[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INCREASING THE FUNCTIONALITY OF POST-9/11
GI BILL CLAIMS PROCESSING TO REDUCE DELAYS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY (EO)
of the
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-4
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
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79-939 WASHINGTON : 2013
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COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine, Ranking
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida Minority Member
DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee CORRINE BROWN, Florida
BILL FLORES, Texas MARK TAKANO, California
JEFF DENHAM, California JULIA BROWNLEY, California
JON RUNYAN, New Jersey DINA TITUS, Nevada
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas RAUL RUIZ, California
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada GLORIA NEGRETE MCLEOD, California
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
PAUL COOK, California TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana
Helen W. Tolar, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY (EO)
BILL FLORES, Texas, Chairman
JON RUNYAN, New Jersey MARK TAKANO, California, Ranking
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado Minority Member
PAUL COOK, California JULIA BROWNLEY, California
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio DINA TITUS, Nevada
ANN M. KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
hearing records of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs are also
published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the
official version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare
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of converting between various electronic formats may introduce
unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
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C O N T E N T S
__________
February 14, 2013
Page
Increasing The Functionality of Post-9/11 GI Bill Claims
Processing To Reduce Delays.................................... 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Hon. Bill Flores, Chairman, Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity
(EO)........................................................... 1
Prepared Statement of Hon. Flores............................ 29
Hon. Mark Takano, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on
Economic Opportunity (EO)...................................... 1
Prepared Statement of Hon. Takano............................ 29
WITNESSES
Michael Dakduk, Executive Director, Student Veterans America
(SVA).......................................................... 4
Prepared Statement of Mr. Dakduk............................. 30
Kim Hall, Veterans Program Administrator, Humboldt State
University, Vice President, National Association of Veterans
Program Administrators (NAVPA)................................. 5
Prepared Statement of Ms. Hall............................... 31
Hayleigh Perez, Students Veterans Advocacy Group................. 7
Prepared Statement of Ms. Perez.............................. 33
Hon. Roger Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and
Technology, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs................ 21
Prepared Statement of Hon. Baker............................. 36
Accompanied by:
MG Robert M. Worley II, USAF, (Ret.), Director, Education
Service, Veterans Benefit Administration, U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs
QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
Letter From: Hon. Bill Flores, Chairman, Subcommittee on Economic
Opportunity, To: The Hon. Eric Shinseki, Secretary, U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs................................. 40
Post-Hearing Questions for Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA)
and VA's Office of Information and Technology (OIT)............ 42
INCREASING THE FUNCTIONALITY OF POST-9/11 GI BILL CLAIMS PROCESSING TO
REDUCE DELAYS
Thursday, February 14, 2013
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Bill Flores
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Flores, Runyan, Coffman, Takano,
Brownley, Titus, and Kirkpatrick.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN BILL FLORES
Mr. Flores. Good morning. I want to begin by welcoming each
of our new Members, especially our Ranking Member, Mr. Takano,
to the Committee.
I also want to publicly thank Mr. Takano for agreeing to
become an original co-sponsor of legislation which I have
introduced that will mandate the contents of the Transition
Assistance Program or TAP as we know it.
I realize everyone introduced themselves at the Full
Committee organizational meeting, but I think it would be--
well, never mind. Okay. We have got one that we can introduce.
With that said, I would now like to recognize the
distinguished Ranking Member.
I will just introduce Mr. Coffman since we only have one
other Member to introduce.
So I will open the floor for Mr. Takano's remarks.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Flores appears in the
Appendix]
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK TAKANO
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning. I would like to thank everyone for joining us
today. And I would like to thank our witnesses for taking time
to testify and answering our questions.
Chairman Flores, congratulations on being the new
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity Chairman. I look forward
to working with you and to helping our veterans and their
families across our country.
As our country begins to reduce operations in the Middle
East and bring more of our troops home, we will need to have
the right programs to address their needs.
We have spent $263 million on the long-term solution and
many questions still remain regarding the system's
effectiveness, its completion, and our return on investment.
The system does not yet process all claims from beginning
to end and there is quite a bit of human intervention necessary
to complete claims.
When the Veterans Administration first began processing
claims with a short-term solution, it took about 45 minutes to
process an original claim. Years later, with millions of
dollars spent, it takes about the same time to process an
original claim.
I do not see the anticipated gains that were visualized
when the VA and SPAWAR came here to our Subcommittee and
testified before us. As always, we are open to ideas on how to
improve this custom-designed system.
Besides the cost and problems with the LTS, we need to know
where completion of the LTS ranks for the VA. Is the LTS first
on their IT priority list or has it now tumbled to the bottom
of the list?
I hope the VA came prepared today to discuss where they are
in completing the LTS and what will be the remaining cost.
I know Congress has made some changes to the GI Bill that
required the VA to pivot from their original plan to
accommodate midstream changes. I would like to know the impact
of these congressional changes so that we have a complete
picture of what has transpired since we began working on the
LTS.
The colleges and universities are reporting a number of
issues with the system. I know that off-ramp problems have been
an issue and there may be a simple solution to address the over
80 reasons that off-ramps occur.
I look forward to what the NAVPA has to say about how we
can streamline payments to the colleges. I hope we can figure
out how we can streamline and improve the functionality of LTS
that is so fundamental to veterans for their education.
This was the promise of the act to them when it became law
under Public Law 110-252 and it is our priority now as Members
of this Subcommittee.
I remain very interested to hear from the VA the details of
how the provisions that have been implemented are performing,
how soon additional functionality will be implemented and what
will be the means for reducing processing times and providing
improved services for veterans.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for scheduling this hearing and I
look forward to the testimony and discussion we will have
today.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Takano appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Flores. I thank Mr. Takano.
My thanks to each of the Members, and I am looking forward
to a productive and bipartisan 113th Congress.
We are here today to review development and implementation
of the computer system used to process Post-9/11 GI Bill
claims. And so a little history is in order.
In the run-up to the passage of the new program, VA stated
unequivocally that the system used for decades to process
Montgomery GI Bill claims would not be able to handle the more
complex Post-9/11 program. So Congress authorized $100 million
to develop a new system, what is now called the long-term
solution or LTS.
Since the Post-9/11 GI Bill became law, this Subcommittee
has held at least seven hearings on the program including the
new LTS. Until recently, our understanding was that the system
was being developed to handle all Post-9/11 claims beginning
with an original claim through supplemental claims.
We now understand that the major development effort has
focused on automating supplemental claims which compromise the
bulk of the interactions between the VA, the students, and the
schools.
I think in terms of a strategy, that was the proper
decision and I applaud the VA for that decision. That strategy
has resulted in over 40 percent of supplemental claims being
processed without human intervention, but, like most things, it
also had negative results because that decision left original
claims processing relatively un-automated.
As a result, an original claim still takes about 45 minutes
to process, a time little changed since 2009. In short, we are
supportive of VA's efforts related to the LTS and our focus
today is looking towards the future and to finish the full
implementation of LTS.
Without making the system and its information more
accessible to veterans and schools, it is not complete.
I would add to that the ability to provide a robust analyst
function to enable the VA and Congress to make better informed
decisions on the education and training benefits in the future.
VA has now spent about $236 million on LTS and without
adding such functions, it would be like buying a luxury car
without air conditioning, heated seats, and a satellite radio.
As our witness from the NAVPA says in her testimony, LTS
must continue to evolve so that it is able to process more
complex claims and changes.
I now invite our first panel to the table, and they took
the initiative to be there already.
With us today are Mr. Michael Dakduk, I am not going to get
that correct, but I am trying, Executive Director of Student
Veterans of America; Ms. Kim Hall, Vice President of the
National Association of Veterans Program Administrators; and
Ms. Hayleigh Perez from the Student Veterans Advocacy Group.
We welcome each of you. And just a reminder, you will have
five minutes to summarize your statement.
Let's begin with Mr. Dakduk.
STATEMENTS OF MICHAEL DAKDUK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STUDENT
VETERANS OF AMERICA, (SVA); KIM HALL, VETERANS PROGRAM
ADMINISTRATOR, HUMBOLDT STATE UNIVERSITY, VICE PRESIDENT,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF VETERANS PROGRAM ADMINISTRATORS
(NAVPA); HAYLEIGH PEREZ, STUDENT VETERANS ADVOCACY GROUP
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DAKDUK
Mr. Dakduk. Thank you, Chairman Flores, Ranking Member
Takano, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee.
Thank you for inviting Student Veterans of America to
testify and address the Subcommittee on increasing the
functionality of the Post-9/11 GI Bill claims processing to
reduce delays.
I served in the United States Marine Corps from 2004 to
2008. In 2005, I was in Iraq. In 2007, I was in Afghanistan. I
transitioned out. I used the Montgomery GI Bill.
During this time, the movement for the new Post-9/11 GI
Bill was taking place in the halls of Congress, so I
experienced firsthand that transition from Montgomery GI Bill
to this new Post-9/11 GI Bill and the delays that come with it.
These delays still persist to this day.
Student Veterans of America is the largest and only
national association of military veterans in higher education.
We currently have over 750 chapters or student veteran
organizations at colleges and universities in all 50 states and
in your districts that assist veterans in their transition to
and through higher education.
SVA chapters were organized at four-year and two-year
public, private, nonprofit, and for-profit institutions of
higher learning.
This on-the-ground perspective which comes from every
corner of this Nation and our experience in supporting
thousands of GI Bill beneficiaries provides the framework for
our testimony regarding the long-term solution and other
recommendations regarding improvements for the processing of
the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
Long-term solution or LTS, a proposed fully-automated, end-
to-end processing system for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, has been a
topic of discussion since 2010. And you mentioned the multiple
hearings, Mr. Chairman.
While the LTS is a behind-the-scenes IT system being rolled
in phases, SVA has concerns with the lack of realtime
information currently being provided to student veterans.
We have routinely called for a secure Web-based single
portal system that allows for student veterans to see the
status of their GI Bill claim in realtime.
Currently, student veterans are only able to track the
status of their claims by calling the GI Bill hotline or
interfacing with our colleagues here, school certifying
officials.
The GI Bill hotline has elongated wait times and during
periods of heavy call traffic, the automated system instructs
the student veterans to call back at a later time. This process
is highly inefficient and extremely frustrating to veterans.
The other option is for gaining information on the status
of a veteran's GI Bill claim and often the most consistent is
for a student veteran to connect with the school certifying
official on campus.
The school certifying officials have a private and, by most
accounts, reliable hotline that they can call on the status of
a veteran's GI Bill claim. However, this is not a long-term
solution for the timely processing of the GI Bill.
School certifying officials should have access to a system
that allows them to submit certifications of enrollment in a
streamlined manner and, most importantly, follow the status of
a veteran's GI Bill claim in realtime.
Since school certifying officials interact with the student
veterans on a regular basis, they are often inundated with
questions about the status of a veteran's GI Bill claim. They
must be provided with the adequate systems to process and view
the status of a student veteran's claim in realtime.
We recommend that school certifying officials and student
veterans be provided appropriate realtime access to the status
of GI Bill claims utilizing 21st century Web-based technology.
Both the student veteran and school certifying official
portal we propose is not a concept unknown to the public or
private sectors. You see it with the United States Postal
Service, FedEx, UPS, your bank, insurance claims.
These can all be tracked or using the Web, you can log in
and find out the status of your claim. But currently student
veterans are unable to really figure out what the status of
their GI Bill claim is.
Not only are customers notified of estimated time and
delivery with shipping services like the United States Postal
Service or FedEx, but when a hiccup occurs in the delivery of a
package, the receiving customer is notified in a timely manner
and given a new delivery time.
This does not work every time. The system is not perfect.
But it works the majority of the time.
It is difficult to grasp in a technology-rich society why
the time in processing of the Post-9/11 GI Bill is still a
subject of concern. Equally disturbing is the inability of
student veterans to access the status of their claim in
realtime or near realtime.
We are grateful for the opportunity to testify here today.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Takano,
and I welcome any of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Michael Dakduk appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Dakduk.
Ms. Hall.
STATEMENT OF KIM HALL
Ms. Hall. Chairman Flores, Ranking Member Takano, Members
of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, the National
Association of Veterans Program Administrators is pleased to be
invited to provide comment on the topic of increasing the
functionality of the Post-9/11 GI Bill claims processing.
NAVPA's membership is comprised of educational institutions
from all sectors with an organizational commitment to
advocating for what is in the best interest of student veterans
at our institution.
Our expertise lies in the administration of veterans'
education programs at colleges, universities, and other
education providers, and most of our members also serve as
school certifying officials for VA education benefits.
Our organization represents close to 400 educational
institutions nationwide and our leadership is comprised of non-
paid staff members.
The Post-9/11 GI Bill is an incredibly generous and
complicated benefit program. The level of detailed, often
manual work required of school certifying officials is
frequently overwhelming.
There are a number of things we believe could be done to
ease the burden on SCOs and on VA processors to make this a
more streamlined and manageable process.
We must have regulations for the GI Bill law passed over
two years ago, Public Law 111-377. Schools are being held
liable for overpayments by policies that are not in alignment
with existing regulations and schools are expected to comply
with legislation that has been regulated.
The VA certification data entry system still requires
schools to upload data multiple times for the same student one
student at a time. There are no batch uploads.
Certifying officials are advised to input only one change
per day for each student to ensure they are received correctly
at the regional processing office and the ability to modify,
update, or correct some inputs is severely limited if not
impossible to do electronically.
Chapter 33 claims processed by the LTS automated
functionality are now paid very quickly, as soon as five
workdays from submission from our observation, but this is
still a minority of supplemental claims and includes no
original claims. LTS must continue to evolve so it is able to
process more complex claims and changes.
Certificates of eligibility are not the same as
authorizations for payment as used under Chapter 31, military
tuition assistance. COEs do not represent a guarantee of
payment of the said amount, but rather a statement of general
eligibility for a program.
The VA still can pay all or a portion of reported charges
based on a number of possible criteria and situations.
As long as VA requires schools to report every change in
enrollment or charge, waiting until the end of term to submit
tuition and fees will not help reduce the number of adjustments
or amendments required, but will rather compress them into a
very limited time period.
Every one of these changes has to be reported individually
and, as mentioned previously, on separate days to make sure
that the data arrives at VA intact.
The RPO should communicate with schools prior to sending
school debts to the VA's debt management center for collection.
There should be agreement on both the rationale and the amount
of the overpayment before the DMC starts collection processes.
The VA's review in 2011 of outstanding 2009, 2010
overpayments was obviously flawed as the DMC suspended
collection on over 800 of these debts and many schools reported
offsets taken for debts that were already paid or previously
reassigned to the student by the RPO.
The U.S. Treasury offset program procedures must be changed
to prevent multiple agencies from offsetting the same debts
simultaneously.
