The state Senate has unanimously passed a bill that would require the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a program that would address the unique needs of female veterans.

The proposal does not include any funding for the program and instead asks the department to establish the program "within available resources." The department has an annual budget of about $30 million.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data show that there are 16,545 women veterans in Connecticut. The number is expected to grow as more veterans return home with the drawdown of troops from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The bill, modeled on Indiana legislation, would establish the Husky Women Veterans' Program, which would provide information and services to women veterans.

A summary of the bill says the program must reach out to women veterans to improve awareness of  benefits and services eligibility; assess women veterans' needs; review programs, research projects and other initiatives to address or meet Connecticut women veterans' needs; and incorporate women veterans' issues in strategic planning on benefits and services.

The bill, if passed by the House of Representatives and signed by the governor, would also require annual recommendations for improving benefits and services for women veterans to the state Veterans' Affairs commissioner and the General Assembly's Veterans' Affairs Committee starting Jan. 15, 2016.

The Permanent Commission on the Status of Women and Gregory Smith, state commander of the Department of Connecticut Veterans of Foreign Wars, submitted the only two statements of testimony at the Feb. 17 public hearing for the bill.

The testimony from PCSW says, "The bill recognizes the reality that longstanding veterans' programs were not developed with the unique needs of women veterans in mind."

It goes on to say that "a defining difference between the experience of men and women veterans is the increased risk and incidence of sexual assault (also known as military sexual trauma or MST) against women."

The commission's testimony cites statistics from the Service Women's Action Network that 37 percent of women veterans report being raped at least twice and 14 percent report experiences of gang rape, and that some evidence suggests that black women in the military are more likely to experience more severe forms of harassment than their white female counterparts.

Smith's testimony included comments on a number of bills dealing with veterans' issues. In reference to the women veterans' program, Smith's testimony says, "The VFW has made great strides to support and address the needs of our Nation's women warriors. We all have much more work to do."

The commission's executive director, Carolyn Treiss, did not seem worried about the lack of funding for the program. Treiss said by email Friday, "The way the bill is written, it seems to me it would not take a substantial amount of resources. Although it does call for 'outreach to women veterans,' it doesn't actually create any new programming."

Instead, she said, "it calls for assessment and review of needs and existing programming as well as recommendations for how programming could be improved. Presumably, the recommendations might call for new programs that might require funding, but the bill doesn't mandate new programming."

Although Indiana's Hoosier Women Veterans Program is fairly new, it could prove to be a useful template for what a Connecticut program, if created, could look like.

The program went into effect in July 2014. In January, Laura McKee, an Air Force reservist, was selected as coordinator. McKee makes $41,574 a year, which is paid for through existing funds at the VA.

On the job for less than three months, McKee said by phone Friday, "I'm pretty much starting from dirt.

"But there has been such awesome, positive support," from the state and federal government, various communities in the state and also the veterans organizations in Indiana, she said.

McKee mentioned that Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration recently approached her about whether the veterans she serves could use a "slight portion" of a federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families grant that the administration received.

People in other states have asked how it's going so far. A recent call from New York asked her, "How'd this work?"

McKee said she is currently undergoing various training, attending outreach events and will take a grant-writing class. Right now, the focus is on awareness, she said, mainly through outreach — job fairs, events through the VA and community events like ribbon cuttings.

She has already received a couple of discrimination cases, and Indiana's governor recently passed along a case of the mother of a vet who's on her "last strings trying to take care of her son," McKee said.

When asked about the differences between the needs of male veterans and female veterans, McKee said, "A lot of it is health care." She said she's also heard female veterans express the need for day care. McKee said she wants to have reliable, up-to-date, quality resources for them.

Her role opens up the door for conversations that women veterans may not feel comfortable having with their male counterparts, McKee said.

McKee said she saw on Twitter that Connecticut is trying to mirror Indiana's program.

"I think it's fantastic," she said. "We do need more. There are people out there that don't necessarily think this is a good thing, but it is a very good thing."

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: @JuliaSBergman