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98–697 2016

EXAMINING VA’S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

SYSTEMS THAT PROVIDE ECONOMIC 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR VETERANS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC 

OPPORTUNITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2015 

Serial No. 114–42 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida, Vice-Chairman 

DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee 

DAN BENISHEK, Michigan 

TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

RALPH ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

LEE ZELDIN, New York 

RYAN COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa 

MIKE BOST, Illinois 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida, Ranking 

Minority Member 

MARK TAKANO, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

RAUL RUIZ, California 

ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

KATHLEEN RICE, New York 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

JON TOWERS, Staff Director 

DON PHILLIPS, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY 

BRAD WENSTRUP, Ohio, Chairman 

LEE ZELDIN, New York 

AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa 

RYAN COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

MIKE BOST, Illinois 

MARK TAKANO, California, Ranking 

Member 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

KATHLEEN RICE, New York 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records 

of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs are also published in electronic form. The printed 

hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to 

prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting 

between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process 

is further refined. 


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C O N T E N T S 

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 

Page 

Examining VA’s Information Technology Systems That Provide Economic Opportunities for Veterans ....................................................................................... 1 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Brad Wenstrup, Chairman ...................................................................................... 1 

Mark Takano, Ranking Member ............................................................................ 2 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Davy Leghorn, Assistant Director, National Veterans Employment & 

Education Division, The American Legion ......................................................... 3 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 27 

Mr. William Hubbard, vice President of Government Affairs, Student Veterans of America .................................................................................................. 5 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 33 

Mr. Curtis L. Coy, Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Opportunity, VBA, 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ................................................................. 16 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 41 

Accompanied by: 

Jack Kammerer, Director Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment 

Service, Veterans Benefits Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 

MG Robert M. Worley II, USAF (Ret.), Director, Education Service, Veterans Benefits Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 

And 

Steven Schliesman, Assistant Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office 

of Information & Technology, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 


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EXAMINING VA’S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

SYSTEMS THAT PROVIDE ECONOMIC 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR VETERANS 

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in Room 

334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Brad Wenstrup [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Wenstrup, Costello, Radewagen, Bost, 

Takano, and Rice. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN BRAD WENSTRUP 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to welcome you 

all to the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity’s hearing today 

entitled Examining VA’s Information Technology Systems that Provide Economic Opportunities for Veterans. The timely and accurate 

adjudication of the myriad of benefits that VA provides to veterans 

and their dependents is critical to their economic success. In order 

to process these claims effectively, VA must have modern IT systems in place that are adaptable and highly functional. That is 

what we are here to discuss today and by the end of today’s hearing I hope that we all have a better understanding of how we can 

improve VA’s IT systems to lead to positive economic outcomes for 

veterans and their families. 

I would first like to touch on VA’s Long Term Solution, or LTS. 

This system was designed to process and adjudicate Post-9/11 GI 

Bill claims with little to no human interaction. While great strides 

have been made since the initial onslaught of delayed GI Bill payments back in 2009, I remain concerned that improving and finishing the LTS is still not a priority for the department and its senior leaders. And while supplemental claims have been completed in 

a more timely fashion it is still taking far too long for original 

claims to be completed. 

With the department moving the LTS into sustainment mode, 

there does not seem to be an appetite to make more improvements 

to the LTS, improvements that are needed, and that is disappointing. This committee has moved my legislation that would 

provide an additional $30 million to finish the LTS once and for all 

and I will do all that I can to push it across the finish line. 


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I do want to discuss for a moment some concerns that our witnesses and other individuals have raised about unexpected delays 

in GI Bill payments that occurred this fall. Due to the system 

shortfalls I have been told that in the past the Education Service 

has been granted overtime funding to help adjudicate claims for 

the typically busy fall semester time frame. We have been told, 

however, that this year was different and the overtime funding 

usually given to the Education Service was instead repurposed to 

fund additional overtime to bring down the disability claims backlog. This reallocation of money and shift in priorities left many 

schools waiting for tuition payments from the VA and left veterans 

waiting far too long to receive their living stipends. And some are 

still waiting. 