A system that only allows a weekly update of offset-
eligible VA debts is irresponsible. This has caused enormous
confusion, frustration, effort on the part of institutions to
track and reconcile inbound payments and offsets from multiple
non-VA related Federal sources including the refunds of
erroneous or duplicate offsets taken.
It seems unreasonable in this IT driven age that the four
regional processing offices cannot see electronic files in each
other's jurisdiction. This lack of visibility requires
additional form submission by veterans if their initial
application was processed and their certificate of eligibility
issued by one RPO but the veteran decides to enroll in a school
in a different region.
The educational call center staff in Muskogee has
visibility on veteran files from all four regions. Why not all
four RPOs so that this additional paperwork and delay on claims
processing can be avoided?
There is still no school access to real-time eligibility
and payment data for students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill, our
most long-standing request. This significantly impacts schools'
ability and willingness to extend financial protection or
courtesy for student veterans.
Schools' initial experiences with the Post-9/11 GI Bill
including the recent debt collection efforts have not served to
build confidence in the program or its accurate implementation.
Only direct access to data will change this.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you again
for this opportunity to contribute these statements on behalf
of NAVPA. I will be happy to respond to any questions you may
have.
[The prepared statement of Kim Hall appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ms. Hall.
Ms. Perez.
STATEMENT OF HAYLEIGH PEREZ
Ms. Perez. Chairman Flores and Representative Committee
Members, thank you for this opportunity to testify before your
Subcommittee today.
I would also like to thank Jason Thigpen, founder and
president of Student Veterans Advocacy Group, for his
leadership and this opportunity, as well as the other panel
members.
My name is Hayleigh Perez. As a female veteran who served
on active duty in the U.S. Army, a wife, mother, student
veteran, and currently vice president of the Student Veterans
Advocacy Group, I feel very proud speaking at such a relevant
topic.
The words freedom isn't free are so very true, yet our
veterans today seem to be demonized as though we are asking for
something that is not already ours.
Our veterans should never have to ask for something or
often beg for things that were promised to us for the
sacrifices made to protect our great Nation.
Theodore Roosevelt once said a man who is good enough to
shed blood for his country is good enough to be given a square
deal afterwards.
Many veterans are finding it extremely difficult to adjust
back to civilian life for a multitude of reasons. Let's keep in
mind a big difference with the ten-year war in Iraq and
Afghanistan, contrary to past wars, is that our servicemembers
have survived at a higher rate than prior wars. Of course that
is a blessing, but it also precipitates a much greater need for
preparation and care at home that our Nation was not prepared
for.
As a result of the unanticipated transitional difficulties
from backlog of delayed processing of VA claims, many
servicemembers, veterans, and families thereof are suffering
from unforeseen hardships that could otherwise have been
avoided.
So what is the issue? The processing delays. Student
veterans are often faced with extreme financial hardships when
transitioning to school for the first time, starting in
programs, changing schools or programs.
And when following up with their paperwork, student
veterans often realize that they themselves and the university
have done everything on their end to ensure a timely claim,
though months often pass with no payment, no answers from VA as
for the reasoning for such delays.
The way which current VA GI Bill claims are being processed
needs significant improvement. Many of our Nation's student
veterans are relying on their earned GI Bill benefits for
groceries, child care bills, and housing. The delinquency by
which these funds are being disbursed or not disbursed at all
are oftentimes life altering, causing some consequences as
extreme as veteran homelessness.
A fellow student veteran wrote to our organization stating
there is a little known book called When War Comes Home by
Aaron Glantz. On page 212, Glantz states Members of Congress
and bureaucrats at the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans
Affairs may not be attacking our veterans with mortars and
IEDs, but they are literally killing them with indifference.
This past semester beginning graduate school, I experienced
these delays firsthand. When I first contacted VA in January, I
was told there was not even a record of my attending graduate
school which I had begun attending a week prior.
After resubmitting the same documentation that I had sent
in November of the previous year, I was told to follow-up a
week later.
After calling the VA every week for five weeks, I finally
got through the never-ending hold times and I got to speak to a
woman by the name of Yvonne. Yvonne could see all of the
documents that I had submitted both times and within a few
minutes was able to issue payment for my book stipend and my
housing allowance as well as my VA certificate. Within a few
days, I received these funds and was able to continue with
school.
Through research, our organization has discovered that VA
is using the two different systems that were referred to
earlier. I propose and our organization proposes to consolidate
these two software programs currently being used by VA to one
standard program and retrain all of the VA representatives.
By consolidating the software programs to one standard
program, the representatives will have equal access to
addressing any GI Bill beneficiary claim. This would assist in
maximizing productivity for VA and its representatives and
reduce the considerable cost savings measure for both GI Bill
beneficiaries and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Each student veteran should also have a representative
assigned to them at a local, State, or regional level. By
assigning GI Bill beneficiaries an individual representative,
they can additionally ensure more compliance, accountability,
and continuity being met by VA.
Our society today is covered with blank checks it offers to
one group or another. The difference between student veterans
and other groups is that they are not asking for anything more
than they have earned.
Have we really fallen so far in America that we resolve
ourselves to believe if we are not personally affected, then it
does not matter? Well, in many ways, having become
disenfranchised with some of the questionable actions by our
government, I can still honestly say that I would sacrifice my
life to secure the liberties and freedoms we have in America.
So is it really too much to ask for our government to
fulfill its obligation as intended to our servicemembers and
our veterans?
[The prepared statement of Hayleigh Perez appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ms. Perez.
Mr. Dakduk and Ms. Perez, I do want to thank you on behalf
of the entire Committee for your service to our country in
these challenging times of war.
I thank all of you for your testimony, and I have a couple
of questions that I would like to get through. I am going to
recognize myself for five minutes.
Question number one is how does the inability of a school
certifying official being able to access and view a veteran's
remaining entitlements make it difficult for school certifying
officials to counsel a student as required by the principles of
excellence required by the President's Executive Order?
Ms. Hall, this is probably for you, but I will take answers
from any of you.
Ms. Hall. You know, to begin with, when you are working
with a student, especially with the principles of excellence,
it is in the best interest of both parties to be able to sit
down and look at the big picture, look at their long-term
objective beginning from when they start school all the way to
their career. And while you are doing that, there is a lot of
financial planning involved.
The only way to be able to look at the budget that the
student has versus the money that they have coming in is based
on their entitlement, the GI Bill. So the calculation from the
monthly amount all the way down to the day that they are going
to get that last payment is reflected in that entitlement
figure.
And so it is very important at the beginning that not just
remaining entitlement, but all of the eligibility for that
student, the amount of money that they may be getting in a
stipend or versus their status of enrollment at the university
becomes all important data in calculating those budgets, those
finances, and ultimately, you know, the time they start to the
end of their degree.
Mr. Flores. Okay. Thank you.
Since I have time, I am going to ask another question, and
this can be for any of you or all three of you if you would
like.
What has been your experience in terms of the complaints
you are receiving from your members and constituents, by
student veterans about the GI Bill processing? What sort of
change have you seen over the last semester or prior semesters
compared to this semester now that this system has been rolled
out?
Mr. Dakduk. Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge that
since the system has been rolled out, there has been an
increase in the processing of GI Bill claims, so that should be
acknowledged.
But I would also say that at the beginning of the
semesters, that is when we see an influx of delays and that is
when we receive most of our complaints at Student Veterans of
America.
So we have a concern when we talk about troops returning
home from Afghanistan. And the Department of Defense estimate
over the next five years that one million troops will remove
the uniform and make the transition into civilian society, many
of them are going to use this new Post-9/11 GI Bill.
So we want to make sure that the Department of Veterans
Affairs is prepared to handle that influx of military veterans
on college campuses. But at the beginning of semesters is when
we see a high number of delays.
Mr. Flores. To kind of go back to the original question, if
you look at where we are now versus prior semesters, have you
seen a change? It sounds like you have got this cycle where at
the beginning of each semester, your complaints are higher. Is
the trend downward or is it the same or what? What do your
constituents tell you?
Mr. Dakduk. I would definitely say since the implementation
of the Post-9/11 GI Bill the trend is downward. I will
acknowledge that.
Mr. Flores. Okay.
Mr. Dakduk. But it still is an issue and it is a real issue
at the beginning of terms.
Mr. Flores. Okay.
Mr. Dakduk. And I would just like to acknowledge this one
thing, Mr. Chairman. The issue is, is because we cannot see the
status of our GI Bill claims and our housing allowance comes on
the tail end of each month.
Mr. Flores. Yes.
Mr. Dakduk. We do not know if you are waiting six weeks or
eight weeks to pay your bills. Institutions of higher learning
have been pretty supportive when it comes to supporting student
veterans with their tuition and fees, but landlords are not as
supportive when it comes to paying your rent.
Mr. Flores. Ms. Hall, any comments?
Ms. Hall. Absolutely. The tuition and fee processes, as I
stated earlier with the overpayment situation, is in a crises
mode is what I would say at this point. Institutions have
extended a courtesy out to allow veterans to continue attending
school as we wait for the VA payments to arrive for tuition and
fees.
We have no way of knowing at the beginning of the term or
even until we actually receive a payment of how much we are
going to get for that student's tuition and fees. And
oftentimes it results in underpayments and overpayments. And by
that time, the student is most definitely involved.
And if there is not a complaint, there should be at that
point because the schools are trying to accommodate the VA's
payments as they are coming in and----
Mr. Flores. Okay.
Ms. Hall. --were ending up with all kind of overpayments.
Mr. Flores. Just kind of a one-word answer. Better, worse,
or the same or----
Ms. Hall. You know, in terms of the tuition and fees, it is
definitely worse. You know, the students do not see it at the
very beginning because we are deferring out the tuition and
fees.
Mr. Flores. Okay. Ms. Perez, better, worse, the same?
Ms. Perez. Mr. Chairman, I would say it is the same.
Mr. Flores. Okay.
Ms. Perez. The student veterans that are reaching out to
our organization are the ones who are suffering extreme delays,
that are being forced out of their homes. They cannot pay for
child care. It is having huge detrimental effects on their
personal lives. And they are not able to be successful in their
studies.
Mr. Flores. Thank you.
Unfortunately my time has expired, so I am going to now
recognize the Ranking Member for any questions he may have.
Mr. Takano. I am a new Member of Congress. I am having to
get my arms around this issue.
Ms. Perez, can you tell me more about the students who have
experienced homelessness and just how--I mean, related to the
late payments or there are problems with the claims? I want to
be able to get a firm picture of that myself.
Ms. Perez. As was stated by the SVA, some of these claims
are backlogged so far that these students are not getting their
payment on time. They are not able to pay their rent or their
child care. And some students have had to withdraw from school
because of not having this housing allowance or this book
stipend.
And in my case, my payment was delayed eight weeks. And I
know there are several student veterans out there that are
experiencing much further backlogs. And if they are not being
as proactive, they are not able to even find out the status
because there is nowhere to verify the status of your claim.
My claim was lost in, I guess, the old system and it was
not until I finally reached a certain person on the phone that
she was able to see that I had even turned in the paperwork. So
it was almost like my claim was in limbo. Had I not reached her
and somehow she had the ability to access my file in another
system, my claim would still be sitting stagnant as others'
claims are.
Mr. Takano. Is there any organization that has quantified
people who have had to withdraw or have been homeless because
of the way we process claims?
Ms. Perez. Oh, I think one is too many, sir.
Mr. Takano. I understand. Thank you. I agree.
Mr. Dakduk. Ranking Member Takano, there is a major issue
that Student Veterans of America is working on as we move
forward and that is data collection and the lack of data on
military veterans and family members in higher education.
We are actually working with the Department of Veterans
Affairs on tracking student veteran outcomes. But to your
specific question, no, we do not have that kind of data. But
that has become a major priority for us moving forward.
Mr. Takano. Great. Ms. Hall, have you had to resort to
going back to paper forms at all or has it pretty much gone to
all automation?
Ms. Hall. What the VA wants, we are fairly automated. But,
again, it is a very simple piece of software that does not
allow for much in terms of changes. Once you report one record,
it is often gone.
You have a period of time that you have to wait before you
can make changes to that one record. And even then, some of
those records you are not able to change. You have to create a
whole other record in order to make a change in certain
instances.
So the automation is simple. It works. I do not believe
that there is many universities or colleges that are back to
using old enrollment certification papers.
Mr. Takano. You mentioned this issue of only being able to
make one change a day.
Ms. Hall. Yes.
Mr. Takano. What is that about?
Ms. Hall. What that is, is when you are submitting a
certification or an adjustment, a change in the units or any
type of a change to a record, if you do multiple submissions,
it gets lost in that queue. It does not get to the VA in the
order that it needs to get in to show how that student has
reduced units or even if you are talking about money, we report
full amounts of tuition and fees to the VA.
And then if there is changes, multiple changes due to add,
drops in the student's schedule, you have to do those one day
at a time. Otherwise, they----
Mr. Takano. This obviously takes up time and staffing from
the institution.
Ms. Hall. Absolutely. To be quite honest, the tax offsets
with the overpayments are taking up the majority of our time at
this point.
I believe that most of our board members in our
organization have been focused more on trying to figure out how
to relieve some of the pressure from the tax offset programs
and not being able to use as much of our labor and our time
doing the school certifications.
Mr. Takano. And have schools resorted to having to ask
students to pay up front because of the delays in processing?
Ms. Hall. Well, I do not know if you saw the Florida
schools, but what is happening is, yes, the debt that the
school has incurred has been moved down to the student veterans
to pay back so the school can make their payments back to the
tax offset program.
I am sorry. Your question again?
Mr. Takano. Well, have institutions begun to ask veterans
to pay up front because they are experiencing these delays in
processing?
Ms. Hall. Yeah, no. It is probably where we are going. I do
not believe at this point and time right now that the majority
or even the minority of schools are asking for students to pay
up front. We are doing our best to float the students until the
VA pays.
But if the overpayments and tax offsets are not taken care
of--we are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the
schools are in debt with the tax offset. So if it continues,
then we may have no choice but to begin that process of asking
the students to pay up front.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Takano.
I would like to recognize any other panel Members that may
have questions. Let's start with Mr. Coffman.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, one thing, and let me throw this out to all the
Members, I am old school. I was a Vietnam era veteran. Came out
of the Army. Transferred to the Marine Corps later on.
And so I was under that old GI Bill where it was just one
check that you got and you decided, you know, where it was
going to. And it was always on time. We never seemed to have
the problems that the younger veterans have today.
And so it was enough money to attend a public university
and to pay for tuition, room and board. I think it fell short
on fees or something like that. So I was in the reserves and
made up the difference there.
But I am wondering if part of this problem is the
complexity of this program that we have a stipend for this and
then we have a check for that.
And wouldn't it be better just to give the veterans, Ms.
Hall, one check and allow them to make the decisions about how
to allocate it?
