During the April 5, 2023, meeting of the alleged Executive Board, Bradley Levite, Superintendent of the Veterans Assistance Commission of Madison County (“VACMC”) was discussing the process to review and update the VACMC Bylaws from 2017, and from all appearances is setting the VAC up for either failure, or a long, embarrassing, and needlessly drawn-out process.
We did note he did not attempt to Chair this meeting.
The First Vice-President asked Levite who had been appointed to the Bylaw Committee, and Levite’s response was that the new amendment to the Military Veterans Assistance Act prohibited the forming of any committees.
Levite is wrong. If he was correct, then the executive board, a committee of the full commission, should not exist.
Typically, someone or some committee would provide the delegates and alternates with draft updated bylaws for their consideration and would do so prior to their next meeting. They should also be knowledgeable enough to answer the questions asked. But this VAC “executive board” apparently will simply “compare” the old bylaws with the new state law during their May 2023 meeting, and then somehow magically come up with newly drafted bylaws for them to present to the full commission during their June 2023 meeting, and then vote to approve the new bylaws during their September 2023 meeting.
Nothing in the new MVAA prohibits the forming of committees; in fact, the text in the Act specifically mentions committees (See Sections 9(a)(5) and (7)). What the Act did was reduce into writing what has always been the case – that committees and other subsidiary bodies of the “Full Commission” have absolutely no powers to act or approve anything. Those powers rest on the full commission. This has always been the case.
Committees can be formed for their proper purpose, such as finance committees, bylaw committees, hiring committees, etc., whose only purposes are fact-finding and providing recommendations to the full commission for their vote.
Finally, any bylaws adopted must only be for the public body of the VACMC, not for the nonprofit the IRS doesn’t know about. We discussed the comingling in previous articles (here and here).
See the meeting video below, starting at about the 31:14 mark. I provided public comment on that issue starting at about the 41:32 mark:
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