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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