Ms. Hall. That was a great time, wasn't it? The problem
with that is that there--you know, right now we are extending,
just based on that certificate of eligibility, we are extending
that courtesy to move out those fees. I do not know that the
schools would be so generous if the money went to the student.
There is no guarantee that the student would bring that money
to the university.
And, quite honestly, I do not know that--I mean, I know the
students also have overpayments that they are dealing with, so
they have the same problems that we are having with the tuition
and fee check.
But I believe that it would probably more than likely
resort back to the way it was in which the students would be
held just like a traditional student to pay their tuition and
fees on time.
Mr. Coffman. I just do not remember a problem. You know, my
fellow veterans, you know, this is back in the 1970s, I just do
not remember that anybody had problems in terms of delayed
payments.
And, you know, people that, you know, serve this country in
defense of our freedom make extraordinary sacrifices. I
certainly understand individual responsibility and, you know, I
just do not remember that there were problems in the old
program that I am hearing now with this new program.
And let me defer to the veterans that are here today.
Mr. Dakduk. Well, thank you, Mr. Coffman, for that
question.
That is actually something that has been debated for quite
some time since the inception of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Do we
remove the institutions from the equation? Do we pay the
veterans directly like the old program?
It is something that me and my colleagues at the Veterans
of Foreign Wars and The American Legion are trying to work on
as well. And we are thinking about whether that will be the
best bet moving forward.
The problem is, is we are trying to figure out if we have
made these investments in solutions, what is known as the LTS
and other IT systems, how can we not get this right in the 21st
century technologically-advanced world we live in? There is no
way to create some sort of algorithm or system that can process
these claims in the adequate manner?
So it is kind of difficult for us to understand that, but
then we also realize we are working with the Federal
Government. So we have talked about and we are trying to figure
out whether paying the veteran directly will potentially be the
best way of solving this problem.
So I want to let you know that streamlining the process of
the Post-9/11 GI Bill is a priority for Student Veterans of
America.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you for your service.
And I think our time overlapped with the United States
Marine Corps in Iraq. I was there 2005, 2006.
Ms. Perez.
Ms. Perez. I am not all that familiar with the old GI Bill,
but I know, too, Mr. Coffman, there was not the hiccups that we
are experiencing now. And I have to agree that streamlining the
process would definitely propose a solution.
My husband receives his paycheck on time every month and I
feel as though we should be able to get this right with the
technology that we have before us today, sir.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Coffman.
Ms. Kirkpatrick.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Chairman Flores and Ranking
Member Takano.
And thank you to our veterans.
I want to tell you that when I first came to Congress four
years ago, a veteran approached me and he said, Ms.
Kirkpatrick, remember this because our veterans have already
paid the price, you have to fight for them with all your might.
And I have never forgotten that and your point is well made
that we should be taking care of our veterans.
And I want to ask the two of you what your experience has
been in the average delay in processing for these claims. Just
sort of ballpark, what is the average time we are looking at?
Ms. Perez. Ma'am, I have seen anywhere from two months to
five months where the semester is almost ending and the student
is just receiving the first payment. And it is a substantial
payment, but that did not help them to sustain life through the
semester to take care of their family.
It can cause the veteran's studies to suffer. So to ensure
that we are successful in the classroom, we need these tools so
that we can utilize them and put our energy towards becoming
productive citizens of society.
Mr. Dakduk. Thank you, Ms. Kirkpatrick.
Six to eight weeks from the beginning of a semester or
term, that is kind of the average timeframe we have seen,
especially this last term, and the complaints we have received
from student veterans.
As you get through the semester or the term, the VA tends
to get on it or figure it out at that point or the school
certifying officials in the institutions of higher learning are
able to work with the veterans to come up with some sort of a
fix to the issue.
But I also want to acknowledge Kim and NAVPA and what they
have been saying around the debt collection issue, the tax
offsets. That is a real issue. And if we do not get that right
with the institutions of higher learning, then it is going to
affect student veterans and then institutions are going to have
to resort to some things that might hurt the student veteran in
the long run.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. What do we need to do legislatively to
address that in your opinion?
I will throw that out to the entire panel. Any one of you
could address that.
Mr. Dakduk. Well, I would say that what we are doing right
now, we have made it a priority to really discuss this issue,
potentially hold a hearing on the tax offsets and the debt
collection and the process that occurs. I think that would be
an important next step. But we are working with our colleagues
at NAVPA and Student Veterans of America has made that a
priority to look into this issue.
Ms. Hall. What we are asking right now is a lot of the
overpayments have stemmed from the 2009, 2010 year when 9/11
first started and we are asking that the collection process be
stopped at this point so that we can re-look at some of these
tax offsets that are happening currently.
There are so many errors in the processing, duplicate
payments, offsets for students that never attended an
institution, and then the payments coming back from the
Treasury Department are virtually unidentifiable by the
schools.
They are sent back under a Federal tax ID number whereas we
use facility codes. And so it comes back to the tax ID number.
There could be multiple institutions within that tax ID number
or one tax ID number for an entire state with the overpayments.
So the process right now really needs to come to halt until
we can go back and re-review some of these offsets to see if
there is--to find the legitimacy in them and make sure they are
accurate.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. And if the process does come to a halt,
what is your estimate of the timeframe it is going to take to
correct these measures?
Ms. Hall. You know, if we could put and VA could put
together a solid group that was familiar with the processing of
the tuition and fees and how the debts were originated, you
could go through those files fairly quickly, I believe, a
month, maybe even weeks to get that through that process.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. And in your experience, is the processing
problem a state-by-state problem or is it a Federal
department's problem?
Ms. Hall. Absolutely Federal. Absolutely, yeah.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much. I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ms. Kirkpatrick.
Mr. Runyan.
Mr. Runyan. Thank you, Chairman.
A few things. I think we got it. And I happen to chair the
Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs with
Ms. Titus as the Ranking Member. And I think we get these
processes, same thing with VBMS, on how we are going to figure
that out. It is a challenge.
But I think, Mr. Dakduk and Ms. Perez, I think you both
kind of--Ms. Perez, when you brought up the fact that the
hotline actually solved your problem, you know, I am talking
about short-term solution, and actually person-to-person
contact and getting it done.
In my experience, and I think you will probably be
refreshed to hear this, my own brother went through this
process and it got to the point in his academic career that he
would call and say I need money for food, I need money to pay
my rent, can you help me. The VA check is coming, but I do not
know when.
So my question goes right now, I know we have a big
systemic problem to short-term phase, what can the VA do, Mr.
Dakduk, to make the hotline work?
I know you said about call volume kind of thing also. And
when you answer this question, too, I want you to add in, is
there a difference between the fall term and the spring term or
the winter term because of people entering college
traditionally September? You know what I am saying?
So there is going to be peaks and valleys in calls. And you
obviously already said there is a beginning the semester
problem, but is there, you know, an enrollment issue at the
beginning of the traditional school year versus the rest of the
year and what can the VA do to make the process work because
obviously Ms. Perez says when she actually got through to
somebody, it was soft?
Mr. Dakduk. Thank you, Mr. Runyan.
You see issues at the beginning of a term. Usually it is a
semester because that is how most traditional institutions of
higher learning are set up. But it fluctuates depending on the
type of institution.
And it is very important not to lump student veterans into
traditional students because they are nontraditional students
and they enroll at multiple times during the year.
But usually the influx that we have seen in working with
the VA is during the beginning of a semester. There are some
delays that may occur throughout a term, but that is the most.
Now, the GI Bill hotline, once you get through, you might
have some success, but that is the key, getting through on the
hotline. I made two calls before coming to this hearing to the
GI Bill hotline over the past three days. I did one on Monday,
and I did one on Wednesday or Tuesday and Wednesday.
And on Tuesday, I called around two p.m. eastern. I did not
get through. It told me to call back and leave a message and to
receive a call back from the VA. I hung up. I called back the
next day, Wednesday at three p.m. It said to call back after
hours, leave a message, and somebody will call back.
I did not call back after hours because at five-thirty, six
o'clock I was on the Metro train on the way home. Seven o'clock
I answered some e-mails to catch up on some work. Around eight
I ate dinner and then I went to bed.
We do not operate on that same timeline of call back and we
will respond to you at a certain time. There is no system that
we can access that you can just find out status of the claim.
Now, I should take that back and say that there is a
frequently asked question system that exists on the GI Bill Web
site. I simply asked one question at the beginning of last year
on how many months of my Post-9/11 GI Bill I had left because I
saved some, and I wanted to use it for graduate school after I
graduated with my undergraduate degree.
It took 30 days for a response just to say how much time I
had left on my GI Bill which was roughly eight months. And it
was wrong. It said I had eleven months. And I found out later
that I only had eight. So even the response I got 30 days later
was wrong.
So staffing the GI Bill hotline, these are all just short-
term solutions. In the long run, we need some Web-based
technology that allows the student to see this in realtime.
Thank you, Mr. Runyan.
Mr. Runyan. Thank you for that response.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Runyan.
Ms. Brownley.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
And I apologize for missing some of the original testimony,
but it certainly seems to me that all of you have really laid
out what the problems are. So we are very clear on what the
problems are. But the fixes for it, both short-term and long-
term, do not seem to be quantified or there is not a direction.
I was in a Committee hearing yesterday on mental health and
talking about the response time from the time that a veteran
would call and be attended to and how we have prioritized and
made sure or making sure working towards the goal of a
particular response time.
And I am just wondering, and I know the VA is going to come
up and testify in the second panel, but from your perspective,
what has the VA laid out in terms of shorter-term resolutions
and longer-term resolutions?
I agree. It seems as though with technology that there
should be a way in which technology should be able to really
assist in this. It seems like better partnerships with higher
education institutions and communications and not working in
silos should be part of the solution.
But I am just wondering are there any specific goals and
specific plans for short and long-term solutions?
Ms. Hall. I just want to reiterate I think what Mike has
been trying to say to you is that really the data portal, the
ability for the school certifying officials to see the process
as it happens in realtime is very important.
I mean, if the technology cannot get the process moving
quicker and more accurately, then at least we need to be able
to see what happens so that we can help the students continue
to stay enrolled in school.
Ms. Perez. Can I add to what Ms. Hall said? With my
personal experience when I called in, I spoke to four different
people prior to talking to the woman that was able to fix it
for me. So I think continuity of training is nonexistent with
the people that you reach when you finally do get through the
hotline.
And I do have to add that I think the call-back system is
beneficial from where we were, where we were sitting on hold
for an hour. An hour is a long time. I can do a lot of
productive things in an hour.
But just continuity of training with the people that you
get when you do finally get through that hotline, I think, is
very, very important.
Mr. Dakduk. I think, Ms. Brownley, what we need to do is
really focus in on this portal. We need to focus in on some
sort of Web-based interface where a student veteran can go on
and school certifying official and see as well what the status
of a claim is. It is just remarkable that we cannot do that
now.
I believe the Department of Veterans Affairs when they
testify will talk about the fourth release and the long-term
solution which will provide some sort of concept around that. I
do not know what that is. I do not know what it is going to
look like. But if that is the last rollout in their phased
approach on this long-term solution, we have got to make sure
we get that part right for the long-term.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ms. Brownley.
Ms. Titus.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a university professor, I have worked with a number of
students who are on the GI Bill at UNLV, so I want it to work
right. And I have heard a lot of their complaints.
I do think that the VA has a responsibility to do a better
job, but I can tell you sometimes university bureaucracy is to
blame for part of the problem.
So I agree with Ms. Brownley. We need maybe to set some
standards that universities have to meet as well at their end
to help this process work better.
Also, several of you mentioned, or in your testimony, and
in your answers, that you are nontraditional students. So a lot
of veterans going back to school do not go to brick and mortar
four-year liberal arts colleges. There are lots of other ways
to get a college degree now, whether it is online or short-term
in the summer, you know, just different kinds of seminars that
you can take.
And I wonder, is the experience any different with the
different kinds of approaches that you can take to a degree? Is
it better in online programs? Is it better on University of
Phoenix? Is it better at William and Mary or does it make any
difference?
Mr. Dakduk. Well, thank you, Ms. Titus.
First, I want to tell you I graduated from UNLV. I recall
seeing you several years back when you came with Ms. Berkley--
--
Ms. Titus. Nice to have you here.
Mr. Dakduk. --and Secretary Shinseki at a round table and
it is great to see you again.
I will say that there has been a lot of speculation right
now in not only the halls of Congress, but in the media around
the value of for-profit institutions of higher learning.
We have student veterans that attend colleges and
universities at brick and mortar institutions and online. And
what we are working on right now is tracking student veteran
outcomes, getting the data on graduation rates, persistence,
finding out what this data actually is.
There is a gentleman from the University of Phoenix in
attendance here today. I met with his CEO. I met with the
leadership of for-profit institutions, nonprofit institutions,
private, public institutions of higher learning. I see student
veterans succeeding all across the country. That is what I see
anecdotally.
Although there have been reports in the media that student
veterans are dropping out at high rates, these reports are
unfounded. There are no facts to them.
That is why it is a major priority of Student Veterans of
America working with The American Legion and VFW and the
Department of Veterans Affairs, I want to acknowledge that, to
track student veteran outcomes and get this data to find out
how successful student veterans are at different institutions
of higher learning.
I just met with President Barron, the Florida State
University president. His graduation rate is 87 and a half
percent for military veterans. But there are very few
institutions of higher learning in our country that are
actually tracking student veteran outcomes.
That needs to be done so we can find out how successful
they are and what are the programs and initiatives that are
leading to success. That is a major priority for us moving
forward.
Thank you, Ms. Titus.
Ms. Titus. Thank you.
And if you are one of our graduates, you make us very
proud. You have obviously done very well.
Other comments about the process or the results depending
on the approach?
Ms. Hall. Our membership is made up of a consortium of
colleges and universities. And I would say that the claims
processing is the same across the board with all of them. We
all experience the same problems, the same delays, the same
communication issues. I would say there is not a wide
difference in the processing.
Ms. Perez. Thank you, Ms. Titus.
I would have to agree with Ms. Hall. Having attended a
brick and mortar institution as well as an online school, I did
not notice a difference as far as any of the processing. So I
do not think there is data that supports whether one is more
easily available versus the other.
Thank you, Ms. Titus.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ms. Titus.
I appreciate the feedback we have received from the panel.
We received several noteworthy pieces of information that will
be helpful to us as we continue this process.
I do have one sort of a closing question for Ms. Hall. And
that is, it seems to me like one of the things we heard is that
this process might work better if we went back to the
Montgomery GI Bill payment processing system which is
essentially monthly payments.
If we were to do that, what is your feeling as far as the
schools finding that to be an acceptable solution? You would
have to take your payments on a monthly basis. Is that
something you think schools would be willing to do?
Ms. Hall. Are you inquiring about the tuition and fee
payment being paid on a monthly basis?
