Tom Barrett Presses Experts On Effectiveness Of VRE Program For Veterans That Return To It

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During a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing before the Congressional Recess, Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) asked Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary For Benefits at the Veterans Benefits Administration Margarita Devlin about veterans that return to the VRE program after years of being away from it.

Transcript

00:00As Mr. Barrett for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for being here today.

00:04I appreciate your testimony. I'm learning a little bit more about this program along with

00:09several others that certainly VA has and continue the mission that we owe to our veterans. I know

00:16you mentioned to the ranking member a 48-month eligibility window. That is the months of

00:21eligibility in the program, not the calendar months it would take to necessarily progress

00:26through the program. Is that fairly accurate? That's correct. And then an individual could

00:30be eligible for an extension of that due to a life circumstance or a geographical change

00:35or a worsening of their condition and other additional months for a new training for maybe

00:41a new job or something of that sort. In certain circumstances, yes. There are criteria for

00:46those extensions. And a person may somewhat, not to compare this directly to the GI Bill,

00:50but maybe they would use 12 months of eligibility, have a break in time where they weren't using

00:56it and then come back and use it again sometime later. Yes. And if they still have remaining

01:01months of entitlement, they can do that. Okay. And I know that I believe in some of my analysis

01:09before me, it said something like there were some veterans in this program for like, since

01:14the 1990s, I think, is that some of what is that starting and stopping? Or is that people

01:21getting new benefits that have been awarded to them due to a change in circumstance?

01:25Yes. Thank you for the question. So in my oversight, we have, I've been looking at those cases and I've

01:30been asking the regional office directors to look at those cases. And what we found is a combination

01:35of things. Some of the cases of veterans who seem to have been in for many, many years, they've been in

01:41and out of the program to the point of actually having their cases closed, where they're no longer

01:46an active case in our program. And then they come back sometimes years later, and they reapply.

01:51When we look at their cases, we see the life of their participation, even if they left the program

01:56for several years and came back. Okay. So the individual, I think, from 1991 or 1992, that we were alerted to

02:05would be somebody, most likely, without speaking to that case specifically, but in general, would be

02:10somebody who may have had some number of benefits 30 years ago, and then had time off from that,

02:17and then maybe had either a worsening of their condition, a geographic relocation, or another

02:21change of life circumstance that would necessitate them re-entering the program and reopening that up

02:27at some point more recently. Right. Without seeing the case specifically, I can't speak to that case.

02:31But yes, it could be any host of those things. But the window of time would suggest that this

02:35person had been in the program since 1990, whenever, when in fact, they may have had possibly some months

02:42of eligibility then, and then some months of eligibility today, but the entirety of that would

02:46be shown up on a report somewhere. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that background.

02:53And then, could an individual use this? Is this just for skill, upskilling, or could it be for higher

03:00education, advanced degree fields, things of that sort as well, sort of like the GI Bill?

03:06So the way the statute is written is, it's for a vocational goal. So whatever that veteran's

03:10career goal, it's the educational level that they need to be able to compete for entry into that

03:15occupation. So if that occupation that's within their interests, aptitudes, and abilities requires

03:21a bachelor's degree, or a master's degree, or in some cases, a non-college degree, some technical

03:27training, that would be the level of training that they would be approved for to participate in.

03:31And is there mostly, I know we have a lot of GI Bill eligibility of differences and things like

03:36that, is there a lot of overlap between a program that would be GI Bill qualified and would be qualified

03:41under this program as well? Recently, actually, VR&E tightened up those guidelines based on an OIG

03:48review, and the only types of training programs that a VR&E counselor can authorize for a veteran

03:53must be also approved for the GI Bill. The only exception is if they want to approve a special

03:58school that has to come up all the way to the VR&E service director for review. Okay. So it would

04:03have to, it's not, it's not the other way around though. The GI Bill doesn't have to be through VR&E.

04:08The VR&E would have to be a GI Bill approved institution for qualified. That's correct. Okay.

04:13Do we pay the full freight for, for that program if it's GI Bill eligible, if you're VR&E eligible?

04:19So GI Bill has different rules in place for how much tuition can be paid for, but a VR&E participant

04:27would get 100% of all tuition, books, fees, and supplies that are necessary for them to complete

04:32the program. And the living stipend as well? As well as the living stipend, which they can elect

04:36the Chapter 33 rate if they have that eligibility. Okay. Up to 48 months of eligibility, which could be

04:42academic months, not calendar months? Correct. It's academic months. It's the months that they actually

04:46receive subsistence allowance. Okay. Thank you. And then my last question,

04:50in just the brief time I have available, some of the automation that you have in the

04:55replacement of legacy systems, do you feel that that's going to offload some of your

04:59staff workload to kind of open up more bandwidth for them? It's definitely going to help. We're

05:04already showing that it's limited to about 6,000 hours. The gentleman's time has expired.

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