While I know we can all agree that it is a worthy goal to bring 

down the disability claims backlog, it is not acceptable to leave another group of veterans waiting instead of coming forward with a 

clear plan to address both situations. It appears that the department once again took the misguided view that disability claims 

were more important than education claims. This is nothing more 

than just robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

I also want to speak about the Veteran Employment Center, or 

the VEC. This is a job board that was created by the department 

through eBenefits and is now the sole employment portal for veterans in the entire federal government. While I understand that 

the VEC was created on a shoestring budget and is still being improved, I am concerned that VA may have been too hasty in promoting its use and may be inflating its true value as well as its 

functionality. We have been told that this program is now being 

taught at all TAP classes worldwide, but due to some possible data 

security breaches and the inability to actually access the system 

during the TAP sessions some senior officials at DoD have threatened to stop teaching the use of the VEC altogether. 

I am also concerned that there is no way to track the number 

of jobs or successful outcomes that have come from the VEC. And 

I have even heard rumors that some VA contractors are required 

to log into the VEC everyday to improve page views. Finally, we 

have heard that employers do not want to use the VEC as they find 

the system not to be user friendly and ineffective in giving them 

a true idea of veterans’‘ skills or talents. While I am not saying 

that the creation of the VEC was not done with the best of intentions, I do think the department should examine these types of concerns and take immediate actions to improve the VEC for veterans 

of all generations. 

Finally as I have said in previous hearings I am interested in 

learning more about the more paperless case management system 

being developed for tracking VR&E participants. I am sure we can 

all agree that such a system is long overdue. 

With that, I now recognize the Ranking Member Mr. Takano for 

his opening remarks. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER MARK TAKANO 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When the Post-9/11 GI 

Bill became law in 2008 it was clear that the array of benefits and 

beneficiaries included were far more complicated than had been the 


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case in previous GI Bill laws. It was also clear that it was going 

to take state of the art IT to make it all work in a timely and accessible way for student veterans. 

So we are here today to assess how the original plans for quick 

paperless processing and easy access called the Long Term Solution, or LTS, have panned out and how we can speed matters along 

from here. It is clear that there have been bumps in the road. For 

example, this fall there were a significant number of complaints as 

student veterans experienced longer delays than usual in their receipt of tuition and housing allowance payments. 

We also know from a recent GAO report that VA has been making overpayments on GI Bill benefits. This problem can arise when 

a student veteran drops classes but VA fails to adjust the veteran’s 

status in its IT system. GI Bill overpayments have created financial hardships when student veterans learn about the overpayments and are asked to pay VA back. My greatest concern is that 

it is difficult enough for veterans transitioning from military service to student life without having to navigate the additional barriers to graduation that these IT problems can create for them. 

Clearly the demands of the Office of Information Technology at VA 

are huge. Our concern today is that the education and employment 

programs are a priority for VA just as the programs of the Veterans Health Administration must be. 

In addition to hearing about progress on the LTS and GI Bill 

overpayments, I am looking forward to updates on the Veterans 

Employment Center, or VEC, and its promise of a one-stop internet 

source for veterans looking for meaningful employment. I will be 

interested to hear about VA’s efforts to create a system for the 

paperless processing of VR&E claims and updates to the Post-9/11 

GI Bill comparison tool. 

Finally I look forward to the testimony of the Student Veterans 

of America and the American Legion about what their members 

have experienced in these areas. And I appreciate Deputy Under 

Secretary Coy and the others from VA who are all working on 

these challenges. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Takano. I now invite our first 

panel to the table. With us today we have Mr. Davy Leghorn, Assistant Director for the American Legion’s National Veterans Employment and Education Division; and Mr. Will Hubbard, Vice 

President of Government Affairs for Student Veterans of America. 

Welcome back to both of you and I thank you for being here today. 

Your complete written statements will be made part of the hearing 

record and both of you will be recognized for five minutes for your 

oral statements. So let us begin with you, Mr. Leghorn. You are 

now recognized for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DAVY LEGHORN 

Mr. LEGHORN. Improving the information technology used to 

manage VA education and employment benefits is important. It can 

save money and make programs and services run more efficiently 

to the benefit of veterans. However, we must not overlook human 

factors involved in ensuring that veterans get the tools and counseling they need to maximize their education opportunities and 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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transition into their civilian careers. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking 

Member Takano, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, 

on behalf of National Commander Dale Barnett and the over two 

million members of the American Legion, we thank you for the opportunity to testify on this issue. 