Mr. Flores. That is correct. That is essentially correct.
Ms. Hall. You know, I do not think that the amount, the
amount of the money is--I guess it is the issue. The issue
really is that we do not know what we are getting from the VA.
When we certify the tuition and fees, we give them an
amount. We are not billing the VA. We just tell them this is
what this student's tuition and fee amount is. And it is what
we get back is what is becoming the issues. We do not know how
much money the VA is going to pay.
And oftentimes, we have students, I mean, again, if they
did pay monthly and we knew they were going to pay a certain
amount, we could bill them like an authorization, say this is
what we have to have and we knew that is what we were going to
get, absolutely, it would work.
But until we are sure about the money that we are going to
get and the ability to be able to make changes to that amount,
right, because the students add, drop all the time, and so as
they add, drop, the tuition and fee amounts change.
And so the LTS, the system has to be able to process those
changes quickly. And just off the top, I would say trying to do
that on a monthly basis would become very labor intense.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ms. Hall.
One of the things that came out of the testimony that we
received today is that there is one issue that seems to be,
let's say, an important issue that might be easily resolved
temporarily and it has to do with the concerns expressed by the
NAVPA. And it suggests that there are significant problems with
the debt management and collection process.
And this comment is more for the second panel as they
prepare to come up. It seems to me and maybe to other Members
of the Subcommittee, it would be appropriate to temporarily
suspend the collection of overdue payments until the VA and the
schools can work together to develop a mutually beneficial
solution to this particular issue.
That way, the schools are not damaged economically or
financially rather, and the VA comes up with a system that
would actually enable it to do what it is trying to do in terms
of collecting debts.
If there are no further questions, the witnesses are
excused, and we thank you for your service to our Nation's
veterans and we thank the two witnesses that have also served
our country.
Following a short break for biological purposes, I am going
to ask the second panel to come to the witness table.
With us today are the Honorable Roger Baker who is
Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology for the VA
and Major General Rob Worley, Director of the VA's Education
Service.
We will resume in about two minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Flores. This hearing will resume.
I would like to thank both of you for appearing today.
And Mr. Baker is recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF ROGER BAKER
Mr. Baker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Ranking Member Takano and Members of the
Subcommittee.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss the Department of Veterans Affairs' efforts to create
and implement the long-term solution for processing Post-9/11
GI Bill claims.
Accompanying me today is Mr. Robert M. Worley, II, Director
of the Education Service.
And as we take questions, you will see that I tend to lean
towards the IT side of things and he will tend to lean towards
the policy and business side of things.
My testimony will address the current status of education
claims processing and the status of the implementation of the
Post-9/11 GI Bill long-term solution IT system.
Most importantly, we can report to the Subcommittee and to
our Nation's veterans that VA is currently processing
supplemental claims for Post-9/11 education assistance in an
average of seven days from their receipt, a remarkable
achievement given that today we are still in the peak
enrollment period for the spring term.
For comparison purposes, on this date in 2011, that number
was 19 days. In 2012, it was 14 days. Today we have
approximately 80,000 claims pending which is a dramatic
decrease from previous years at this time, about a 50 percent
decrease.
In January, over 149,000 claims, supplemental claims were
processed in one day at the VA as a result of automation. That
improvement is largely due to the automation implemented in the
long-term solution.
But this does not mean that we think the LTS system or the
complex processes that it helps automate are perfect. With
hundreds of thousands of veterans attending school each
semester, even a small error rate, and our error rate at this
point in time is about one percent, means unacceptable delays
for far too many people.
But I want to assure you, Mr. Chairman, and every Member of
this Committee that VA employees, whether a claims processor, a
software developer, or a manager, care deeply about doing the
best job possible for our Nation's veterans. It is why we are
here.
During my confirmation in the spring of 2009, I
consistently heard that the VA would fail in the implementation
of the systems needed to support the Chapter 33 program. And I
can use the word universal for that opinion.
Under pressure to implement the new GI Bill on time, we
also had to transform an 8,000 person IT organization so that
it could deliver while implementing this critical new program
which is why, frankly, I am so proud of the results.
From a forecast of failure, the VA IT organization
delivered the LTS system under tight deadlines and even took on
an extra year of development when Public Law 111-377 was passed
in January of 2011 making extensive modifications to the system
necessary.
The LTS delivered on time from initial capabilities in
April of 2010 through 33 different functional releases and now
processes over 40 percent of supplemental claims within one day
of receipt.
From an IT perspective, and from a VA perspective, and most
importantly from a veteran perspective, the LTS is delivering
value.
As with any IT system, there are many new features and
functionality users would like to see. This is as true for the
LTS as it is for any of the other 1,000 plus IT systems that we
operate inside the VA.
Inside VA, we have a disciplined approach to prioritizing
our IT needs and allocating funding available to those needs.
For fiscal year 2013, we have focused our resources to
fully support the secretary's goal of eliminating the claims
backlog in compensation and pension by the end of 2015.
In conclusion, our veterans' hard-earned educational
benefits are the vehicle by which many of our Nation's heroes
pursue their educational goals and successfully transition to
civilian life.
VA is dedicated to ensuring that veterans are able to make
well-informed decisions concerning the use of their benefits
and receive a quality education.
We look forward to working with the Subcommittee to provide
the best possible support to our veterans and beneficiaries as
they pursue their educational goals.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. Mr. Worley and I
would be pleased to answer any questions you or the Members of
the Subcommittee have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Roger Baker appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Baker.
And I will begin the questioning. Several times in the
response of the VA to our pre-hearing questions, the VA stated
that future releases and functionalities for the LTS would be
subject to priorities and IT funding.
Can you tell us where the LTS falls in the IT priority list
at the VA at this time?
Mr. Baker. Yes, I can, Chairman.
If I can give you a little bit of a complex answer and
maybe explain a little bit of our prioritization process.
For 2013, as we looked at our available funding and the
issues we had, we decided that we had a lot of automation
coming on board with the 33 system and that actually moving to
utilize those automations would take a lot of the fiscal year
2013 year.
And as you see, the automations and supplemental continue
to increase our ability to utilize those. And so in fiscal year
2013, we have focused our dollars on the compensation and
pension side of the system.
Congressman Runyan had referred to the VBMS system, the
Veterans Benefits Management System that we are rolling out
right now.
We believe that subject to availability of funding in 2014,
there are improvements that could be made to the system. And we
also are looking to identify funding inside of our 2013 budget
still to provide improvements in the 2013 system.
So the specific answer to your question, Congressman, is it
is one of the first things we will fund in addition to what
we're doing right now when we identify the available funding.
Mr. Flores. Okay. Thank you.
Would it be--I am going to ask you the same question I
asked of Ms. Hall in the prior panel. Do you--in your opinion,
would it be beneficial to--make the payments under the Post-9/
11 GI Bill under the similar protocols of the Montgomery GI
Bill, essentially on a monthly basis?
Mr. Baker. Let me defer that one to Mr. Worley.
Mr. Flores. Okay. General Worley.
General Worley. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
It would simplify the debt issues that we've been talking
about, and we'd be willing, of course, to work with the
Committee on a proposal along those lines.
Mr. Flores. Okay. In your written statement, you listed
seven impediments that stand between you and 100 percent end-
to-end automation of GI Bill claims.
Can you tell us what the plan is to overcome those seven
impediments?
Mr. Baker. I apologize, sir.
Mr. Flores. I think it's on the PowerPoint that you
presented to the staff, excuse me.
Staff. It's the last page.
Mr. Flores. Last page of the PowerPoint. Sorry about that.
Mr. Baker. And I apologize. I am sure that is somewhere in
the book here as well.
My staff has laid out a plan and necessary funding to
address the items around certificates of eligibility and to be
able to automate those as well as making certain that we do
maximum automation of the supplemental claims.
I am not as familiar in depth with the pieces of this. I
can tell you that in particular where certificates of
eligibility are concerned, there are a number of systems that
will need to be improved because the data quality is a key item
as we look at certificates of eligibility.
Today the reason that a person is so much in the loop with
those is that if the data does not appear to be right, for
example, about term of service or various items, they will go
look in other areas to find that information.
So automating that we believe is going to require more than
just changes to the long-term solution system itself, but also
to a lot of the data feeder systems that feed into that to make
certain that we achieve quality results for these when they go
through.
I do know if there is any of the specific items, Mr. Worley
handed me the slide, that you would like me to address in here,
but the staff has laid out a plan for how do we address all of
these in an automated system.
Mr. Flores. I think since I have limited time, I am going
to ask you, if you would, is to provide the Subcommittee staff
with what it would take on each of the seven impediments, if
you do not mind.
Mr. Baker. We would be happy to do that.
Mr. Flores. And that will, I think, satisfy the rest of
that question.
Do you have the PowerPoint in your package there? If you go
to page nine, we had a question regarding our, and maybe
somebody else will take this up because I have limited time, so
I will go ahead and ask the question, and you can think about
somebody else picking it up, what I need you to do is put your
response in plain English for me so we can understand what the
costs are with the process of automating the processing of
original claims.
So with that, my time has expired, and I will turn the mic
over to Ranking Member Takano.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am having trouble understanding the discrepancy in what
you say is the average turn-around time for processing a claim.
You say it's now seven days?
Mr. Baker. In supplemental claims, I believe the latest
number is six days of average time to complete supplemental
claims processing from when it's submitted by the school into
the online V.A.--ONCE system to when we put in the payment file
to go to Treasury.
Mr. Takano. The advocates for the students and the student
vets, are saying that they experience six to eight weeks.
Are we talking about two different things here?
Mr. Baker. In hearing that, my thought was that I think
we're talking sample size. For good or for bad, what the V.A.
looks at is a half a million or more claims that are going
through the system.
Mr. Takano. Okay. So what--what--OK, so what percentage of
the total claims are--how many--what percentage of our student
vets are experiencing delays of six to eight weeks, would you
say?
General Worley. If I could try to comment on that, I don't
have a percent of veterans who may be experiencing those
delays.
But we do track a lot of the statistics on days to complete
a claim of the various benefit types and so forth, because
clearly we want to do that as quickly and as accurately as
possible.
Today, or just yesterday, I asked for the percent of
Chapter 33 supplemental claims that we have that are greater
than 30 days old, and the answer to that is about 4 percent of
them.
On original claims, it's a higher number, which is, as Mr.
Baker pointed out; it takes more development in many cases to
establish the eligibility.
Mr. Takano. Excuse me. So was Mr. Dakduk speaking about
original claims or supplemental claims? Because I'm now
learning this new vocabulary of supplemental and original.
General Worley. He may have been talking about both. The
first step is to get the original claim in, which provides a
certificate of eligibility and in some cases, those come in
without an additional supplemental claim, which is an
enrollment, which are the actual certifications that result in
payments to veterans.
But the first step is to get the certificate of eligibility
which takes a little bit longer. So it----
Mr. Takano. I mean, on the supplemental claims, can you
give me an average number definitively?. I mean, the data must
exist on when claims are processed or not processed.
So on original and supplemental claims, I would imagine you
should be able to provide the Committee with information about
what percentage of the claims are taking six weeks long. Is
that possible?
General Worley. Yes, Congressman, that is possible. For
original claims, I can tell you today it is about 30 days and
that has been coming down. That is the average for processing
an original claim for Chapter 33. And nationwide for all
benefits, it is 29 days. For supplemental claims for Chapter
33, as was pointed out, we are running about six days right now
with automation.
Mr. Takano. Now, is it accurate that we spent about $250
million on this new system? It is mind boggling to me that we
spent that much money on a system. Can you comment on the value
or the amount of money spent for a custom software system? I
may not know the market very well, but what can you say about
that?
Mr. Baker. I can certainly comment to that. I believe the
number that we provided the Committee was $263 million----
Mr. Takano. Right.
Mr. Baker. --from start to the point we are right now. As
we have rolled through building the system, it is a very
complex set of rules that we process to inside the education
system.
I made the observation to someone while we were on break
that the difference between a VA and an Amazon is if Amazon
finds a rule, a business rule that they have that they do not
like because of what they are doing in the system that would
make the system hard, they can change the business rule. If it
is in the law, we do not have that opportunity.
And so we have built a system that processes claims to the
law for education claims.
I can speak a little bit to the IT side of this. I, you
know, have a fair amount of experience in government. Not many
IT systems in government deliver to the timelines and with the
level of functionality that this system has without grossly
exceeding their budget. And this system has not.
So the question of is $263 million the right amount of
money to spend on this, there is a huge difference between the
way the government does these things and the way the private
sector does.
Mr. Takano. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Mr. Takano.
Ms. Brownley.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just to follow-up on that line of questioning then, are
there ways in which or laws in which we can improve upon the
system understanding that, you know, we cannot be as quick as
Amazon might be able to be, but are there things that we can be
doing to improve the system under the current sort of
architecture of which was created based on a law?
Mr. Baker. Thank you, Congresswoman.
I would just make two observations for you. One is, there
are parts of the system that, if changes, fit inside of-- make
the changes very quickly. When the law was passed in 2011,
there was a requirement for a number of changes to occur within
60 days. And because those impacted in the area that we call
the rules engine, we were able to quickly make those changes
and implement those within that timeframe.
As we get to more extensive changes in the law and in the
system, it then gets into the basic software of the system, and
that does take a fair amount of time to change.
We tried to build the system to accommodate the ability to
make changes more quickly. But as I said in my testimony in
January of 2010, that is not a miracle. You know, it will
accommodate some things more than most IT systems, but
certainly not everything.
And so it really becomes a discussion between the business
folks, the technology folks, and the folks writing the law of
what is going to be easy to implement and what is going to be
hard to implement and then the business choices along that
path.
I cannot give you a more fine-grained answer than that,
although I will point out that this Committee, actually years
ago, did the VA a huge favor by consolidating our IT
organization into one appropriation. That has allowed us to
make the kind of management changes that allowed us to deliver
this system on time.
The VA before that could never have delivered this system,
not on time, not to any budget. They could not have delivered
this system. So this Committee has a lot of credit for just
putting that in place.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, sir.
And just another question. It seems as though based on the
earlier testimony and your testimony, there seems to be, we
have not really reconciled, we are not in agreement, let's just
say, between the VA and the stakeholders vis-a-vis our response
time in order to fulfill these backlogs and what the claim time
really is.
And so if we were going to follow what you are saying the
data is, and I think you mentioned there was a difference in
sample sizes, then that leads me to think that there are
pockets, regional pockets that are different, having the
different response time if we are looking, you know, you are
quoting the averages.
So am I right in that and if I am, are there ways in which
those can be identified?
General Worley. Thank you, Congresswoman.
I would address that by saying we are in a period of
transition. I think many of the horror stories about delays
happened in the fall semester of this past fall. The pending
claims, if you will, that came in peaked at about 220,000. We
did not have automation yet and we were struggling to keep up
at that time.
