Military Education, military education, service programs, G.I. Bill - Military Times

VA may need backup plan to launch GI Bill on time

Unable to find a qualified contractor to help launch a new and generous GI Bill education benefits package next year, the Department of Veterans Affairs is shifting to a backup plan — one that VA officials already have warned may not work as well but will ensure the program starts on time.

VA officials had told Congress in September of their intent to turn to a private contractor to set up a software program that would calculate rates and process and pay claims for the Post-9/11 GI Bill that takes effect Aug. 1.

Their goal was a program that allowed electronic claims filing, with payments in as few as 10 days for a new benefits plan that will cover full tuition at four-year public colleges, plus a monthly living expense and an allowance for textbooks.

VA’s ambitious and controversial plan — which was a tough sell to lawmakers and some veterans — fell apart when VA couldn’t find a private contractor interested in taking the job.

Keith Wilson, VA’s education service director, said none of the proposals received by VA gave him “a level of confidence they could start up by Aug. 1.”

Plan B, which had been underway for some time, is to have VA manually process education benefits claims for the new program, just as it has done for other veterans’ benefits.

The process is slower — it takes an average of 19 days to process current GI Bill claims — and might include more errors than the 98 percent accuracy rate that was expected of contractors. But it will at least provide interim benefits while VA continues to work on a fully automated benefits processing system, Wilson said.

“We have been doing benefits for a long time,” he said. “We know how to do this. We just have to flip our priorities.”

Wilson said it was too soon to say whether VA would hire extra people to help process GI Bill claims or if it could just shift employees around to handle the expected rush.

The manual processing system, which Wilson called an “interim” measure, still would allow claims to be filed electronically.

“In fact, we would prefer veterans to file electronically,” he said.

VA’s failure to find a contractor to quickly create an information technology program for the new benefit has raised concerns over whether the department will be ready by next summer.

Ryan Gallucci, spokesman for the veterans service organization AmVets, said his group backed VA’s decision to use a contractor to make GI Bill payments because it thought that was the fastest way to ensure the program would be up and running on time.

“We really have to be concerned at this point if they will be ready and if the benefits they pay are right,” Gallucci said, predicting 250,000 to 400,000 veterans could try to use the new GI Bill when it becomes available.

“I think they will do what needs to be done, but many veterans could see some delays in their payments,” Gallucci said.

Lawmakers earlier had raised concerns about what might happen if VA hired a contractor who couldn’t deliver and pressed for a backup plan.

“We got the name of the backup plan now: ‘Do It In House.’ We still don’t have any details,” a House aide said.

VA Secretary James Peake said in a statement that the controversy over the program may have been the reason why contractors were uninterested.

“Many private contractors were apparently reluctant to offer proposals because of external misconceptions as to the scope of the work involved,” Peake said. “While it is unfortunate that we will not have the technical expertise from the private sector available to assist us in developing the information technology solution, VA can and will deliver the benefits program on time.”

Patrick Dunne, VA’s undersecretary for benefits, defended the decision to look for outside help, even though it did not succeed. “The Post-9/11 GI Bill is unusually complex, with payments being tailored to tuition costs and going to both students and educational institutions,” Dunne said in a statement.