As part of VA’s efforts to improve Post-9/11 GI Bill claims processing, the automated Long Term Solution was implemented with 

the intention of having the time it takes to process benefit payments. In theory it is supposed to take human claims processors 

out of the equation using computer systems to process claims. However, VA’s IT systems have not yet automated all original and supplemental claims. Due to time limitations and prioritization of effort VA has focused on automating the supplemental claims but not 

even all the supplemental claims have been automated at this 

point. It is clear that VA requires additional funding to enhance 

LTS with the functionality to process all original and supplemental 

claims with little human intervention. 

In March of this year the American Legion supported legislation 

that would mandate that VA complete the transition to a full IT 

solution. A newly released GAO report further demonstrates room 

for improvement with VA IT. The report shows that VA is overpaying schools and veterans when Post 9/11 GI Bill users drop a 

class or leave school. The process that VA uses for addressing overpayments should be improved. This would create more certainty for 

student veterans and also help VA become better stewards of taxpayer dollars. The American Legion therefore encourages Congress 

to authorize and appropriate the necessary resources for IT solutions which would reduce the labor intensive nature of these tasks 

and reduce the burden for repaying overpayments which falls disproportionately on veterans. 

With regards to VA’s Veterans Employment Center, the American Legion believes there is a great potential in this one stop veterans employment platform. While continued IT improvements 

with online applications are encouraged we should not ignore the 

VA employment specialists and coordinators who work directly 

with veterans. We believe that the best thing we can do for the 

VEC is to build and improve the services around it. VA is the focal 

point of veterans programs and services so the consolidation of the 

Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program and Jobs for Veterans 

state grants funding and services under VA’s Office of Economic 

Opportunities simply makes sense. Therefore we reiterate our support for Chairman Miller’s Jobs for Veterans Act of 2015. 

Finally the American Legion does not oppose VA moving ahead 

to a paperless case management system for vocational rehabilitation and employment programs as they have done for disability 

claims with the Veterans Benefits Management System. However, 

we hope that problems that have plagued VA’s previous attempts 

to go paperless will not plague any such effort. The American Legion understands that rehabilitation counselors’ caseloads have increased dramatically as a result of better marketing of VR&E services and the influx of service disabled veterans over the last decade. We believe that the most effective way of decreasing the caseload assigned to each rehabilitation counselor is by hiring more 

counselors. We recognize that hiring additional full time counselors 


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may not be the most cost effective option, so alternatively VA 

might want to consider contracting out for employment and rehabilitation counselors until the caseloads can be brought down to a 

manageable level for VA counselors. 

In summary, by improving the operations of the LTS VA can 

help process the education benefits more efficiently and reduce unnecessary processes that create debt problems for both the government and veterans pursuing their education. More attention to the 

functionality of the VEC can give both veterans and employers better tools to match capable veterans to the jobs they need. However, 

we must not forget the importance of the human factor and the 

need for employment counselors and specialists who can get veterans on the right track and avoid letting them slip through the 

cracks. 

As always, the American Legion thanks this committee for the 

opportunity to offer testimony and I look forward to any questions 

you may have. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVY LEGHORN APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX] 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Leghorn. Mr. Hubbard, you are 

now recognized for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM HUBBARD 

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Wenstrup, 

Ranking Member Takano, and members of the subcommittee, 

thank you for inviting Student Veterans of America to submit our 

testimony on examining VA’s information technology systems that 

provide economic opportunity for veterans. With over 1,200 chapters across the country we are pleased to share the perspective of 

those most directly impacted by this committee here today. In this 

testimony we will address the Veterans Employment Center, or 

VEC, platform, and processing delays we saw with the student veterans headed to school this fall. We look forward to working with 

the Department of Veterans Affairs and this committee on these 

issues. 