As we examined that problem, we turned our focus to the
types of claims that actually pay our veterans. In other words,
the certification of the supplemental claim as we call them.
That let some of the original claims that were coming in for
the certificates of eligibility that did not have an immediate
enrollment with them, that let some of those claims age.
Since the implementation of the automation, we have been
able to, as you heard, process the supplemental Chapter 33
claims very quickly and that percent started off at about 25 to
28 percent of supplemental claims in the beginning of October.
And today it is in the mid 40s consistently among all the
regional processing offices, which is obviously a consistent
growth in the percent that are automated.
So that has allowed us to turn some of the manpower to the
more aged claims and make sure that those are worked and come
down.
With the volume that we deal with, well, unfortunately
there will be cases where mistakes are made or we do not get to
something quickly enough. We will acknowledge that and fix it
as quickly as possible. It is not acceptable to us to have
someone waiting eight weeks or longer for their claim to be
paid.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ms. Brownley.
Mr. Baker, one quick question for you. If we were to choose
to go to the old Montgomery processing methodology, is it
possible to change the system to accommodate that and how long
would it take?
Mr. Baker. Congressman, if I could get back to you, I would
like to have the folks that know the system best give you an
answer instead of me, if you will, guessing on that at this
point.
Mr. Flores. Okay. If you would. And we will do that and we
will also send you some additional questions. We would ask the
VA to get back to us as soon as possible on that.
I will now recognize Mr. Takano for any closing remarks
that he has.
Mr. Takano. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for this
moment.
I want to express the desire of the minority to work with
the majority on helping to serve our veterans better. It is the
least we can do for the service they have done for our Nation,
and it is a great privilege to serve on this Committee with
you, sir.
Mr. Flores. Thank you, Ranking Member Takano.
I have to concur with your comments. This is fortunately
one of the Committees where we have good bipartisan
relationships, I believe, to work cooperatively for the benefit
of our Nation's veterans.
In closing this hearing today, I would like to ask the VA
in the strongest terms possible to fund and develop the
functions that were listed by today's witnesses.
I realize the demands of any IT system budget and
development are significant, but it does not make sense, I
think, that we have come so far and you said fairly clearly
about the successes you have had, and it seems like it is
appropriate to go ahead and try to take that to the next level
and add the capabilities that will lessen the number of calls
to the Muskogee call center and to give our veterans and our
schools the ability to monitor the benefits and as a result,
improve the administrative processes for all concerned.
I believe that this is an important model for other VA
benefit programs and we intend to visit an RPO soon. And I
would like to invite the Members and the staffs to join me, to
take that trip with me, and we will be getting back with each
of you very soon on that.
If there is no further business, this hearing is adjourned
with my thanks to our second panel, with all of our witnesses.
Finally, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have five
legislative days to revise and extend their remarks, include
any extraneous material in the record of today's hearing.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:26 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bill Flores
Good morning. I want to begin by welcoming each of our new Members
especially our Ranking Member, Mr. Takano, to the Committee. I also
want to publicly thank Mr. Takano for agreeing to become an original
co-sponsor of legislation I have introduced that will mandate the
contents of the Transition Assistance Program (TAP).
I realize everyone introduced themselves at the Full Committee
organizational meeting but I think it would be good to do that again.
With that said, I now recognize the distinguished Ranking Member.
My thanks to each of the Members and I am looking forward to a
productive and bipartisan 113th Congress.
We are here today to review development and implementation of the
computer system used to process Post-9/11 GI Bill claims and so a
little history is in order. In the run up to passage of the new
program, VA stated unequivocally that the system used for decades to
process Montgomery GI Bill claims would not be able to handle the more
complex Post-9/11 program. So, Congress authorized $100 million to
develop a new system, what is now called the Long Term Solution, or
LTS.
Since the Post-9/11 GI Bill became law, this Subcommittee has held
at least 7 hearings on the program including the new LTS. Until
recently, our understanding was that the system is being developed to
handle all Post-9/11 claims beginning with an original claim through
supplemental claims.
We now understand that the major development effort has focused on
automating supplemental claims with comprise the bulk of the
interactions between VA and the students and schools. I think in terms
of a strategy, and I applaud VA for that decision which, this strategy
has resulted in over 40% of supplemental claims being processed without
human intervention. But like most things it also had negative results,
because that decision left original claims relatively unautomated. As a
result, an original claim still takes about 45 minutes to process, a
time little changed from 2009.
In short, we are supportive of VA's efforts related to the LTS and
our focus today is looking forward towards the future and finish full
development of the LTS. Without making the system and its information
more accessible to veterans and schools, it is not complete. I would
add to that the ability to provide a robust analysis function to enable
VA and Congress to make better-informed decisions on education and
training benefits in the future.
VA has now spent about $286 million dollars on the LTS and without
adding such functions, it would be like buying a new luxury car without
air conditioning, heated seats, and a satellite radio. As our witness
from NAVPA says in her testimony, ``LTS must continue to evolve so it
is able to process more complex claims and changes.''
With that, I recognize the Ranking Member for his opening remarks.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Mark Takano
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, I would like to thank everyone for joining us today
and I would like to thank our witnesses for taking time to testify and
answer our questions.
Mr. Flores, congratulations on being the new EO Chairman. I look
forward to working with you to help our veterans and their families
across our country. As our country begins to reduce operations in the
Middle East and bring more our troops home we will need to have the
right programs to address their needs.
We have spent $263 million dollars on the Long Term Solution (LTS)
and many questions still remain on the system's effectiveness, its
completion and our return on investment. The system does not process
all claims from beginning to end and there is quite of a bit of human
intervention necessary to complete claims. When the VA first began
processing claims with the Short Term Solution it took about 45 minutes
to process an original claim. Years later with millions of dollars
spent it takes about the same time to process an original claim. I do
not see the anticipated gains that were visualized when VA and SPAWAR
came here to our Subcommittee and testified before us. As always we are
open to ideas on how to improve this custom designed system.
Besides the cost and problems with the LTS we need to know where
completion of the LTS ranks for VA. Is the LTS first on their IT
priority list or has this now tumbled to bottom of the list? I hope VA
came prepared today to discuss where they are in completing the LTS and
what will be the remaining cost. I know Congress has made some changes
to the GI Bill that required VA to pivot from their original plan to
accommodate mid-stream changes. I would like to know the impact of
these Congressional changes so that we have a complete picture of what
has transpired since we began working on the LTS.
The colleges and universities are reporting a number of issues with
the system. I know that off-ramp problems have been an issue and there
may be a simple solution to address the over 80 reasons that off-ramps
occur. I look forward to what NAVPA has to say and how we can
streamline payments to the colleges. I hope that we can figure out how
we can streamline and improve functionality of LTS that is so
fundamental to veterans for their education. This was the promise of
the Act to them when it became law under Public Law 110-252 and it is
our priority now as Members of this Subcommittee.
I remain very interested to hear from the VA the details about how
the provisions that have been implemented are performing, and how soon
additional functionality will be implemented and what that will mean
for processing times and improved services for veterans.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for scheduling this hearing. I look
forward to the testimony and discussion we will have today.
Prepared Statement of Michael Dakduk
Chairman Flores, Ranking Member Takano and members of the
Subcommittee:
Thank you for inviting Student Veterans of America to address the
Subcommittee on ``Increasing the Functionality of the Post-9/11 GI Bill
Claims Processing to Reduce Delays.''
Student Veterans of America (SVA) is the largest and only national
association of military Veterans in higher education. Our mission is to
provide military veterans with the resources, support, and advocacy
needed to succeed in higher education and after graduation. We
currently have over 750 chapters, or student veteran organizations, at
colleges and universities in all 50 states that assist veterans in
their transition to and through higher education. SVA chapters are
organized at four-year and two-year public, private, nonprofit, and
for-profit institutions of higher learning. This diverse and direct
contact gives SVA a unique perspective on the needs and obstacles faced
by our nation's veterans as they utilize educational benefits in
preparation for their future transition into the civilian workforce.
This on-the-ground perspective, which comes from every corner of this
nation, and our experience in supporting thousands of GI Bill
beneficiaries, provides the framework for our testimony regarding the
Long Term Solution and other recommendations regarding improvements for
the processing of the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
The Long Term Solution (LTS), a proposed fully automated end-to-end
processing system for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, being implemented by the
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been a topic of discussion
since 2010. While the LTS is a behind-the-scenes, information
technology (IT) system being rolled out in phases, SVA has concerns
with the lack of real-time information currently being provided to
student Veterans. We have routinely called for a secure, web-based
single portal system that allows student Veterans to see the status of
their GI Bill claims in real-time. Currently, student Veterans are only
able to track the status of their claims by calling the GI Bill hotline
or interfacing with their school certifying official.
The GI Bill hotline has elongated wait times and during periods of
heavy call traffic the automated system instructs student Veterans to
call back at a later time. This process is highly inefficient and
extremely frustrating to Veterans. The LTS should include a single
portal where student Veterans can access and view in real-time the
status of their GI Bill claims. By providing instantaneous information,
student Veterans can make well-informed life decisions based on the
timely, or untimely, processing of their GI Bill benefit. We recommend
the real-time tracking of GI Bill claims be housed in eBenefits, the
current single portal system used for all VA benefits and claims.
The other option for gaining information on the status of a
Veteran's GI Bill claim, and often the most consistent, is for a
student Veteran to connect with the school certifying official (SCO) on
campus. SCO's have a private, and by most accounts, reliable hotline
for delayed GI Bill claims. However, this is not a long term solution
for the timely processing of the GI Bill. SCO's should have access to a
system that allows them to submit certifications of enrollment in a
streamlined manner and, most importantly, follow the status of a
student Veteran's claim in real-time. Since SCO's interact with student
Veterans on a regular basis, they are often inundated with questions
about the status of a student Veteran's GI Bill claim. While most SCO's
go above and beyond the responsibilities of their position to provide a
student with an appropriate answer, they are clearly overburdened. They
must be provided with the adequate systems to process and view the
status of a student Veteran's claim. We recommend that SCO's be
provided the appropriate real-time access to the status of GI Bill
claims utilizing 21st century web-based technology.
Both the student Veteran and SCO portal we propose is not a concept
unknown to the public or private sector. We liken the concept to that
of the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, or UPS. All major shipping services
have near real-time tracking of packages worldwide. Not only are
customers notified of an estimated time of delivery, but when a hiccup
occurs in the delivery of a package, the receiving customer is notified
in a timely manner and given a new delivery time. It is difficult to
grasp, in a technology-rich society, why the timely processing of the
Post-9/11 GI Bill is still a subject of concern. Equally disturbing is
the inability of student Veterans to access the status of their claims
in real-time. Information Technology systems that are customer-service
based and oriented toward serving the student Veteran must be included
in the LTS.
Student Veterans of America is grateful for the opportunity to
provide this testimony. We thank the Chairman, Ranking Member and the
Subcommittee members for their time, attention, and devotion to the
cause of strengthening the GI Bill process. We look forward to
continuing to work with this Subcommittee, the House Veterans' Affairs
Committee, and the Congress to ensure the success of all generations of
Veterans through education.
Thank you for allowing Student Veterans of America to participate
in this important Hearing.
Executive Summary
THE LONG TERM SOLUTION (LTS) SHOULD INCLUDE REAL-TIME,
WEB-BASED INFORMATION ON THE STATUS OF A GI BILL CLAIM
REAL-TIME TRACKING OF GI BILL CLAIMS SHOULD BE PROVIDED
TO STUDENT VETERANS AND SCHOOL CERTIFYING OFFICIALS
THE STUDENT VETERAN GI BILL CLAIMS TRACKING PROCESS
SHOULD BE HOUSED IN EBENEFITS, THE MAIN PORTAL USED FOR ALL BENEFITS
AND CLAIMS
STREAMLINING THE GI BILL CLAIMS PROCESS WILL INEVITABLY
TAKE TIME, BUT PROVIDING NEAR REAL-TIME INFORMATION ON THE STATUS OF A
CLAIM SHOULD NOT
PROVIDING UP-TO-DATE GI BILL INFORMATION ALLOWS STUDENT
VETERANS TO MAKE BETTER LIFE DECISIONS THAT MAY AFFECT THEIR ACADEMIC
STUDIES, CAREERS AND FAMILIES
Prepared Statement of Kim Hall
Chairman Flores, Ranking Member Takano, and members of the
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, the National Association of
Veterans Program Administrators (NAVPA) is pleased to be invited to
provide comment on the topic of increasing the functionality of the
Post 9/11 GI Bill claims processing. NAVPA's membership is comprised of
educational institutions from all sectors with an organizational
commitment to advocating for what is in the best interests of student
veterans at our institutions. Our expertise lies in the administration
of veterans' education programs at colleges, universities, and other
education providers and most of our members also serve as School
Certifying Officials for VA education benefits. NAVPA is a voluntary
organization with a primary mission to provide training and
professional development to member institutions, collect and
disseminate best practices surrounding support for student veterans and
military members, and advocate on behalf of students and our
institutions. Our organization represents close to 400 educational
institutions nation-wide and our leadership is comprised of non-paid
staff members. We voluntarily serve NAVPA in an effort to better serve
the veterans on our campuses.
The Post 9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33) is an incredibly generous and
complicated benefit program. The level of detailed, often manual work
required of School Certifying Officials is frequently overwhelming.
There are a number of things we believe could be done to ease the
burden on SCOs and on VA processors to make this a more streamlined and
manageable process.
Regulations and Policy Guidance:
We must have regulations for the GI Bill law passed over 2 years
ago (PL 111-377). Schools are being held liable for overpayments by
policies that are not in alignment with existing regulations and
schools are expected to comply with legislation that has not been
regulated. VA attempts to manage the implementation of the changes in
PL 111-377 via policy statements but these are not well or consistently
communicated to all educational institutions. We continue to ask for an
online archive of all policy and procedural changes since it seems
difficult to push information out to the field and schools through VA
communication channels.
VA Once/IT Concerns:
The VA Once certification data entry system still requires schools
to upload data multiple times for the same student, one student at a
time - there are no batch uploads, certifying officials are advised to
input only one change per day for each student to insure they are
received correctly at the Regional Processing Office, and the ability
to modify, update or correct some inputs is severely limited if not
impossible to do electronically. We still must rely on paper forms to
report some situations clearly or resort to duplicate certifications -
one example comes from recent ELR guidance reminding schools that they
cannot make any changes to a terminated certification and that the only
option is to completely recertify the term with explanatory remarks. As
a very senior certifying official wrote recently, ``We should be able
to correct anything that we send to the VA via VA-ONCE to keep it clear
and clean.'' Data entry limitations result in a great deal of extra
work on the part of the already heavily burdened SCO. Limitations on
data inputs via VA Once and the set of standard remarks available do
not allow for all reporting scenarios and needs.
