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NORTON - Local veterans are fighting to save Veterans Agent Robert Charles from becoming a budget casualty.

Charles and Korean War veteran Earl King III started a petition drive this week asking selectmen to save Charles' job rather than merge it with the human services director, which also oversees the local council on aging.

Effective July 1, Charles is out the door.

The consolidation was proposed by Town Manager James Purcell to save money during the tough budget year ahead.

Such a reorganization was last proposed in 1998, and failed. Charles, in his fourth year in Norton, and King say state law requires a full-time agent in communities of 12,000 or more, and that a combined post won't pass muster.

"We've got a war going on. It's a slap in the face to take our veterans agent away from us," said King, a senior citizen who is doing the legwork on the petition.

Purcell said his proposal is legal, and "a temporary move while the economy is bad."

The administrators serve similar clientele, and state law allows communities to assign other duties to the veterans agent, he said.

Purcell has projected a deficit in Norton's veterans benefits budget for the last six weeks of this year.

"What's important to know is our effort to provide benefits to qualified veterans would not be affected," Purcell said. "When things get better, everybody will go back to the way things are now."

Purcell said the petition does not surprise him.

King said the petition will be posted around town, including at the senior center and the Woodland Meadows elderly housing complex.

King said Human Services Director James Dinsel is proposed to work three days per week in the veterans' office at town hall and two days in the senior center.

"If he's up here three days a week and there two days a week, that's a part-time job," King said. "Jim Dinsel is a nice guy. He's good at what he does. But he knows nothing about veterans affairs, and Bob Charles does," King said. "It's a slap in the face to seniors and veterans because they'll be closing the senior center in order for him to be here."

Dinsel said he only has been told that town officials are revisiting the idea 10 years after voters rejected it.

"It's been a buzz here at the senior center," said Dinsel, himself an Army veteran of Vietnam. "Of course, they're all looking for answers. I don't have any answers to give them.

"I am waiting and seeing."

Charles said supporters of Purcell's plan "don't see everything that I do."

"They just think I sit here and have 41 cases," he said.

Charles said Norton's veteran population, according to the town clerk, numbered 950 to 1,000 last year.

"A veteran fights for our freedom, and this is how we repay them?" he said. "We're cutting back on their services, and that's not right."

Charles said he visits veterans' homes when they are unable to leave. On Thursday, he visited one client seeking help with her Social Security audit letter.

He said he also helps veterans obtain their state and federal benefits.

And Charles said he has helped veterans apply under President Bush's economic stimulus package.

"I've had people come in here. I've gone to their houses and helped them do the 1040," Charles said.

Resident Catherine Bechtel said her husband, William, who served during the Korean War, receives benefits that help pay for his Medicaid and prescription drugs.

Bechtel said she believes serving veterans and seniors at the same time would overwhelm the administrator with paperwork.

She also contends that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will need attention.

"They're going to need to be talked to, and they're going to need time," said Bechtel, who added that her son, Gilbert, is in an Army unit scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in December.

"We're going to need people who have some experience with what these guys have and have not seen."

Senior citizens, meanwhile, are concerned Purcell's plan would reduce the senior center's hours.

"We won't have a place to play cards," Betty Thurston said. "I don't know what we are going to do."

Dorothy George said she comes to the center every Thursday for lunch, and Friday for Scrabble.

"It gives me something to look forward to," she said.

Charles said veterans from several groups are expected to show their solidarity by attending next Thursday night's selectmen's meeting.

"I'm hoping this thing gets resolved before the (May 12 special) town meeting," so that voters need not discuss it, Charles said.

"We need to nip it now. Otherwise, it will start flowing to other communities."

MICHAEL GELBWASSER covers Norton for The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0439 or at mgelbwasser@thesunchronicle.com.