The VEC is the federal government’s most recent response to unemployment among veteran populations. There are multiple positive aspects of the VEC which we would like to highlight. Notably, 

we applaud the intent to create a consolidated program. Also, the 

demonstration of real and impactful public-private partnerships is 

worth highlighting, especially the partnership with LinkedIn. 

While we note the positives and the potential of the VEC, we maintain concerns over several aspects of the program’s operation. 

First, we hope to see user adoption addressed in the coming 

months. The number of veteran profiles on the site is the true incentive for employer participation in the platform. Similarly, we believe employer participation is hampered by the platform’s interface, which is not as intuitive or user friendly as we would hope 

to see in the future. 

Second, it is clear that data tracking and the outcomes of the 

VEC are not presently available. Since the tool is meant to connect 

veterans with employers we would hope to see VA address outcome 

tracking related to hires resulting from connections through the 

platform, as well as employee retention data. 


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Third, discussions with potential site users demonstrated a desire to have a live coordinator or advisor to connect with. In particular we would like to see the functionality included to allow case 

managers to access profiles and the progress of military members 

and veterans in their portfolio. 

In the process of reviewing the VEC there were some questions 

that we believe merit further discussion. These include how many 

hires have come from result of the VEC? How are job commitments 

by employers being translated into local jobs for veterans? What is 

the funding stream? What can be done to make the platform accessible to other browsers in addition to Internet Explorer? What is 

currently being done to make the tool mobile accessible? 

We are highly appreciative of VA’s commitment to supporting 

veterans in multiple aspects of their lives. The VBA has largely 

demonstrated the will and commitment that we believe is required 

to support veterans properly. We hope to see this will translate into 

future updates with the VEC so the intent and the mission of the 

program is fully achieved. 

Turning to GI Bill processing issues, this fall highlighted several 

challenges that directly impacted student veterans. In early September significant delays in the processing of GI Bill benefits became an obvious concern. The impact of these delays is tangible 

and unfortunately very real. One of our own chapter presidents 

shared, I had one student vet surviving on his GI Bill by living in 

a storage unit and sometimes sleeping in the library. Ultimately 

the core challenge remains the VA’s reliance on overtime hours for 

full time employees during the peak periods of the fall and spring 

enrollment. Under a unique solution with the National Student 

Clearinghouse, VA and taxpayers incurred no additional cost since 

schools select to send the data through NSC, paying for the cost of 

the service, while VA benefits from streamlined data submissions 

and research capabilities in conjunction with the Department of 

Education data is made available. This all with the added benefit 

of real time measurement of completions and program efficacy. We 

are happy to discuss this concept in more detail. 

We understand there is ongoing discussion of a solution within 

VA and believe that the NSC proposal should be considered for incorporation, or as an advisory role. 

On a separate note I would like to make mention that we recently signed the agreement with the VA and the NSC to pursue 

follow on research to the Million Records Project. I look forward to 

keeping this committee updated on the progress. 

We thank the committee for this opportunity to testify on these 

important issues and we look forward to working with this committee and its members for any questions they may have. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM HUBBARD APPEARS IN

THE APPENDIX] 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well I thank you both for your testimony. And 

I now yield myself five minutes for questions. I also want to applaud the work that you are doing to try and cooperate with the 

VA and to try and make things better and to come forth with solutions. So the first question I have for both of you is were either of 

your organizations consulted by the VA during the development of 

the VEC? And was your feedback sought? Were you able to engage 


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and give some feedback for those trying to engage in the VEC? Mr. 

Leghorn, you can go first. 

Mr. LEGHORN. Chairman Wenstrup, the American Legion was 

consulted when they created VEC. I believe VA brought the major 

VSOs into a room after their first or second beta testing and they 

asked for our feedback, and also to give us a briefing on it. One 

of our suggestions that we saw that they did implement was that 

we wanted it to be simple. You know, instead of building the next 

Career Builder, or you know, whatever job search employer 

website, we wanted something that would be really easy to navigate and I believe what we have now is something that is rather 

bare bones and really easy for the veterans to navigate at least. 

Mr. HUBBARD. From our end, Mr. Chairman, I do not recall being 

consulted. But I do think that the plans that we have with VA currently to set up a demonstration presents the will and interest to 

making sure that this tool is working properly. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. I think that is valuable and I appreciate it on 

both ends. Can you give me maybe some idea or of a type of metric 

that you think should be used for tracking the VEC’s success or 

finding its flaws? 