Payment Processing Issues:
Ch 33 claims processed by the LTS' automated functionality are now
paid very quickly - as soon as five work days from submission from our
observation. But this is still a minority of supplemental claims and
includes no original claims. LTS must continue to evolve so it is able
to process more complex claims and changes.
Certificates of Eligibility are NOT the same as authorizations for
payment as used under Ch 31 or military Tuition Assistance. COEs do not
represent a guarantee of payment at a set amount, but rather a
statement of general eligibility for a program. The VA still can pay
all or a portion of reported charges based on a number of possible
criteria and situations. Many schools are nonetheless willing to defer
student bills until GI Bill tuition and fee payments arrive, but some
are not. Some are even willing to disburse other aid while awaiting GI
Bill funds. The number willing to do so would likely decrease
dramatically if funds were to be sent to the student rather than the
school, a situation that would result in even less confidence in the
eventual payment of charges.
Since SCOs and business offices are expected to know whether they
have been paid correctly by VA - and must reconcile payments so they
know what to do with balances on student accounts, they must be taught
payment processing rules and policies - how to calculate a prorated
payment based on a reduction in hours after the start of term, for
example. Only by understanding this level of detail can the school be
assured that payments - and debts/overpayments - are correct.
As long as VA requires schools to report every change in enrollment
or charge, waiting till the end of term to submit tuition and fees will
not help reduce the number of adjustments or amendments required, but
will rather compress them into a very limited time period rather than
submitting them as they occur throughout the term. The only way to
reduce the reported 50% of the claims backlog that results from
adjustments is to convince students not to change their schedules.
Every one of these changes has to be reported - individually - and, as
mentioned previously, on separate days to be sure that the data arrives
at VA intact.
Overpayments and Debt Collection:
The RPOs should communicate with schools prior to sending school
debts to the VA'S Debt Management Center for collection. There should
be agreement on both the rationale and amount of the overpayment before
the DMC starts collection processes. The VA's review in 2011 of
outstanding 2009-2010 overpayments was obviously flawed as the DMC
suspended collection on over 800 of these debts and many, many schools
reported offsets taken for debts that were already paid or previously
reassigned to the student by the RPO.
The US Treasury Offset Program procedures MUST be changed to
prevent multiple agencies from offsetting the same debt simultaneously.
A system that only allows a weekly update of offset-eligible VA debts
is irresponsible. This has caused enormous confusion, frustration, and
effort on the part of institution to track and reconcile inbound
payments and offsets from multiple non-VA-related federal sources
including the refunds of erroneous or duplicate offsets taken.
Redundant/Useless Reporting Requirements:
Eliminate useless school reporting requirements such as graduation
- data collected through that process is incomplete and providing
highly inaccurate view of veteran completion rates. Also, while an
admirable goal, reporting students on probation so that VA can send a
letter reminding them that they have tutoring, counseling, and advising
available to them seems a less than optimum use of resources since
schools already work closely with students on probation status. These
VA and SCO resources could be better utilized elsewhere.
Data Sharing:
It seems unreasonable in this IT-driven age that the four Regional
Processing Offices cannot see electronic files in each other's
jurisdiction. This lack of visibility requires additional form
submission by veterans if their initial application was processed and
their Certificate of Eligibility issued by one RPO but the veteran
decides to enroll in a school in another region. Veterans cannot
reasonably be expected to know what RPO their forms are processed in
nor that they must notify VA when they move from one RPO to another.
The Education Call Center staff in Muskogee has visibility on veteran
files from all four regions - why not all four RPOs so that this
additional paperwork and delay on claims processing can be avoided.
There is still no school access to real-time eligibility and
payment data for students using the Post 9/11 GI Bill - our most long-
standing request. This significantly impacts schools' ability and
willingness to extend financial protection or courtesy for student
veterans. Schools' initial experiences with the Post 9/11 GI Bill
including the recent debt collection efforts have not served to build
confidence in the program or its accurate implementation. Only direct
access to data will change this
Benefit Recommendation:
There needs to be a change to the net-cost consequences for those
veterans at less than 100% eligibility for Ch 33 who cannot combine
federal or other restricted aid programs to get 100% of their costs
covered. When VA pays after all others, and only a percentage of what
remains, the veteran can never get all charges paid for, even with
multiple available programs. This is unfair to these individuals,
primarily Guard and reserve members/veterans. Ch 33 rules should allow
for payment of the veteran's net-cost not to exceed the full cost
multiplied by the veteran's eligibility tier.
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you again for the
opportunity to contribute these statements on behalf of the National
Association of Veterans Program Administrators. Our organization stands
ready to assist in all efforts to better support the women and men who
have served this nation. We thank you for your continued leadership on
issues of critical importance to America's veterans. NAVPA would be
happy to respond to any questions you may have.
Prepared Statement of Hayleigh Perez
Chairman Flores and Respective Committee Members, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before your subcommittee today.
My name is Hayleigh Perez. As a female Veteran having served on
active-duty in the U.S. Army, a wife and mother, a student Veteran, and
currently the Vice President of Social Media with the Student Veterans
Advocacy Group, I feel very proud to be here speaking on such a
relevant topic effecting thousands of student Veterans around our
country today.
The words, ``Freedom isn't free'' are so very true, yet our
Veterans today seem to be so demonized as though we are asking for
something that's not already ours. Our Veterans should never have to
ask, and sometimes beg for the very things we were promised for the
sacrifices made to protect our great nation.
As in any good business...taking care of those whom take care of
you, builds strength we all benefit from. While the economy is tough,
statistics prove that taking care of our Veterans through the benefits
promised to them, yields one of the highest return on investments of
any others out there...period. By doing so, our Veterans are given the
square deal promised to them, which yields such a high return that will
benefit the rebuilding of our local, state, and national economy as a
whole.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, ``A man who is good enough to shed
his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal
afterwards.''
Based on research and assessments many universities as well as our
organization have been able to work on regarding the number of Veterans
whom are enrolling at a school of higher education due to interrupted
studies resulting from active-duty service, and those whom are
enrolling for the first time, we have determined:
Prior to 2011, nearly 75% of student Veterans were using
the GI Bill to complete their education after interruptions from
active-duty service obligations.
After 2011, only based on information we've collected
from various service-members whom have only served in the military
after 2008 and recently having completed their active-duty service
obligations, approximately 67% of them are attending a traditional
classroom setting in a two-year or four-year college for the first
time.
According to American Counsel on Education (ACE) research:
``only 64% of Post-9/11 GI Bill beneficiaries who
responded to surveys anticipated they could finish their degrees on
time. Under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, qualified veterans are allowed 36
months to complete their education. To accomplish this, veterans
specified that courses must be made available when they need them and
cited the importance of receiving academic credit for military service
and training. The main two factors that contribute to graduating on
time are course availability and course credit.''
Because of the size of their student populations, course
availability is a larger concern at public universities. Veterans get
the courses they need by taking approved classes at accredited schools
near their primary institution.''
According to an ACE survey, only 47% of veterans who made
an attempt to transfer credits were satisfied with the results.
Veterans most often receive course credit for degree programs at
private schools by finding allies such as academic advisors and
professors who advocate on their behalf and initiate appeals. This
helps them transfer more course credit and ensures that they will
graduate on time.''
There are considerable challenges and obstacles facing student
Veterans today different than in times past. Such challenges our
student Veterans are facing today are a result of the short-sited
decisions being made by the Federal, and some State governments due to
the financial hardships facing our Nation. History has proven post-war
is the worst recession, and best economical boom our Nation
experiences, versus other time-periods. Part of such success is due to
the positive impact educating our Veterans has on the economy, which is
paramount to the growth needed today.
Many Veterans are finding it extremely difficult to adjust back to
civilian life for a multitude of reasons. Let's keep in mind a big
difference with the ten-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan contrary to
past wars, is that our service-members have survived at a higher rate
than prior wars. Of course, that's a blessing, but it also precipitates
a much greater need for preparation and care at home our nation wasn't
ready for.
As a result of the unanticipated transitional difficulties from the
backlog of delayed processing of VA claims: many service-members,
Veterans, and families thereof, are suffering from unforeseen hardships
that could otherwise be avoided.
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES?
Processing Delays
Student Veterans are often faced with extreme financial hardships
when transitioning into school for the first time, starting new
semesters, or changing schools or programs. When following up with
their paperwork, student Veterans often realize they and the
Universities have done everything on their end to ensure timely
processing of claims - though months often pass with no payment and no
answer from VA as to the reasoning for such delay.
The way by which current VA GI Bill claims are being processed
needs significant improvements. Many of our nations student Veterans
are relying on their earned GI Bill benefits for groceries, child care,
bills, etc., and the delinquency by which these funds are being
disbursed, or not, are often times life-altering causing some
consequences as extreme as leaving some student Veterans homelessness.
A fellow student Veteran, Juan M. Beltran from Silver Springs,
Maryland wrote to our organization, stating:
``There is a little known book called, When the War Comes Home by
Aaron Glantz. In his concluding chapters, Glantz speaks to the uphill
battles veterans have had in obtaining Veterans benefits over the past
60 years, battle that undoubtedly continues.
``Members of Congress and bureaucrats at the Pentagon and the
Department of Veterans Affairs may not be attacking vets with mortars
and IEDs, but they are literally killing them with indifference'',
Glantz writes on page 212.''
This past semester, beginning Graduate school, I experienced this
first-hand. When I first contacted the VA in January, I was told there
was not even a record of my attending Graduate school, which I began
attending a week earlier. After resubmitting the same documents I sent
already sent in November of 2012, I was told to follow-up in a week.
After calling the VA every week for over 5-weeks I finally made it
through the never ending hold-time with the VA and spoke to a very nice
woman by the name of Yvonne, whom located all of the information and
forms I'd already filed in November of 2012 in addition to all of my
inquiries, whereby she was able to actually process my book-stipend and
housing allowance payments. Within a few days I received the funds I
was owed, my certificate of benefits from the previous school I'd never
received, as well as the one I needed for Graduate school.
The prevailing question our organization posed with respect to the
similar issues thousands of student Veterans have been, and are
currently facing was:
Why was Yvonne able to resolve my GI Bill issues while the 4 other
VA representatives I previously spoke with not able to?
I asked this question of Yvonne when discussing my issues and was
told the VA Educational Assistance Department is currently using two
different software programs that cannot communicate with one another.
Therefore, if my information was entered into one program but not the
other, the representatives working with the other software program
cannot assist me because they can't find my information, while it all
resides within the other software program.
Potential Solutions
1. Consolidate the two software programs currently being used by
the VA Educational Assistance Program to one standard software program.
By consolidating the software programs to one standard program, all
VA representatives would have equal access in addressing any GI Bill
beneficiary claims issue, whereby resolving beneficiary problems in a
more timely manner. This would also assist in maximizing productivity
for the VA and its representatives, while reducing the financial burden
facing thousands of student Veterans. The outcome of applying this
would be a considerable cast-savings measure to both the GI Bill
beneficiaries as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs, which
would certainly help reduce spending for our Federal Government.
2. Re-education and certified training for all VA representatives,
in addition to required annual training for changes and updates to the
software program being utilized by the VA.
This is one of the largest observable downfalls with respect to
current deficiencies in how the VA processes GI Bill education benefits
claims.
3. Education and re-training of all VA representatives on all
forms, past, present, and future, of the GI Bill (chapter 30, 33, etc).
Many emails the Student Veterans Advocacy Group receives from
student Veterans complain about the lack of GI Bill knowledge one would
think is necessary in order to work in the Educational Assistance
Program for the VA.
4. Each Student Veteran should have a VA representative assigned to
them on a local, state, or regional basis.
By assigning each GI Bill beneficiary an individual representative
for their claim, communication would be far better, and personable as
well. Being able to contact or email an individual representative would
help reduce the debilitating complaints currently stagnating the VA.
This measure can additionally ensure more compliance, accountability,
and continuity are being met by the VA.
Conclusion
Our society today is overstated with the ``blank-checks'' it offers
to one group or another. The difference between student Veterans and
other groups is that they're not asking for any more, or less, than
what's owed them for their sacrifices in-service to protect our nation.
We're not asking for a hand-down, hand-up, or hand-out. Rather - we're
merely asking for the benefit we've fought for, died for, and earned,
in defending the freedoms our great nation continues to enjoy.
Have we really fallen so far from where America once was that we
resolve ourselves to believe if we're not personally affected, then it
doesn't matter? While in many ways having become disenfranchised with
some of the questionable actions by our government I can still honestly
say that I would sacrifice my life to secure the liberties and freedoms
we have in America. So, is really too much to ask that our government
fulfill its' obligations, as intended, to our service-members and
Veterans?
To this end, you (Members of the House Sub-Committee on Economic
Opportunity of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs) have a
tremendous opportunity to be heroes to the Veterans and families, whom
have served our great Nation. With your dedication and leadership, our
Veterans can be better able to assist in the future successes our
economy and country so desperately need.
Character is defined not just by what we say we're going to do, but
what we do following what we say. As Theodore Roosevelt once said,
``when making any decision, the best thing you can do is the right
thing, the next best is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do
is nothing.'' The right thing to do for our Veterans is reflected best
through our actions, not rhetoric.
Very Respectfully,
Hayleigh Perez
Vice-President
Student Veterans Advocacy Group
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.studentveteransadvocacygroup.org
Follow the SVAG at:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SVANC
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Student--Vets
Prepared Statement of Hon. Roger W. Baker
Good morning Chairman Flores, Ranking Member Takano, and Members of
the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) efforts to
create and implement the Long-Term Solution (LTS) for processing Post-
9/11 GI Bill claims. Accompanying me today is Mr. Robert M. Worley II,
Director, Education Service. My testimony will address the current
status of education claims processing and the status of the
implementation of the Post-9/11 GI Bill LTS.
Most importantly, we can report to the Subcommittee and our
Nation's Veterans that VA is currently processing supplemental claims
for Post-9/11 educational assistance in an average of 7 days, a
remarkable achievement given that we are in the peak enrollment period
for the spring term. For comparison purposes, on this date in 2011, it
took 19 days to process supplemental claims, in 2012, it took 14 days.
As we go through the rest of my testimony, , the most important fact is
that Veterans are receiving the payments they are due in a timely
manner that supports their educational efforts.
As the Subcommittee Members know, the Post-9/11 GI Bill is the most
extensive educational assistance program authorized since the original
GI Bill was signed into law in 1944. Secretary Shinseki and the entire
Department are committed to making sure all eligible Servicemembers,
Veterans, and family members receive this important benefit in a timely
manner, so they can focus on what is most important - their education.
