that blistering report released by the Department of Justice yesterday finds that New Jersey violated the constitutional rights of its veterans by failing to provide sufficient Care at two state-run veterans homes during the covet pandemic Menlo Park and Paramus the report found significant failures in safety protocols and it slammed the vet home operators for instructing staff not to cooperate with the doj investigation and it says that violations continue the Murphy Administration has since hired outside vendors to help run those vets homes and Governor Murphy offered a statement yesterday saying it's clear we have significantly more work to do and we're open to exploring all options Senator Joe Cryin who chairs the Senate military and veterans committee says the state's attempts are not good enough and he's considering legislation to take control of the veterans homes away from the Department of military and Veterans Affairs well the report says we failed and when you fail the reflection of this is on a very human level we lost lives and we didn't respond which most folks would think is appropriate in terms of the way we responded and the way we understood the the situation at the time we didn't do that PPE lack of PPE letting folks in with covert report is on a very human one-to-one level for the lives lost and the lives impacted is just beyond terrific I think the lesson is is you failed what are you going to do to fix and I'm not sure I I know that we haven't done enough I'm joined right now by Ken Hageman State adjutant for the New Jersey VFW who's been vocal on this issue from the beginning I really want to zero in on 2020 and and what happened in the time of covid what did the Department of Justice report find it found uh that the Veterans Administration violated the veterans 14th Amendment rights that they didn't provide care the proper care the proper uh infection control procedures and we we go back to early in April of 2020 when they were told they couldn't wear a mask and if you showed up to work with a mask you were brought up on disciplinary charges they just we've been saying it all along that they were violating the rights they denied those veterans and their spouses a dignified existence and they they died at some of the highest uh rates in the world in late 2022 the state did hire an outside vendor to help oversee and manage those two homes as well as the Vineland facility and but the report really focuses on 2020 and 2021.

I'm curious since the state hired those outside vendors have we seen improvements it's too early to tell it's only been a few months we have not met with them we have met with the director of healthcare she assures us and and the Deputy Commissioner and they assure us that some changes were made and those are we'll have to see transparency really feels like it's been an issue here all the way around the governor and the Murphy administration had promised a full-scale report analyzing what went wrong here it's taken years we're now expected to get that after the election I believe later this year Democrats have also rejected some Republican proposals for oversight for the formation of a select committee with subpoena power what do we need to see here in terms of transparency to better understand what's really happening in these homes you're right and the VFW and I think Senator Brian spoke about it yesterday the VFW uh made a proposal to dismantle the mava and create a commission or an authority with more transparency and stakeholders from the veterans community as Commissioners to oversee the operations of the Department of military investors Affairs which would include the homes so help me understand you're looking for a separate agency specifically to oversee these veterans homes and and all the Veterans Services that the state provides not just the homes all the the mava has other roles a homeless veterans things like that department of military and Veterans Affairs is mava do you think there's the political will to make that happen here in New Jersey but with this report there probably will be there's a very damning report like you said it's been years the governor promised two years ago to uh take to have a full accounting of what happened uh we've been waiting two years a grand jury doesn't take that long I I think the state I know the state and pound of the grand jury ever heard anything about that yet either Ken Hageman with New Jersey's VFW thank you so much appreciate you being here with us thank you [Music]