Mr. HUBBARD. I will take that, Mr. Chairman. So I believe that 

both hiring rates and then also retention rates are two key indicators that should be looked at. As a tool that is allowing for veterans 

to find employment, the ultimate outcome being employment, understanding what those hiring practices are, what the numbers 

look like, and then also on the retention side with those employers 

I think it would be valuable. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Yes, Mr. Leghorn. 

Mr. LEGHORN. So much like what Will just said, two things that 

we noticed were severely lacking have always been performance 

metrics and retention statistics. Most of what we have right now 

are mostly anecdotal. And HR does not usually track things like 

how long a veteran currently stays at a job compared to their civilian counterpart. The VEC is a great platform to start convincing 

HR in government and the private sector to start collecting this information. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Yes, I would agree with you on that. I think really what you want to do is not only have someone find a job but be 

able to stay in a job. And to make sure that we are getting the 

right matches, if you will, and really knowing what your long term 

results are. So obviously there has to be a continuity of contact 

with the veteran. And I think that that is one of the metrics, obviously, that needs to be employed for that to work. 

Let me ask you both, too, what are you learning from students 

nationwide? Are some students still waiting to receive their housing stipend, and some schools waiting to receive their tuition? 

What are you hearing on that front? 

Mr. HUBBARD. So Mr. Chairman on that front we are hearing 

that the delays have persisted but are decreasing. I have not heard 

new cases of delays. To my knowledge the VA did submit for overtime to address the backlog that was presented and became obvious in September. I have not heard new cases and I do appreciate 

them taking the time to address that issue clearly and publicly. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Mr. Leghorn. 


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Mr. LEGHORN. Chairman Wenstrup, I am not the who handles 

education issues for the American Legion so I will have to take 

that question for the record. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Okay. I appreciate that. I guess the next question 

I have is what could we do, what are your suggestions on making 

this more user friendly? And I think you touched on that a little 

bit. But if you guys could share, either one of you or both of you, 

what suggestions you might have to make it more user friendly and 

more accessible, the VEC system? 

Mr. HUBBARD. So I think what would be helpful first off is some 

type of mobile platform. We know that currently student veterans 

are a highly mobile population and oftentimes are quite connected 

to technology. So having that as a functionality would be helpful. 

But beyond that I think actually what would be more supportive 

is to have the ability for a case manager to be able to access profiles and track individuals that they are working with. If they have 

individuals in their portfolio, members of the military or veterans, 

to be able to look and see the employers that they are connecting 

with, how those interactions are going, and what the results are I 

think would allow for them to give tailored feedback and provide 

good advice on that search. 

Mr. LEGHORN. So one of the things that we have heard from employers is that they are being asked by too many competing job 

search platforms to look for employees on their Web site. And this 

is a problem because VEC is a newcomer and if an employer hops 

on a site and the search and navigation function is not readily intuitive, HR is going to revert to using a platform that they are familiar with and they have been using already. When companies 

think about hiring veterans they usually flock to DoD programs because in their mind they are thinking about transitioning veterans. 

And VEC really needs more market share in the veterans hiring 

arena to let the companies know that they have access to an even 

larger pool of veterans and spouses on the website than compared 

to some of the DoD programs. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well thank you very much, both of you. And I 

now recognize the ranking member for his questions. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, I am going 

to focus my first question, or questions, on the GI Bill comparison 

tool. Here is where I am coming from. I was impressed two years 

ago when I visited the community college veterans center in my 

district at Riverside Community College. The veterans there 

seemed to have a great awareness of conserving their benefits. We 

have a low cost community college system in California, which allows veterans to conserve their benefits for graduate school. And I 

thought, gee, they are really being taught a very sophisticated 

strategy and how to use the generous GI benefits we have under 

the Post-9/11 Bill. 