Background
In June 2008, Congress passed the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational
Assistance Act, which established a new education benefit program under
chapter 33 of title 38 United States Code, which VA refers to as the
``Post-9/11 GI Bill.'' Upon enactment, VA had approximately 13 months
to develop a new, highly complex eligibility and payment system for
claimants eligible to receive benefits under this new program effective
August 1, 2009. To meet this challenge, VA initially sought contractor
support for development of an information technology (IT) system to
process these claims. At that time, it was proposed that the contractor
would be accountable for providing a technical solution and support
that would allow VA to provide timely and accurate education claims
processing by completing original claims within 10 days, supplemental
claims within 7 days, while concurrently achieving a 98 percent
accuracy rate. However, VA did not receive enough proposals from
qualified private-sector contractors to create an IT program. . VA
terminated the solicitation process and began development of an interim
claims processing solution, using in-house resources, while
simultaneously developing a long-term, rules-based processing solution
in cooperation with the Department of Navy's Space and Naval Warfare
Systems Center Atlantic (SPAWAR).
Program Executive Office
To manage the development of the overall process for administering
the Post-9/11 GI Bill, VA established a Program Executive Office within
Education Service comprised of senior business-line managers,
management analysts, individuals with program and project management
experience, and administrative support. This office is responsible for
coordination of all projects within the VA comprehensive management
plan to successfully implement the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
Short-Term Strategy
VA's short-term strategy to implement the Post-9/11 GI Bill
consisted of a two-part IT solution: a fiscal payment system which used
the Benefits Delivery Network (BDN) to issue payments and a ``Front-End
Tool'' (FET) by VA claims examiners to use to augment the manual
adjudication of claims. VA's Office of Information and Technology (OIT)
designed the interim processing solution functionality in three
separate phases. Each phase delivered a specific set of functionalities
for claims examiners to manually process Post-9/11 GI Bill claims with
some IT augmentation. The final phase of the Interim Solution was
deployed in November 2009.
LTS Development
While development of the short-term solution was ongoing, VA
partnered with SPAWAR to develop a long-term solution for Post-9/11 GI
Bill education claims processing--an end-to-end claims processing
solution that utilizes rules-based, industry-standard technologies for
the delivery of education benefits. The Post-9/11 GI Bill contains
numerous, complex eligibility rules and benefit determinations that led
us towards inclusion of rules-based technology to minimize human
intervention.
While VA initially planned to release the automated system in four
major releases, two additional releases - one full year of systems
development--were necessary to implement the changes to the Post-9/11
GI Bill required by Public Law 111-377, the ``Post-9/11 Veterans
Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010.'' This law expanded
the Post-9/11 GI Bill in many ways, to include non-college degree
programs, modified the statutory tuition and fee payment provisions to
allow VA to pay all in-state public school costs, and created a
national cap for training pursued at a private institution.
During the initial development, VA planned to include the following
functionality in each respective release:
Release 1
Processing original Post-9/11 GI Bill claims;
Automated calculation of award payment;
Automated calculation of overlapping term/interval
awards;
Demographic and service data from the VA/Department of
Defense Identity Repository;
Conversion and data transfer from the Interim Solution;
Processing supplemental claims;
Chapter 33 kickers (also known as the Army, Navy, or
Marine Corps College Funds) and supplemental kickers; and
Claims containing award amendments.
Release 2
Award letter generation;
Data Warehouse data feed; and
Record security enhancement.
Release 3
Interface with VA's Benefits Delivery Network for
automated payments.
Release 4
Expansion of previously released functionality and
Veteran self-service capability to access and view the status of
applications online.
Delivered Functionality
VA has deployed six major releases of LTS, all of which were
delivered on schedule according to the original timeline. Release 1 was
deployed on March 31, 2010, and included the capability to complete new
original claims; automatic calculation of awards including tuition and
fees, housing, books and supplies, Yellow Ribbon, and Montgomery GI
Bill - Active Duty and Reserve Educational Assistance Program kickers;
and automatic calculation of awards for overlapping terms and
intervals.
VA deployed Release 2on June 30, 2010. This release allowed VA to
process changes in enrollment information, claims for transfers of
entitlement, and to generate various letters to beneficiaries.
Additionally, data conversion from the Interim Solution FET database to
the LTS occurred for Veterans determined eligible but had not yet
enrolled. Release 2.1 was deployed on August 23, 2010. This release
allowed us to retire the short-term, or interim, solution by fully
replacing the functionality of the Interim Solution and associated
manual processing tools.
VA deployed Release 3 on October 30, 2010. This release provided
enhanced enrollment processing and an interface with the VA Online
Certification of Enrollment (VAONCE) system to allow information to
pre-populate in LTS, which reduced keystrokes for claims examiners.
This release was a critical step toward end-to-end automation.
Release 4, which was deployed on December 20, 2010, provided the
BDN payment interface and self-service capabilities for claimants to
access and view their enrollment history and entitlement information
through eBenefits. Release 4.1, deployed on January 16, 2011, converted
Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) payments to calendar year 2011 rates.
Release 4.2, deployed on March 5, 2011, incorporated changes to tuition
and fee and honorable service requirements as required by Public Law
111-377. Note that the changes included in release 4.2 were
accomplished within 60 days of passage of the Public Law.
VA deployed Release 5 on June 4, 2011. This release included other
changes required by Public Law 111-377, such as the annual tuition-and-
fees cap, housing for distance learners, books and supplies payments
for active duty Servicemembers, and qualifying service for National
Guard. Release 5.1 was deployed on October 17, 2011, and provided the
remaining requirements of Public Law 111-377, including functionality
for processing non-college degree programs, apprenticeship, flight, and
on-the-job (OJT) training. In Release 5.2, deployed on February 21,
2012, the architecture was expanded to allow for end-to-end automation
of supplemental claims.
Release 6.0 deployed on July 30, 2012 to provide end-to-end
automation for supplemental claims and centralized letter-printing
capability. It also included an interface with The Image Management
System (TIMS), our electronic filing system. However, the automation
feature was not fully deployed until September 24, 2012.
Prior to the LTS initial release, it took claims examiners over
one-and-a-half hours to process an original claim. Following the
release, it takes approximately 45 minutes to process an original Post-
9/11 GI Bill claim.
Success of LTS
The Chapter 33 LTS has been a significant success from an IT
implementation perspective. It was one of the first large-scale system
implementations in government to use Agile development methodologies,
and the first completely new system to be developed under the VA's
Program Management Accountability System (PMAS). Because of the volume
of education claims and the limitations of the short-term solution, it
was critical to VA, and to Veterans, that this system be delivered on
time, and that it work correctly when delivered. Our people, processes,
contractors, and technology met that challenge. As noted above, every
major release of the Chapter 33 LTS system has been delivered on time,
a feat nearly unheard of in government for such a large system. Under
PMAS, the system has been required to deliver new functionality at
least every six months, and it has met that challenge. Using Agile
development methodologies has allowed us to readily adapt to changing
priorities, from both business needs and new laws, by prioritizing new,
urgent requirements ahead of other items on the requirements list. It
has also helped enhance accountability in the IT development process,
which allowed VA to better execute available IT funds. In an effort to
achieve automation and meet the business sponsor's needs, there were a
total of 33 releases that provided customer-facing functionality
(combining 21 minor and 12 major releases). This translates into
deploying new functionality at an average rate of one major release
every two months. The Chapter 33 application is considered to be the
first VA application to implement a true service-oriented architecture
(SOA). As a result, it has helped VA lead the Government in the use of
commoditized infrastructure services (Infrastructure as a Service
[IASS]); and has also spearhead VA policy (regarding security,
acquisitions, management) in the industry best practice of outsourcing
infrastructure use of commercial and Cloud computing hosting services.
The program was nominated for a 2012 Government Computer News (GCN)
Award for excellence in federal, state, and local government IT
projects and management teams to honor their ingenuity, organizational
skills, and contributions to the public and is a finalist as Best
Business Process Management (BPM) Project in the American 2013 Process
Excellence Award.
Four years ago, during my congressional office visits as part of my
Confirmation, I consistently heard that VA IT would fail in
implementation of the systems to support the Chapter 33 program. Today,
the LTS system processes over 40 percent of supplemental claims within
one day of receipt. From an IT perspective, from a business
perspective, from a VA perspective, and most importantly from a Veteran
perspective, the Chapter 33 LTS system is delivering real value for the
investment made by the American taxpayers.
Automation
End-to-end automation of claims for the Post-9/11 GI Bill was
originally planned for June 2011, but enactment of Public Law 111-377
required reprioritization of planned functionality to meet the law's
effective dates. To meet the requirements of the law, end-to-end
automation was pushed back by approximately one year.
Calculation of benefits due under Chapter 33 is a complex process.
LTS has over 1,600 calculation rules that support benefits for
Veterans, Servicemembers, and transferees. Seven types of training are
supported, which include graduate, undergraduate, non-college degree,
correspondence, apprenticeship, on-the-job training (OJT), and flight.
Up to six benefits are calculated per term including housing, books and
supplies, tuition and fees, Yellow Ribbon, and additional DOD-funded
``kicker'' payments foractive duty beneficiaries (Chapter 30 kickers)
and for members of the Selected Reserve (Chapter 1606 kickers). LTS
supports the entry of unlimited service periods, enrollment periods,
and changes to enrollment periods.
Currently, approximately 80 percent of all Post-9/11 GI Bill
supplemental claims are automated - partially or fully. For the month
of January, 2013, 44 percent of incoming enrollment documents (over
149,000 documents) were fully automated and 36 percent (over 109,000
documents) were partially automated. There are approximately 80
business rules that support end-to-end automation of supplemental
claims for the purpose of ensuring payment accuracy for Veterans. Each
of these rules constitute a reason why a claim should not be fully
automated and is exited for manual processing. When an issue is
identified, automation is suspended to prevent payment errors and a
manual review and/or entry is required to complete the remaining
processing. We expect end-to-end automation to continue to improve
overall claims processing timeliness and reduce delays in payment of
education benefits.
Workload
Processing timeliness has improved significantly since
implementation of LTS. With the implementation of end-to-end automation
and mandatory overtime at the regional processing offices, we reduced
the number of pending Post-9/11 GI Bill claims from 177,000 in
September 2012, to 62,000 in November 2012. The continued expansion of
the automated functionalities in the Post-9/11 GI Bill processing
system is already having an impact on improved benefits delivery. At
the end of January we had approximately 86,000 claims pending, 50
percent lower than the total claims pending the same time last year.
The average days to process Post-9/11 GI Bill supplemental claims has
decreased by 16 days, from 23 days in September 2012 to 7 days in
January 2013. The average time to process Post-9/11 GI Bill original
education benefit claims in January was 34 days.
Outreach
On June 3, 2010, VA sent a notice to school certifying officials
informing them that they may submit enrollment certifications for
training pursued during the fall semester even if they do not know a
student's actual tuition-and-fee charges. Upon receipt of the student's
actual charges, the school certifying official was asked to submit an
amended enrollment certification to VA with the corrected information.
On December 7, 2010, school certifying officials were again told to
submit enrollment certifications with $0 reported for tuition and fees
if the tuition and fees charges had not been finalized for a student.
School certifying officials have been encouraged by VA to continue with
this practice for subsequent semesters because it ensures that our
Veterans will receive timely payments for their housing allowance and
books and supplies stipend while waiting for their tuition-and-fees
charges to be finalized. While accepting enrollments without tuition-
and-fees charges has allowed VA to issue more timely payments of the
monthly housing allowance and books and supplies stipend, there has
also been an increase in the number of claims submitted because schools
have to amend their original submissions to include tuition-and-fees
charges.
Expenditures and Improvements
Since inception, VA has issued over $25.9 billion in Post-9/11 GI
Bill benefit payments to approximately 911,000 individuals and their
educational institutions. The total lifecycle cost to develop the LTS
system to date is estimated at $263 million, which represents one
percent of the total benefits paid. For FY 2013, we are increasing end-
to-end automation of supplemental claims, with funding allocated to
implement this feature at $4.4 million. LTS is also transitioning from
development to a sustainment phase. The cost for sustainment of LTS in
FY 2013 will be $18.7 million.
Certain deferred functionality will be considered for
implementation in future years. Some of the deferred functionality
includes, but is not limited to: certificate of eligibility (COE)
automation, multiple sources of entitlement, expansion of external data
service capabilities, monthly certification of attendance, and business
analytics.
There are numerous challenges to COE automation including:
Creating a streamlined electronic application that
includes all the information necessary to process an original claim;
Creating an interface between the application system and
LTS;
Verifying the identity of the individual submitting the
application;
Verifying and reconciling service data of the individual;
Verifying attendance at a service academy;
Verifying and accounting for entitlement used under other
educational assistance programs; and
Functionality to handle the benefit relinquishment and
election issues properly.
It would be a significant development effort to achieve end-to-end
automation of all eligibility determinations.
Conclusion
Veterans' well-deserved educational benefits are the vehicle by
which many of our Nation's heroes pursue their educational goals and
successfully transition to civilian life. VA is dedicated to ensuring
that Veterans are able to make well-informed decisions concerning the
use of their benefits and receive a quality education. We look forward
to working with the Subcommittee to provide the very best support
possible to our Veterans and beneficiaries as they pursue their
educational goals.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to
answer any questions you or other Members of the Subcommittee may have.
Questions For The Record
Letter From: Hon. Bill Flores, Chairman, Subcommittee on Economic
Opportunity, To: The Hon. Eric Shinseki, Secretary, U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs
February 27, 2013
The Honorable Eric Shinseki
Secretary
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20420
Dear Secretary Shinseki:
On Thursday, February 14, 2013, the Honorable Roger Baker the
Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology testified before the
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity during an oversight hearing
entitled, ``Increasing the Functionality of Post 9/11 GI Bill Claims
Processing to Reduce Delays.'' As a follow-up to the hearing, I request
that the department respond to th following questions and provide the
requested materials by no later than close of business on Tuesday March
26, 2013.
1. Several times in your response to the Subcommittee's pre-hearing
questions, you stated that future releases and functionalities for the
LTS would be subject to priorities in IT funding. Where does LTS fall
in the IT priority list?
2. In your written statement you listed seven impediments to 100%
end-to-end automation of GI bill claims. What is your plan to overcome
these impediments and when will they be completed?
3. How do you respond to NAVPA's request that all four Regional
Processing Office have access to veteran's education claim records
regardless of the jurisdiction? Is this something that can be
accomplished since the call center already has this same access?
4. Please give us an update on when regulations will be promulgated
for P.L. 111-377 which became law over two years ago.
5. Please provide a clearer and more understandable response on
slide nine to our pre-hearing question on the costs associated with
automating the processing of original claims?
6. Please provide to the subcommittee a full list of the top 20
off-ramps for processing in the LTS. Also, please include which of
these off-ramps you believe are the most significant and which off-
ramps you believe could be addressed in future releases of the LTS.
7. Your response to pre-hearing question four and five states that
LTS is ``transitioning from development to a sustainment phase.'' What
does this mean and what additional functions will be accomplished with
the $4.4 million stated in your response?
