Post-9/11 GI Bill Update
Yesterday, I was supposed to take part in a blogger’s roundtable with the VA about the delinquencies in sending out GI Bill benefits to veterans. Unfortunately, I had a last minute issue I had to take care of and wasn’t able to call in. However, there were others there that wrote about the call and I wanted to share some of what was said.
Richard Smith at VetVoice noted this little gem that I frankly don’t believe judging from the comments on my last post on this issue.
First off, all of the VA staff on the call noted that the processing goal for GI Bill benefits is 25 days. Currently, the average is 35 days. The Secretary and Directors on the call all noted that this is unacceptable and indicated measures they are taking to fix the problem. This weekend alone, VA will have 900 employees working 3000 hours of overtime to process GI Bill claims.
I don’t care about the VA touting how many overtime hours they’re working to process these claims. They KNEW what was coming down the pike. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this is going to be a BIG deal and require a lot of man power. They had a year to prepare for it. If that wasn’t enough time, the VA – and/or Congress – could have extended the deadline contained in the law. Obviously, their 3000 hours of overtime isn’t enough and our veterans are paying out of pocket for their benefits. This isn’t a criticism on Richard, but the VA.
The Department expressed extreme regret over not effectively communicating with Veterans on what to expect with GI Bill processing. They are preparing a “Survival Guide” document for the Spring 2010 and future semesters. The VA is promising that future semesters will run smoother, now that the Department knows what to expect.
How many times is the VA going to have to explain themselves. In May, they were supposedly “geared up a big education campaign about what it does and doesn’t deliver.” This was BEFORE everything took effect. They even set up a website and a toll-free telephone number (1-888-GI-BILL-1) to help with this. Typically, it didn’t do it’s job.
In September of last year, after the bill was passed and signed into law, the VA hired a contractor to handle claims.
“The contractor will be accountable for providing timely and accurate education claims processing by completing original claims [within] 10 days, supplemental claims [within] seven days, and by achieving an accuracy rate of at least 98 percent,” said Keith Pedigo, an associate deputy under secretary at the VA. (emphasis mine)
So, is the VA still paying this contractor if they aren’t living up to their contract? Read the rest of Richard’s writeup on the call HERE.
Bob Brewin, of “What’s Brewin’?” at NextGov, has a great writeup of the call as well as more stories about the contradictions to what the VA is saying and what is actually happening to veterans.
ALSO: BEWARE OF “FEES” FOR EDUCATION & POST 9/11 GI BILL COUNSELING. SERVICES ARE FREE AT YOUR LOCAL EDUCATION CENTER
Contract?
September 25th, 2009 at 12:50 pmThis is the first time I heard of them hiring a contractor. I read before that this new GI Bill was proposed for a contract but VA said they were going to do the job.