So community colleges in my mind offer students, you know, a 

really good opportunity, especially in California, to combine low 

cost with curricular options that allow them to complete associates 

degrees, certificates, and a transfer to four-year schools. In your 

opinion does the current GI Bill comparison tool present community colleges as a favorable option for veterans compared to fourVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:44 Dec 02, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\PDF\OUT\98697.TXT PAT

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year nonprofit schools or for profit schools? Either one of you, if you 

care to. 

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you for your question, sir. I think it does 

ultimately provide a pretty uniform and even look at different 

schools across different sectors and different levels. I think ultimately though it can sometimes be a little deceiving because in 

some cases an individual will look down at the section that shows 

if the school is POE compliant, if they have signed on to the various veteran supporting networks. And I think at times that provides maybe an unfair view of what the school actually supports. 

What I always recommend for individuals to do as they are considering school is to reach out to the Student Veterans of America 

chapter on campus and to talk to the veterans who are right on the 

campus and get a very clear view of what they might do. I think 

that has been always a beneficial avenue for them to find out information. And if you go on to the tool as it stands there is a line on 

there that allows for individuals to see if there is a student veteran 

group on campus. If there is, they can go directly to the home page 

through the comparison tool which I think is highly beneficial. 

Mr. TAKANO. You know, recently I was interacting with a veteran 

over the telephone. I often go to my office and call constituents who 

have written into us about a certain challenge they are having. 

This particular veteran needed an advocate, and he was on VR&E. 

He was financing his education through VR&E. And his counselor 

just did not have the time to be the advocate. He has a full caseload. And this particular veteran who I am thinking of had also 

some issues with PTS and contributed to part of his challenge on 

campus. 

So I was interested to hear Mr. Leghorn talk about this concern 

about the goal of complete automation as opposed to also paying attention to hiring counselors. So my question, if you could explain 

this, we also had a great hearing last week we brought in a young 

man from Nebraska who was talking about the VSOC program. 

And I was surprised to learn that VSOC counselors also have a 

VR&E caseload, which to me means that they have little time to 

also address the wider veterans community that are not necessarily 

on VR&E but also need, you know, counseling advice. So I will just 

turn it over to either one of you to respond. 

Mr. LEGHORN. Okay. So with regards to full automation, what we 

were talking about was with the GI Bill it is one of those benefits 

where if you, depending on your dates of service you either have 

it or you do not. So triaging something like that can be fully automated with minimum human interaction. With regards to the high 

touch counseling services, what we were talking about was building 

that around the VEC. It is great to have that platform but we need 

to have the counselors and the specialists there to work with the 

people after they have created a profile on the VEC, and the same 

thing with the VR&E. You know, obviously that is a place where 

you really need intensive employment counseling. 

Mr. TAKANO. Great. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Mr. Bost, you are now recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Leghorn, can you go 

into a little more detail maybe about the type of feedback you have 


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been getting from HR departments for larger employers on the effectiveness of the VEC? 

Mr. LEGHORN. On top of what I said earlier, another issue that 

they have had was with the skills translator. Skills translators are 

supposed to crank out autogenerated civilian skills for the resume 

and that is what they are supposed to do. We cannot really change 

that. But for the HR personnel in these big companies what they 

find is that it is practically useless if it is put on a resume. Because 

they still have to devote time to calling the applicant and asking 

them what you did in service and what have you accomplished. 

And then the onus is really on the user to take the autotext that 

they get from the skills translator to paraphrase them into a narrative that reflects their time in service. Because they told us that 

a resume with generic bullet points that are obviously ripped from 

the website quickly finds its way into the trash bin. 

Mr. BOST. Okay. Do you, and this is for both of you, do you believe that maybe the VEC was rolled out too fast? Maybe not ready 

for prime time? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Sir, thank you for your question, sir. I think that 

ultimately there were over the last several years a lot of tools that 

have come out. Obviously veterans employment is a hot topic, a 

topic of priority for the American public as it should be. And with 

the interest in engaging in a comprehensive tool such as the VEC, 

I think ultimately a lot of the previous tools that maybe had been 

working, Hero to Hired is a good example of something that had 

been working, which incorporated, as my colleague pointed out, 

that high touch capacity, the ability for case managers to be involved directly. I think a lot of those functions were not necessarily 

incorporated into the current version. Which is not to say that they 

still could not be. In my conversations with individuals at the VA, 

they have expressed an interest in improving the tool which we are 

very interested in working with them on. 

