when we anticipate construction to start there. Construction will take roughly two and a half years for the new Boise home, and then simultaneously we’ll get started on Lewiston and Pocatello. But overall, it’ll probably take about 5 to 6 years from start to finish, from now to finish, to get them all refurbished.

IR:

If all of your current needs were met, what’s the one extra thing that you wish you could offer Idaho veterans?

Schampl:

You know, we’re we’re already tackling that. We’ve significantly expanded our outreach that we do for veterans in Idaho. Part of that outreach was building this coalition of other veterans service organizations across the state. There’s a lot of great veterans service organizations that want to do good. The problem is they lacked the cohesiveness to make sure that the resources they have go to those veterans and those families that are in need. So one of the things we’ve done a lot of is really bring all those groups together.

Now we’re kind of a hub, if you will, so when there’s a veteran or a family member of a veteran that that is in need, typically if we find out, we can turn around and get them that support in less than 24 hours. So, I would say there really isn’t anything. We’ve tackled the things that I think were holes within the services we could provide. Now we’re leveraging and synergizing with other veteran organizations to make sure that we can do that. We’ll continue to expand that. We’re actually really happy with where things are going and really excited about continuing to develop that.

IR:

Mark Tschampl, administrator with the Idaho Division of Veterans Services, thanks for your time this week.

Schampl:

Thank you for having me.

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