Lockheed Martin Business Process Transformation Solutions, MD charged DFAS Cleveland $19 Million to process CRSC retro pay
In 2004, DOD told VA officials that they were not paying CRSC retro pay and despite the Congressional mandate, avoided steps to comply with the law. Two years later, DOD came to grips with the fact that they would have to pay CRSC retro pay back to October 2004, but did little to assist DFAS in getting the proper records from the Veterans Benefit Administration. The firewalls between DOD and VBA resulted in over $50M in DFAS and Army outsourced contracting.
Details of the expensive outsourcing emerged in the oversight hearing including the fact that DFAS was charged $540 per day for each Lockheed hire under a contract with few performance controls.
On July 16th, the the House Oversight Subcommittee Released a Report on Delays in Retirement Pay for Veterans with Disabilities
"The Domestic Policy Subcommittee Majority of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released the attached report and accompanying documents. The report details the reasons for severe delays in processing the claims of disabled veterans for their military retired pay. The report finds that poor contractor performance, government mismanagement and the erosion of quality controls denied thousands of disabled veterans timely and accurate retroactive retired pay awards."
SBP DIC Offset for FY 2009
SBP/DIC issue paper
In 2003, the Administration ended a century old concurrent receipt offset (CRDP) at a cost to about almost $3B per year, and added a Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) benefit that amounts to more than $1B annually. CRSC and CRDP is paid to hundreds of thousands of military retirees, but a small group of widows was left out.
Most of the Service Organizations agree that Congress should repeal the law that reduces military Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) payments by the amount of any survivor benefits payable from the VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) program.
Currently, the surviving spouse of a retired military member who dies from a service-connected cause is entitled to DIC from the Department of Veterans Affairs. If the military retiree was also enrolled in SBP, the surviving spouse's SBP benefits are reduced by the amount of DIC (currently $1067 per month).
A pro-rated share of SBP premiums is refunded to the widow upon the member's death in a lump sum, but with no interest.
SBP and DIC payments are paid for different reasons. SBP is elected and purchased by the retiree based on his/her military career and is intended to provide a portion of retired pay to the survivor.
DIC payments represent special compensation to a survivor whose sponsor's death was caused directly by his or her uniformed service. In principle, this is a government indemnity payment for causing the premature loss of life of the member, to the extent a price can be set on human life. These payments should be additive to any military or federal civilian SBP annuity purchased by the retiree.
There are approximately 57,000 military widows/widowers affected by the DIC offset.
A significant inequity exists when compared with federal civil service in that surviving spouses of federal civil service retirees, who were also disabled military veterans or retirees and enrolled in civilian SBP, do not lose any of their purchased SBP benefits when receiving receiving DIC from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The OMB estimated cost of this proposed legislation is $520 million per year, and this cost is largely an entitlement. , like CRDP and CRSC it does not directly affect the DOD budget.
Veterans Benefit Administration successor
unlikely to me nominated
Admiral Daniel Cooper's resignation is effective Apr. 1. Under federal law, a search commission will present recommendations for Cooper's successor to the secretary to propose to the president for appointment. It's unlikely that the Administration will nominate a successor, so the position is now filled by Admiral Patrick Dunne, VA's Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning.
Although reports from The Veterans Disability Benefits Commission, have been submitted there are no signs of progress on the Capitol Hill for title 38 reform. Additionally, the Dole-Shalala Commission report has been rejected by the Veterans Service Organizations because it would not apply to membership with disabilities from earlier disabilities (membership issue).
Senator Webb's bill, to improve GI Education Benefits passed the Senate last week but remains a $52 billion package that incentives people to leave the military at a time when we need to put money on the table to keep them around. This measure does not have the votes in the House to override the promised Administration veto.
During the past eight years, the VA budget has almost doubled, but department continues to face significant challenges, ranging from the influx of a new generation of disabled veterans and an uncontrollable claims backlog, to not having an on-time budget for eight consecutive years.
200,000 veterans are now deemed unemployable and between 1999 and 2004, the number of IU awards more than doubled. The VA is spending billions of dollars a year on PTSD and IU awards and most of the veterans receiving these benefits served during the Vietnam-era.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), at the end of FY 2005, about 38 percent of all IU beneficiaries were age 65 or older, 13 percent were between the ages of 60 and 64, and 49 percent were age 59 or younger. Forty-six percent of those who were granted IU benefits from October 2004 to October 2005 were age 60 or older, and 19 percent were age 75 or older (for comparison, 46 percent of all living veterans are age 60 or older and 16 percent are age 75 or older) (GAO, 2006).