#Middlebury #Veterans
The Forever GI Bill, which expands education benefits for veterans and their families, was supposed to take effect Aug. 1, 2018. It didn’t happen.
Due to computer problems, hundreds of thousands of veterans either didn’t get their money or didn’t get the correct amount, leaving many of them in hock, with the landlord knocking at the door. But, said the Department of Veterans Affairs, all the missing money would be paid retroactively.
Meanwhile, Congressional staffers heard rumors the VA would not be making those retroactive payments, period. It wouldn’t be possible to look at hundreds of thousands of claims to make sure veterans got all their money. It would be too much work for too little benefit. Under Secretary for Benefits Paul Lawrence, in a sit-down with Congress, said the same thing. Instead of August 2018, they’re looking at December 2019 to kick off the program. He blamed the computer system.
VA Secretary Robert Wilkie had to immediately step up and tell Lawrence to “reset” their efforts to get the IT going, which would include soliciting bids from vendors. Wilkie further announced that veterans would indeed get all of their new and retroactive benefits “once VA is in a position to process education claims in accordance with the new law.” In other words, once the IT is up and running.
Once again, the devil is in the details … and in the parsing of sentences.
The VA hasn’t had a chief information officer all year. This summer the president nominated a highly qualified 20-year Marine Corps veteran to fill the post. The nomination hasn’t been confirmed.
I honestly don’t know it there’s truly an unfixable computer problem, or if it’s political. Think about that. Sometimes all you have to do to bring down a computer system is trip over the power cord.
(c) 2018 King Features Synd., Inc.
You must be logged in to post a comment.