VA to start processing vets' educational benefits in March

Officials with the Veterans Affairs Department told a House panel on Thursday that they have developed a computer application and hired more staff to process claims under the new GI Bill but will not have a working computer system to manage the entire workload automatically until December 2010.

Congress passed the 2008 Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, known as the new GI Bill, to expand educational benefits for veterans who served after Sept. 11, 2001. The benefits are more complex than the previous GI bill, which essentially paid veterans a flat rate to cover tuition. The new bill calculates tuition benefits based on the veteran's length of service and the highest tuition charged by a public college in the veteran's home state. Separate housing allocations are based on cost-of-living allowances based on 300 ZIP codes.

To determine eligibility for tuition and housing benefits, the Veterans Benefits Administration developed a new front end to an existing processing system that will turn around claims within 24 days, Keith Wilson, director of the Office of Education Service at VBA, told a hearing held by the House Economic Opportunity Subcommittee. Wilson said the application will go live in March and claims processors will have completed training by then.

The new GI Bill goes into effect Aug. 1, and VA has been developing a system with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command that will process the claims based on the new benefits outlined in the law. But Stephen Warren, acting assistant secretary for information and technology at VA, told the subcommittee that the new system will not be completed until December.

Until then, VBA will rely on the application it developed for the existing system to determine eligibility and then mostly a paper process to calculate the cash amount each eligible veteran is allocated. The agency also will have hired 530 more claims processors by March 1 to help with the processing, Wilson said.

Veterans can still apply online for benefits under the new GI Bill the same as they did under the old bill, and payments will be generated through VBA's Benefits Delivery Network. If the network cannot automatically process payments for the new GI Bill, VBA has a backup plan to hire 260 clerks to disburse checks on a monthly basis, Wilson said.

SPAWAR had pegged the cost of the new system as high as $355 million, but Warren told Nextgov the price would most likely be about $85 million.