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Veterans haven't received GI Bill benefits for months due to ongoing IT issues at VA

Rogue Valley

Rogue Valley

Lead or get out of the way
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Veterans haven't received GI Bill benefits for months due to ongoing IT issues at VA

11/11/18
The Department of Veterans Affairs is suffering from a series of information technology glitches that has caused GI Bill benefit payments covering education and housing to be delayed or — in the case of Roundtree — never be delivered. "It’s just confusing," said Roundtree. "Who is there for us? Who is representing us? Who is helping us? Who is doing what they need to do to better the situation for veterans?" There are many veterans, like Roundtree, across the country who are still waiting for VA to catch up with a backlog created after President Donald Trump signed the Forever GI Bill in 2017. The landmark piece of legislation greatly expanded benefits for veterans and their families, but it did not upgrade the VA's technical capabilities to account for those changes. While it is unclear how many GI Bill recipients were impacted by the delays, as of Nov. 8, more than 82,000 are still waiting for their housing payments with only weeks remaining in the school semester, according to the VA. Hundreds of thousands are believed to have been affected. The cause of the difficulty lies within VA’s Office of Information Technology, which was tasked with implementing a change to how the housing allowance was calculated, the agency said. The Forever GI Bill required that housing would be based on the ZIP code of where a veteran went to school, not where he or she lived.

Issues that arose when VA attempted to stress-test their antiquated system, and a contract dispute over the new changes, meant VA waited until July 16 to tell schools to begin enrolling students. “With all the delays trying to get the upgrades in the ZIP code processing, they suddenly got all their enrollments, which usually come during the spring across the summer. Instead they all came a few weeks before the fall semester, and they couldn’t keep up.” At the end of August, Veterans Benefits Administration had nearly 239,000 pending claims — 100,000 more than at the same point in 2017. As school began, thousands of students faced dire circumstances and some faced eviction, getting kicked out of school or taking on loan or credit card debt. As the problem appears to have no clear solution, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is holding a hearing on Wednesday to investigate the matter. More than 45,000 jobs sit vacant at VA, according to the agency’s own numbers, and the department has not had a permanent chief information officer since LaVerne Council departed the office after Trump’s election. "Right now Secretary Wilkie and Dr. Lawrence have only been on the jobs for months,” Murray said. “People have been coming in and out of the VA like it’s a revolving door, and this is another example where a lack of consistent leadership causes these problems.”
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A change in the housing-allowance data which makes little sense. 45,000 VA jobs remain unfilled. No CIO for two years. This systemic VA dysfunction is a carryover from the systemic administration dysfunction.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Veterans haven't received GI Bill benefits for months due to ongoing IT issues at VA



A change in the housing-allowance data which makes little sense. 45,000 VA jobs remain unfilled. No CIO for two years. This systemic VA dysfunction is a carryover from the systemic administration dysfunction.
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I always see listings for IT jobs at the VA. There's some part of me that wants to apply to try to fix the buttf***, but then the other part of me says do I really wanna work with those buttf***s???
 
Rogue Valley said:
And then we have this useless cheerleader.....
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Do you not get it?

The VA is a typical government bureau. 98% of those are tenured Union members of the Government, and short of deciding to leave to being found guilty of gross failures to do their jobs can not be fired.

It is the same today as it was under President Obama. As it was under President Bush (43), as it was under President Clinton, President Bush (41), etc, etc, etc.

It is not going to change, it will never change. Presidents come and go every 4-8 years, the VA staff is eternal. It is jacked-up, and will remain jacked-up.

When my wife got her Nursing license, she did her internship at a VA center. She thought so poorly of it that she has told me many times since that she would rather see me in a free county hospital instead of undergoing care in the VA.

And that was during the Clinton Administration.

And nothing I have ever seen since then has made either of us change our mind about that.

Loving or hating Veterans has nothing to do with the VA. Ultimately, they are primarily a bunch of Government employees, who mostly have never actually been in the department that they claim to serve. It is like the leaders of the Postal Workers Union never having been a postal worker.

Myself, I think the entire VA should be gutted. Other than doctors, all other staff members must be veterans, and an advisory board should be made, composed of 100% Veterans, mixed between Officers and Enlisted from all branches.

What started out as a great idea in the last 40+ years has become a dumping ground of the worse in the medical service, primarily working long past their retirement age because of pay and pensions. The last time I had to deal with them I sear my doctor was senile. In his 80s, he kept inspecting the wrong knee, then wondering why he did not detect swelling.

"Doc, it is the other knee" I would tell him, and he would release it, then grab the same knee again. And even after I told him I only needed a renewal for my Motrin, he kept trying to prescribe me Darvocet. I would say I would not take a narcotic, and he would nod in agreement, then repeat the prescription to the nurse.

That has been my typical VA experience. 5-8 months plus for an appointment, then service like that. And it has been that way for over 25 years.
 
There is no CIO at the VA. Hasn't been one for 2 years. Vets are not getting money for housing and tuition promised to them by the GI Bill. All 45 has to do is order the VA to cut checks like Shinseki did under Obama POTUS's guy Sec. Wilke won't. Shameful.
 
Parrish said:
There is no CIO at the VA. Hasn't been one for 2 years. Vets are not getting money for housing and tuition promised to them by the GI Bill. All 45 has to do is order the VA to cut checks like Shinseki did under Obama POTUS's guy Sec. Wilke won't. Shameful.
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trump has more important things to attend to. tweeting, playing golf, grabbing em by the *****, threatening world leaders, tweeting, playing golf.....
 
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