Few VA claims examiners working on new program to process GI benefits

The Veterans Affairs Department has deployed the first part of a system designed to speed processing of new GI payments to only one of its four claims processing centers nationwide, despite past assurances the system would be fully installed by March, a top agency official told a Senate panel on Wednesday.

Keith Wilson, director of the education service at the Veterans Benefits Administration, told members of the Veterans Affairs Committee that VA has installed the new software program at its claims processing center in Muskogee, Okla. VA employs about 1,100 claims examiners nationwide.

VA has been developing the software program since October 2008 to comply with the 2008 Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, also called the new GI bill, which expanded veterans' educational benefits such as providing more generous tuition and fee reimbursements, payments for books and housing allowances compared to the older Montgomery GI Bill.

In his prepared testimony, Wilson said Release 1 of the software, developed by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston, S.C., will enable VA examiners to automatically calculate payments to veterans for tuition and fees, housing, and books.

Wilson didn't offer a date when the department planned to deploy the first release to the other three centers. But Stephen Warren, principal deputy assistant secretary for information and technology at VA, said they will meet the schedule to install the next three releases of the software to all centers in June, September and December. Last year, Warren estimated it would cost VA $85 million to hire SPAWAR to write the software program.

By the end of the year, VA will have a system in place that will automate claims processing for the complex GI bill benefits package, which includes detailed calculations for tuition payments state by state based on the highest tuition for a public university in each state and housing stipend payments based on ZIP codes and the Defense Department housing allowance for each state, Warren said.

Wilson said VA did not include all the functionality it planned for the first release of the software, but he did not specify which features were left out.

VA provided a front-end tool in November 2009 to assist processors when interacting with four separate computer systems until it competes the rollout of the new system, he said.

But the tool has limited capability for processing the multiple scenarios encountered in determining veterans' eligibility and how much they should be awarded under the GI bill, Wilson said. To improve the program, VA hired Mitre Corp. to develop tools and spreadsheets to augment the claims processing.

VA did not respond to a query by deadline on its contractual relationship with Mitre, and how much it has spent on the new GI bill claims processing system.

Faith DesLauriers, legislative director for the National Association for Veterans' Program Administrators, a group of school officials who deal with veterans, said her members are overwhelmed by the complexity of the bill and are trying to help students who often face months of delays receiving compensation from VA. She urged officials to develop a Web portal that would provide veterans with online access to their GI bill eligibility and benefit information.

Marco Reininger, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and is now a student at Columbia University, agreed, adding he wondered why the second-largest department in the government would ignore for more than a year building a line portal for new veterans who are young and Web savvy.

Wilson said VA plans to have a self-service website for student veterans in operation by December.

Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., asked VA officials about a software glitch he had been informed about in the current claims system that could cost veterans in his state. He said he heard from veterans at the University of Massachusetts that their 2010 housing payments were suppose to increase by $261, but veterans said they had been paid at the lower fall 2009 semester rate. VA did not take into account the fact that the Defense Department had raised its housing rates in 2010, and VA's housing allowances are based on the Defense rates.

Wilson said they have one rate table to calculate payments based on the fall 2009 semester and the problem will be rectified in June when the department installs new software that can calculate multiple tuition rates.