HAMILTON COUNTY — The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled the director of the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) must supervise County Veteran Service Officers, an issue that’s been in dispute for several years.
Currently, veteran service officers are employed by county governments. They provide direct assistance to veterans in accessing benefits including burial, education and training, health care, home loans, life insurance, pension and vocational rehabilitation, and employment.
The Court of Appeals decision, handed down March 3, upholds a Marion County judge’s decision to rule in favor of Hamilton County in its lawsuit filed against Dennis Wimer, the director of the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs from 2019 until January 2025.
Governor Mike Braun appointed Jake Adams to replace Wimer in January 2025 as IDVA director.
Hamilton County’s lawsuit, filed in October 2022, alleged Wimer failed to properly train and supervise the former Hamilton County Veteran Service Officer (VSO).
It’s an update to a story WRTV Investigates first brought you in 2022 that revealed veteran claims for benefits were never even filed — resulting in hundreds of veterans missing thousands of dollars in benefits.
WRTV Investigates obtained an internal email that estimated between 1,200 to 2,500 veterans were negatively affected by the issue, and the projected loss to families was around $45 million.
However, Commissioner Mark Heirbrandt told WRTV he did not believe the numbers were accurate and declined to provide any estimates.
Hamilton County is home to more than 13,300 veterans.
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Hamilton County’s former VSO, Lynn Epperson, was appointed in 2014 by the Hamilton County Commissioners and removed from office in December 2019 “due to ongoing performance issues,” read the complaint.
After Epperson left, the county discovered she had failed to timely submit claims seeking monthly disability benefits for many veterans.
“As a result, the benefits (including retroactive benefits) for hundreds of veterans have been lost,” read the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleged employees left files with Epperson that required urgent action, only to discover after Epperson’s termination that Epperson never took any action on many claims.
Hamilton County filed a complaint alleging Wimer failed to properly train and supervise the former Hamilton County Veteran Service Officer (VSO).
The Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court’s interpretation of Indiana code, saying “the statute unambiguously requires the Director to supervise County Service Officers.”
The decision comes as Senate Bill 433, authored by Senator Scott Baldwin (R-Hamilton County), seeks to change the structure of veterans' services across Indiana.
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The proposed legislation would shift this responsibility to the state level, with veterans' service officers reporting to the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs instead of county commissioners.
Senator Baldwin argues that Senate Bill 433 is designed to improve the training and efficiency of veterans service officers across the state.
Baldwin believes that centralizing training and oversight under the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs would lead to better consistency and more effective outcomes for veterans seeking assistance.
"All the veterans services officers would now report to one place, be trained by one organization, be held to the same KPIs and standards as one organization but the county commissioners would have the final say in who is hired,” Baldwin said.
The Indiana Veteran Service Officers Association provided the following statement:
“IVSOA would like for the citizens of Indiana to know that County Veterans Service Officers should be held to the highest standard. This standard should be a beacon for the rest of the country to follow. IVSOA and CVSO’s are veterans who service our veteran Communities of Indiana with the utmost professionalism. When an office is not fulfilling that standard of care and professionalism, it hurts everyone involved. We would like to thank Senator Baldwin for introducing SB 433 to help develop that standard across the state and the leadership of the new IDVA Director Adams, we believe that what happened in Hamilton County will be prevented from happening again. IVSOA welcomes change that will benefit the Veterans Community of Indiana.”
WRTV Investigates is working to get responses from both Hamilton County and IDVA regarding the Court of Appeals ruling.
IDVA provided the following response in 2024 to the trial court’s ruling:
“The Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) firmly believes that the trial court erred in its ruling. We are currently working with the Indiana Attorney General’s Office concerning an appeal. IDVA is encouraged by the previous support given by the Indiana Veteran Service Officer Association. They are the membership organization for all County Veteran Service Officers in Indiana. The association disagrees with the court’s ruling. We appreciate their continuing support. It is unfortunate Hamilton County did not timely notify IDVA of the problems its county veteran service office and its county employee, who was serving in the role of County Veteran Service Officer before they fired her, were having and their initial resistance to IDVA’s offer of assistance. All Hamilton County veteran claims that may have been impacted were submitted to the US Department of Veterans Affairs in 2020. All have been fully evaluated and decided. Claimants who need additional help can contact IDVA, a Veteran Service Organization, or their local County Veteran Service Officer.”
Hamilton County alleged in its lawsuit Epperson’s delay in filing claims resulted in veterans losing a “substantial amount of retroactive payments.”
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“Numerous doctor’s offices confirmed they had faxed veterans’ medical records to the office, but Epperson had not placed the records in the veterans’ files,” read the lawsuit. “Epperson lied to employees about the status of claims, and as a result, office employees would unknowingly provide false information to veterans regarding their claims.”
Concerned about Epperson’s performance, the county reviewed open files from August 2018 to July 2019 to see if tasks were completed.
As of September 2019, it reviewed 218 files and of those, 180 claims had either not been filed correctly or not filed at all.
“This was a significant failure on Epperson’s part, which put hundreds of veterans at risk of losing their benefits,” read the lawsuit.
Hamilton County says it has repeatedly asked the state for help in remedying the issues involving Epperson, but claim the state refused to do so, claiming it had no responsibility over the VSO’s employment.
“To date, the state has not agreed to cooperate,” read the lawsuit.
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WRTV reached out to Lynn Epperson for comment, and we are still waiting to hear back.
She has not been criminally charged nor was she named as a defendant in Hamilton County’s lawsuit against Dennis Wimer.
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