8. The response to pre-hearing question number nine stated that
with LTS release 4 veterans could access their remaining entitlement
through e-benefits. Our understanding is that access through e-benefits
is only possible if a student has a premium account which requires a
student to provide ID verification at a VA facility. Why is this access
limited to the premium account?
9. The answers to pre-hearing questions 11 and 12 indicate that LTS
will continue to rely on the Benefits Delivery Network (BDN) for
payments. Why has this legacy system continued to be used and are there
plans to replace the BDN with the Financial Accounting System tool?
10. The response to pre-hearing questions 13 stated that VA would
have to do further ``analysis of VA/DOD cross cutting systems.'' What
are those cross cutting systems and what would be the specific analysis
needed to further clarify the answer to questions 13?
11. Has VA improperly collected money from the veteran and the
school for the same debt?
13. When will schools have the ability to batch uploads to the VA
ONCE system?
14. When will VA begin to process original claims with the LTS?
15. Why does the U.S. Treasury program allow only a weekly update
of offset eligible VA debts?
16. If we asked you to make a change to the LTS do you have the
authority to make that change?
17. You state that it takes 34 days to process an original claim.
Does this mean the veteran gets his/her money within 34 days?
18. Some veterans are asking for a portal where veterans can access
and view in real-time the status of their GI Bill claims. Is this at
all possible?
Your attention to these questions is very much appreciated. Ifyou
have any further questions, please contact Mike Brinck, Subcommittee on
Economic Opportunity Staff Director, at [email protected] or at
(202) 225-3527.
Sincerely,
Bill Flores
Chairman
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity
Post-Hearing Questions for VBA and OIT
Question 1: Several times in your response to the Subcommittee's
pre-hearing questions, you stated that future releases and
functionalities for the LTS would be subject to priorities in IT
funding. Where does LTS fall in the IT priority list?
Response: At this time, OIT is unable to provide the ranking of
future enhancements to LTS on the priority list of unfunded
requirements. OIT is currently executing its FY 2013 funding for
sustainment, development and pay/administration in accordance with the
budget guidelines under P.L. 112-175, Continuing Appropriations Act,
2013. VA prioritizes its unfunded IT requirements (UFRs) every fiscal
year to provide flexibility in budget execution. If funding becomes
available, the UFR list will be prioritized, reviewed, and OIT will be
able to provide the status of funding for future enhancements to LTS.
Question 2: In your written statement you listed seven impediments
to 100% end-to-end automation of GI bill claims. What is your plan to
overcome these impediments and when will they be completed?
Response: The seven impediments to 100% end-to-end automation are
as follows:
1. Creating a streamlined electronic application that includes all
the information necessary to process an original claim;
2. Creating an interface between the application system and the
Long-Term Solution;
3. Verifying the identity of the individual submitting the
application;
4. Verifying and reconciling the service data of an individual
claimant;
5. Verifying whether a claimant has attended a service academy
(which may affect entitlement to benefits);
6. Verifying and accounting for entitlement to the Post 9-11 GI
Bill when a service member has used other educational assistance
programs (which may reduce entitlement to Post 9-11 GI Bill benefits);
and
7. Functionality to handle the benefit `relinquishment and
election' issues properly (i.e., functionality to process and capture a
service member's decision to transfer his benefit to a spouse or
child.)
In order to effectively address these impediments, updates and
changes to a variety of programs and system interfaces will need to be
made (``system interfaces'' are interfaces that allow data to be
transferred from one program to another). Updating these programs and
system interfaces will require considerable analysis and planning. This
planning will be carried out within a formal planning framework that
includes the development of a ``business requirements document''--a
document that includes a detailed description and analysis of the
current state of the systems and programs used to process Post 9-11 GI
Bill claims, as well as a prioritized list and analysis of new
functionality that is needed in order to accomplish the goal of an end-
to-end automation of Post 9-11GI Bill claims.
Every year, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) provides
VA's Office of Information and Technology (OIT) with a list of requests
for development support on its Information Technology (IT) systems and
programs. This list encompasses all VBA-administered IT systems and
programs, including those that support the administration of the Post
9-11 GI Bill. Items on this list are prioritized in order of their
importance and their impact on VBA's workload. Funding determinations
for particular line items are made based on a strategic-level
assessment of VBA's priorities.
Question 3: How do you respond to NAVPA's request that all four
Regional Processing Office(s) have access to veteran's education claim
record regardless of the jurisdiction? Is this something that can be
accomplished since the call center already has this same issue?
Response: Under the Long-Term Solution (LTS), Regional Processing
Offices can view and modify claims outside of their jurisdiction.
Specifically, it is possible for designated users in one Regional
Processing Office to access and modify an education claim record that
is stored in The Image Management System (TIMS) of another Regional
Processing Office. However, because the data stored in TIMS includes
sensitive personal information on claimants (such as social security
numbers), the ability to access and modify data across the
jurisdictional boundaries of Regional Processing Offices is restricted
to designated users. This restriction of access is done for privacy,
policy, and claims-management reasons, not technical reasons.
Question 4: Give us an update on when regulations will be
promulgated for P.L. 111-377 which became law over two years ago.
Response: Currently, the regulations for Public Law 111-377 are in
the internal VA concurrence process.
Question 5: Please provide a clearer and more understandable
response on slide nine to our pre-hearing question on the costs
associated with automating the processing of original claims?
Response: When the Post 9-11 GI Bill became law, VA responded by
developing plans to create an automated system to process claims. As
part of the planning process, the development team identified the
various functional capabilities that would be needed to efficiently and
effectively process claims. These functionalities were then prioritized
based on an assessment of the following two factors: (1) how important
a particular functionality is to ensuring that claims can be processed
efficiently and effectively, and (2) the time, cost, and difficulty of
developing and deploying that functionality.
A strategic decision was made to have the development team focus
its resources on developing and implementing the functionalities at the
top of the prioritized list. Though development activities centered on
the items at the top of the prioritized list, the system was designed
to enable developers to incorporate functionalities lower on the list
at a later period, as time and resources allowed.
The development plan prioritized the functionality for fully
automating original claims lower on the list, because it was determined
that greater claims-processing gains could be quickly realized by
focusing development efforts on the automation of select supplemental
claims. The context in which these judgments were made is important:
When the Post 9-11 GI Bill became law, VA had very little time to
develop a system to administer the new educational benefit before VA
had to begin processing claims. Because of this time-constraint, VA had
to develop a claims adjudication system that blended manual claims-
processing with automated claims-processing. The decision to prioritize
the automation of supplemental claims over original claims was made
because developers determined that the time and resources needed to
create and implement a fully-automated system for original claims was
far greater than the time and resources needed to automate supplemental
claims.
Original claims are currently partially automated. The cost
estimate for the development of original claims automation is
unavailable at this time.
Question 6: Please provide to the subcommittee a full list of the
top 20 off-ramps for processing in the LTS. Also, please include which
of these off-ramps you believe are the most significant and which off-
ramps you believe could be addressed in future releases.
Response: The attached list (Attachment 1) provides the top 20 off-
ramps that occurred in February 2013 in order of the most frequently
off-ramped claims. While sufficient development would reduce the
frequency of nearly all of the off-ramps, VA believes that development
releases to reduce the number of VA-ONCE free-text remarks in
enrollment certifications will have the greatest impact on automation.
It should be noted that LTS has transitioned from a major initiative to
a sustainment project. As such, there are no development releases
currently planned. Any future releases of LTS will require IT
development effort and funding.
With its current functionality, LTS has fully automated over
487,000 (more than 40 percent) of the supplemental claims received
electronically since September 24, 2012. While the automation
percentage varies daily, LTS recently fully automated over 53 percent
of claims received in one single day.
Question 7: Your response to pre-hearing questions four and five
state that LTS is ``transitioning from development to a sustainment
phase.'' What does this mean and what additional functions will be
accomplished with the $4.4 million stated in your response?
Response: The phrase ``transitioning from development to
sustainment'' means that all planned and funded development objectives
for the Long-Term Solution (LTS) have been met and, as a result, LTS is
moving into a sustainment phase during which VA will continue to
maintain the system but will not develop new functionality or
enhancements to the system.
The $4.4 million that is referenced in Question 7 has already been
spent. These funds allowed VA to correct software defects in LTS;
update business rules to improve the accuracy and the number of claims
that are automated; centralize letter printing for automated claims;
and add capability to allow call centers visibility into the Chapter 33
claims process. Finally, the $4.4 million allowed VA to make
modifications to ease the transition into sustainment.
Question 8: The response to pre-hearing question number nine stated
that with LTS release 4 veterans could access their remaining
entitlement through e-benefits. Our understanding is that access
through e-benefits is only possible if a student has a premium account
which requires a student to provide ID verification at a VA facility.
Why is this access limited to the premium account?
Response: eBenefits offers over 47 self-service features to
Veterans, Servicemembers, and eligible family members. Although most
features require Premium access for the protection of the Veteran,
there are some features that require only a Basic account. One of those
features is the Post-9/11 GI Bill Enrollment Status. This feature
allows both Veterans and eligible dependents to view entitlement and
school enrollment information for Post- 9/11 GI Bill Education
benefits.
Most individuals that require Premium access may obtain it online
by answering a few security questions to verify their identity.
Servicemembers may verify their identity online by using their Common
Access Card. For those unable to verify identity online, there are
other options available such as telephone proofing, which allows those
in receipt of VA benefits via direct deposit, to have their identity
verified by calling 1-800-827-1000 and selecting option 7.
Question 9: The answers to pre-hearing questions 11 and 12 indicate
that LTS will continue to rely on the Benefits Delivery Network (BDN)
for payments. Why has legacy system continued to be used and are there
plans to replace the BDN with the Financial Accounting System tool?
Response: When the LTS went into development, the Financial
Accounting System was not ready to issue payments. As a result, the LTS
relied on the BDN to meet the benefit payment roll-out demand. The
decision to replace the BDN with the Financial Accounting System tool
is one that would require a significant amount of work and time, which
would necessitate the use of resources that are currently dedicated to
other VA enterprise work.
Question 10: The response to pre-hearing question 13 stated that VA
would have to do further ``analysis of VA/DOD cross cutting systems.''
What are those cross cutting systems and what would be the specific
analysis needed to further clarify the answer to question 13?
Response: The two most important cross cutting systems are the
Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) and the VA/DoD Identity Repository
(VADIR). DMDC collects military service data and other information from
DOD service organizations, and then transfers that information to
VADIR. The LTS interfaces with VADIR to make eligibility determinations
for Post 9-11 GI Bill benefits. The absence of various kinds of service
information from VADIR impedes the ability to automate initial
eligibility determinations in LTS. Therefore, a gap analysis needs to
be performed to determine what additional information needs to be
provided by DMDC to VADIR.
Question 11: Has VA improperly collected money from the veteran and
the school for the same debt?
Response: Veteran and school debts are assigned unique identifiers
when they are created. Accordingly, there should be no occurrences
where money is collected from both the Veteran and the school and
applied to the same debt. VA's Debt Management Center and Education
Service are not aware of such an occurrence.
Question 12: The official list of Questions for the Record provided
by the Committee did not include a Question 12.
Question 13: When will schools have the ability to batch uploads to
the VA Once system?
Response: The ability to perform batch uploads to the VA-ONCE
system will require significant IT development. VA is currently
defining the requirements and reviewing the funding needed for an
improved VA-ONCE system, which would include this feature.
Question 14: When will VA begin to process original claims with the
LTS?
Response: VA has been utilizing LTS to process original claims
since its inception. For instance, nearly all calculations for original
claims are automated; however, full end-to-end automation of original
claims is currently not available. This feature will require major IT
development effort and funding.
Question 15: Why does the U.S. Treasury program allow only a weekly
update of offset eligible VA debts?
Response: VA sends updates to the U.S. Treasury three times a week,
each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which provide updated balances on
accounts that VA has referred to the Treasury Offset Program.
Treasury's system is programmed to provide Federal Agencies a file of
offsets once each week. VA receives Treasury's file each Thursday. Upon
receipt, VA immediately applies the offsets collected to update
balances on VA accounts.
Question 16: If we asked you to make a change to the LTS do you
have the authority to make that change?
Response: Yes, VA has the authority make changes to LTS.
Question 17: You state that it takes 34 days to process an original
claim. Does this mean the Veteran gets his/her money within 34 days?
Response: An eligibility determination is made when an original
claim is processed, and does not necessarily require a payment when
completed. However, if an enrollment certification is received with the
original claim, a payment will either be deposited within 3-5 business
days or received via postal mail within 7-10 business days after the
claim is processed. This is in addition to the 34 average days to
process the claim.
Question 18: Some veterans are asking for a portal where veterans
can access and view in real-time the status of their GI Bill claims. Is
this at all possible?
Response: VBA fully supports the ability of Veterans,
Servicemembers, and eligible dependents to view the status of their GI
Bill claim. VBA is reviewing the funding needed to support this
feature, and will add it to the eBenefits Roadmap at the soonest
possible date.
Attachment 1
Top 20 LTS Off-Ramps
February 2013
1. REVIEW VAONCE REMARKS
2. VALIDATION ERRORS DETECTED DURING AUTOMATED WORK PRODUCT
3. CHANGE OF STUDENT ADDRESS SUBMITTED BY SCHOOL
4. NEW FACILITY CODE FOR CLAIMANT
5. WORK PRODUCT IN PROGRESS, ONE OR MORE ENROLLENTS/ADMENDMENTS
HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE VAONCE INBOX
6. A CHANGE IN VADIR SERVICE DATA HAS BEEN DETECTED
7. CLAIMANT'S ENTITLEMENT IS EXHAUSTED
8. BDN END PRODUCT COULD NOT BE OPENED FOR CLAIMANT
9. NCD ENROLLMENT RECEIVED FOR CLAIMANT
10. CLAIMANT RECORD COULD NOT BE ACCESSED DURING AUTOMATED
PROCESSING
11. COE LETTER PRODUCED
12. NO MATCHING ENROLLMENT FOR ADJUSTMENT
13. CHANGE IN HOUR TYPE DETECTED
14. VAONCE CLAIMANT FILE NUMBER DOES NOT MATCH LTS
15. CHARACTER OF SERVICE IS NOT HONORABLE
16. ONE OR MORE AWARDS TOO LARGE FOR AUTOMATION AUTHORIZATION
17. NO LETTERS PRODUCED
18. WORK PRODUCT REQUIRES REVIEW FOR SECOND SIGNATURE
19. A CHANGE IN VADIR TRANSFER OF ENTITLEMENT DATA HAS BEEN
DETECTED
20. OLDER VAONCE CLAIMS(S) CANNOT BE AUTHORIZED WITH VAONCE CLAIMS
RECEIVED AT THE SAME TIME OF AUTOMATED PROCESSING