Mr. LEGHORN. Sir looking back I would say that yes, it was 

rolled out too fast. Because, you know, the success of the VEC really comes from the cache of resumes and profiles that you had in 

there. I think in the beginning we should have rolled it out to the 

transitioning servicemembers and veterans first to build up an 

ample cache of resumes and profiles before we fine-tuned it and 

turned it over to the large employers. 

Mr. BOST. Yes, you know as I listen to this and listen to the fact 

that, great idea, would both of you agree with that? It is a great 

idea and it is trying to move ourselves into the future to make sure 

that we can get them hired as fast as possible and use technology 

to the best of our ability, correct? And I guess that the thing I see 

here is some things, no matter how much they change, are still the 

same. I am not going to try to date myself here but the month I 

went into the Marine Corps, the month before was when they 

stopped paying with cash on the parade decks all around the 

United States and world. And the next month was when they started paying with checks and all of a sudden many of us got no pay 

due. Because they rolled the system out very, very quickly and we 

want to move forward into the future but quite often we are not 

necessarily ready to do everything we are supposed to do. Do you 

see the opportunity for us to get this correct? 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
11 

Mr. HUBBARD. Sir, I think there is an opportunity and I think 

the VA is trying to do that. In the conversations we have had it 

is clear that there is that intent to make sure that this tool is functioning properly. I do not think it is there yet. 

Mr. LEGHORN. Sir, we absolutely think the VA is on the right 

track here. If we compared it to its predecessor, My Next Move for 

Veterans, I mean this platform has garnered more recognition than 

its predecessor ever did. So. 

Mr. BOST. Well I know this committee appreciates your input. 

And hopefully we can work to try to work with them to improve 

it to where it works the way it is supposed to. And with that, Mr. 

Chairman, I yield back. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. Ms. Rice, you are now recognized for 

five minutes. 

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So it seems to me that the 

veterans who are most in need of the services of the VR&E are 

those who are either unemployed or homeless or both. My question 

is how do we, what is the outreach to those veterans? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Ma’am, if I could address this? I actually believe 

that what the VA has set up in the VSOC program, as the ranking 

member pointed out, is the right approach. The tools that they 

have set up with the VSOC program allows counselors to reach out 

directly to individuals but not just leave them. It allows them to 

work with them and understand their case and work effectively. So 

I think that is what needs to happen more broadly. It is not necessarily happening now and I think as a result some individuals 

are slipping through the cracks and individuals who do need more 

attention are getting less. So I think by taking that model of the 

VSOC program and applying it more broadly, I think some of that 

can be addressed. 

Ms. RICE. So why has that not been done? 

Mr. HUBBARD. I would defer to my colleagues from the VA on the 

next panel. 

Mr. BOST. So in the instance where a veteran who is going to 

classes on the GI Bill either withdraws or drops out, withdraws 

from a class or drops out of the semester, how is that information 

communicated to VA? And in terms of to prevent the overpayment 

situation that we were talking about before, number one? And 

number two, is that a red flag for the VA to ensure that some counselor, the veteran is contacted by a counselor to see what is going 

on, what might be going on that is causing the withdrawal or, you 

know, the problems with continuing in school? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Ma’am, I think this is a great question. To give 

you some idea of why some of that might be the case, I think it 

is important to understand the current process of how the payments are being made. 

The way that things are working and the way the data is being 

reported right now, if you understand on one side you have schools 

and on the other side you have the Department of Defense, you 

have the Department of Education, the VA. Right now those 

schools are independently reporting to these different departments, 

just to name a few. So in the—— 

Mr. BOST. What do you mean independently reporting? They—— 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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Mr. HUBBARD. So the schools currently, the Department of Defense asks certain questions of the schools for tuition assistance, for 

example. Department of Education has their own questions regarding Pell Grants, for example. And then the VA has their own questions regarding veterans benefits and the GI Bill. But right now 

the way the process works is the schools get essentially for lack of 

a better term surveys from the different departments and agencies 

and they are expected to reply differently. About 70 percent of the 

data that is being asked, name, social security number, program of 

study, is all the same. So right now these schools are being asked 

to reply to all of these different departments and agencies with a 

lot of the same information but some different. As a result it should 

not be a surprise that in this flow of data that some things come 

up missing. So with the proposal that we have addressed with the 

VA and we look forward to sharing with you in more detail, we 

think that this process can be streamlined through a single auditing agency that would allow compliance to be ensured but also to 

make sure that the data is clean, clear, and efficient. 

