Alabama Veterans Affairs Commissioner Rejects Resignation Request by Governor

Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Kent Davis on Sept. 7 formally declined a request from the state executive branch for his resignation. A day earlier, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sent a letter to Davis’s office asking that he resign by the end of the day over alleged mishandling of grant funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Former members of the armed forces and their dependents are provided assistance by the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, which is a state department. The State Board of Veterans Affairs, which Ivey leads, oversees the agency, including its commissioner. “Ample cause exists for your removal as Commissioner,” Ivey wrote in the letter. “For example, your agency mishandled an ARPA grant program by, among other things, proposing—on a substantially delayed basis—uses of grant funds that would be ineligible under U.S. Treasury rules and regulations and/or state law or policy.”...