Funding for a pilot program aimed at helping military veterans maintain employment will be awarded by the state this month.

The program is one of three new laws recently put in place to provide support for veterans or active-duty military members.

House Bill 1030 creates the Employment Services for Veterans Pilot Program. The program sets up career counseling, mentoring and job retention services for veterans.

The pilot is limited to 20 veterans who have received an honorable or general discharge from duty. Veterans in the program will receive 300 hours of state-funded services aimed at bettering their professional and personal lives, over a two-year period.

The legislation targets specific vocational skills and provides veterans with “motivational interviewing, family support and education, group activities for veterans and employer training and monitoring,” according to a bill analysis from the Colorado Legislative Council.

Rep. Lois Landgraf, R-Fountain, said counselors can also act as a liaison for veterans with special needs, such as those who are struggling with issues like post-traumatic stress disorder. Counselors would be available to communicate with employers when issues arise in veterans’ lives.

“The goal is to make sure people stay employed,” she said. “A lot of these veterans face a lot of personal issues and family issues. And hopefully with a counselor, they’ll be able to work through the problem so it doesn’t impact their jobs.”

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, which will administer the program, will soon award funding to a nonprofit agency that will operate the program. Nonprofits were able to bid for the project through a recent request for proposal period.

The law, which was signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper in May, appropriates $157,950 in general fund dollars for the 2015-2016 fiscal year for program funding.

The pilot will expire in 2018. But Landgraf hopes the program will be extended and expanded in two years.

“The state often funds employment programs and we never know if they’re successful,” she said. “We’ll be able to track this for two years and find out if these people are staying on the job. I personally think that, if it is successful, it should be expanded.”

Meanwhile, another new law aims to provide tax relief for active-duty military members.

House Bill 1181, the Honoring Our Military Exemption Act, allows military personnel on active duty who reacquire Colorado residency to receive a tax deduction from his or her state taxes.

The law allows military personnel who list Colorado as their home of record – the state in which the person resided at the time they first joined the military – to return here without financial consequence.

“The Department of Defense decides where Colorado’s sons and daughters are stationed – often in far-flung places around the globe,” said Rep. Jon Keyser, R-Morrison. “But with the passage of the HOME act, I hope our women and men in uniform know that no matter where they get stationed, Colorado can always be their ‘home.'”

And a third law that took effect this month allows disabled veterans to obtain license plates that designate their handicap while also highlighting their military distinction.

Prior to House Bill 1026 becoming law, not all disabled veterans with special license plates were able to park in spaces reserved for the handicapped. The law, which was sponsored by Rep. Kit Roupe, R-Colorado Springs, allows for a “persons with disability” emblem to be affixed to those plates.

All three laws received large bipartisan support at the Legislature earlier this year.

– Twitter @VicVela1