VA slips slightly in deployment of GI bill claims system

The learning system was one of the 45 IT projects that Veterans Affairs' CIO Roger Baker suspended in 2009. Chris Flynn

The Veterans Affairs Department is on track to unveil in late March the first version of a system to automate processing of educational benefit claims under the post-9/11 GI Bill, but its software capabilities will be more limited than originally planned, a top technology official told House lawmakers on Thursday.

The first release of the rules-based software, which the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic is developing in four stages -- will allow officials to manage simple claims, but not more complex ones, Roger Baker, chief information officer at VA, testified before the House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. For example, the initial version will not be able to respond to situations in which veterans add or drop classes.

The first release will be deployed to a limited number of claims examiners in March so they can gain real-world experience with the system while SPAWAR continues to develop additional rules to handle more complicated claims, according to Baker.

Despite the more limited first release, VA expects to meet its original goal of having the system fully launched by December 2010, Baker told lawmakers. SPAWAR will have developed all the functionality originally intended for the first stage by the time it fields the second release in June, he said. That release will allow VA to move claims examiners off of an interim, semiautomated system launched in 2009.

The third version of the software -- which remains on target for a September release -- will tie the claims processing technology to VA financial systems for payments to veterans, and the final step will provide a Web interface so veterans can manage their claims.

Mark Krause, SPAWAR program manager for Veterans Affairs, said without the iterative development approach, VA could have faced a two-year delay in launching the system. "This is a good news story," he said.

VA failed to quickly process post-9/11 GI Bill claims for the fall 2009 semester, requiring the authorization of emergency payments of up to $3,000 per veteran at the end of September 2009.

Keith Wilson, director of the Office of Education Service at the Veterans Benefits Administration, told lawmakers he does not expect any such problems in payments for veterans enrolled in college for the spring 2010 semester. As of last week, VA had received 115,000 claims for that semester, and it will have all those processed for payment by Feb. 1, according to Wilson.