HARTFORD, CONN. (Feb. 6, 2025) — The State of Connecticut Department of Administrative Services (DAS) has posted a request for proposals to acquire land for a new veterans cemetery; however, the governor’s new budget has allocated only half the money needed.
Ending Feb. 28, 2025, DVA – RFP 25-01 from DAS Leasing is seeking land for the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) for up to “50 +/- acres of buildable land, suitable for future use as a cemetery.”
Additionally, Governor Ned Lamont has released his FY 2026/2027 budget proposal, including $7.5 million of the $15 million requested for the “Expansion of the Middletown State Veterans Cemetery.”
Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Ronald P. “Ron” Welch has said in public testimony, it would take $15 million to establish a new cemetery, “because you have to have an entire equipment set and an entire staff at that other location.”
While the Save Our Cemetery (SOC) campaign is elated there is concrete movement toward preserving a State Veterans Cemetery in Connecticut, it is disheartened the centrally-located and well developed state veteran cemetery located in Middletown will most likely not be expanded, eventually be closed, and with time–largely forgotten about.
From the information package:
The Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs seeks to purchase suitable and buildable property for a new State Veterans Cemetery to complement the existing Middletown State Veterans Cemetery. The municipality, and citizens must support the project to establish the next State Veterans Cemetery as a respectful shrine to Connecticut’s Veterans and their eligible dependents laid to rest for the next 60-plus years. This new cemetery property and project should be a source of pride for the locality and the State of Connecticut. Approximately 17,000 interments have taken place in the Middletown State Veterans Cemetery since its inception on November 11, 1984.