ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Republicans and Democrats joined together to roll out a legislative package focused on increasing access to benefits to more service members.
Senator Bryan Simonaire, a Republican from Anne Arundel County, says the main issue is with the definition of who gets the benefit in state statute; using the example of in-state tuition benefits.
"Currently, if you are an active duty service member or national guard you get in-state tuition breaks but for some reason in the law reservists did not get it," said Simonaire.
There's inconsistencies in how each piece of legislation defines a service member.
"When we say uniformed services, that includes all eight branches. The problem we see in law is it says armed forces which excludes them," said Simonaire.
Two groups routinely left out are the U.S. Public Health Services and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Both are apart of the United States Military but may never deploy.
"PHS and NOAA officers will be now be receiving these tax breaks that they were not receiving prior to this just because of inconsistent and outdated language," said Simonaire.
Another is people who might not think of themselves as veterans.
"Cold war veterans who may not have deployed, national guard veterans who served during peace time, female veterans who didn't deploy. They think I'm not entitled to those so this is going to really help simplify that and there will be one definition for a veteran and they know where to go and they can self identify and go. I am one of these, I am entitled to these benefits," said Allen.
Changing the definition of who is eligible for the benefits to streamline the process.
"We've created two different definitions. One is active service member or service member. So now a department can easily come in and say this is the target or this is the target," said Simonaire.
The group is putting out various pieces of legislation to change the definition in previous state law.
It doesn't create any new benefits for service members.