Mr. BOST. And how does that get implemented? 

Mr. HUBBARD. That is something that we are working with our 

colleagues at the VA on discussing and we would be happy to share 

more details with you. 

Mr. BOST. So is it, can you tell us if they are open to that? I 

mean, it seems like a pretty common sense solution to at least consolidate all of the relevant information so that people do not fall 

through the cracks. 

Mr. HUBBARD. In our conversations they have been very interested and I definitely applaud the VA for being open to new solutions that, you know, could potentially offer good support to student veterans, but really all students for that matter. Presently 

this process is being implemented with the Department of Education so the model is there. I think there is a lot to be learned 

from that. 

Mr. BOST. So what is being done for the veteran in the situation 

where they withdrew from a class or a semester and the bills are 

still being paid, and now they have to, they are responsible for 

them? What is being done to help that veteran? 

Mr. HUBBARD. In that case, that individual, the onus would be 

on them to ensure that they understand that the money that comes 

in for example, and you know the GAO came out with a fantastic 

report on these overpayments that I am sure you are referencing. 

In that scenario the individual would see the money to their account. What needs to be communicated to those individuals is that 

that money is not, is not necessarily for them to spend. It is the 

result of a change that has not hit the system yet. I do not think 

that that message is being communicated effectively, which is why 

I believe you have seen in many cases some overpayments. 

Mr. BOST. So they are just seeing the money come in and they 

are assuming that it is theirs, and that the withdrawal has already 

been communicated? And they are spending that money? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Right. And I think the Department of Defense actually has a great example of what a solution to this might be. 

When they have the Leave and Earning Statement, the LES, they 

are provided on a monthly basis, an itemized breakdown of what 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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money is coming in and what it is for. In such an example, if there 

was a mistake or an overpayment that was made, the individual 

could more readily identify that versus a lump sum payment to 

their account which is not clearly indicated what it is for. 

Mr. BOST. So you two are obviously very impressive. But obviously the concern of this committee is how do we make things easier? It is like everyone’s experience with their local DMV. I mean, 

you know, you would sooner bang your head against a concrete 

wall than go to the Department of Motor Vehicles. I mean, maybe 

I am, does everyone agree? And the veteran process, whether it is 

trying to get employment or access your GI benefits, should not be 

an exercise of banging their head against a wall and making them 

be the ones that jump through hoops. So I thank both of you and 

thank you for your ideas on how to make this a better experience 

for the veteran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Mr. Costello, you are now recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Hubbard, and 

Mr. Leghorn, thank you for your service to our country, and also 

thank you for testifying and your very substantive memos which I 

had the opportunity to review. And first, as for Mr. Leghorn, I 

think you did a very nice job of sort of outlining a lot of the technological challenges that we have, as well as some of the opportunities there. And you did point to VEC as some of the concerns that 

you have. And I think Mr. Hubbard you delved very deeply into 

specifically what some of the, whether we call them problems or 

challenges, but really some of the opportunities as to how VEC can 

be improved. And I looked a little bit further on with the VA testimony to come on VEC. And I am a little concerned about whether 

or not your suggestions are going to be implemented or what the 

status of what some of your proposals are. The automatically saving profile, you know, some of the stuff I think is really basic. But 

I think the more serious issues that really need to happen, and I 

am asking for your feedback, it does not seem as though veterans 

are using the site as much as they should. It really does not feel, 

leaving aside the LinkedIn partnership, it does not really seem 

from what I am reading that employers are using the site. And 

that is of concern because it is there to help veterans become employed. In fact, the questions that you asked many of them really 

suggest that it is not being used for what it should be used for, or 

at least we are not even able to evaluate whether or not that it is 

successful. It is a portal. It is there. But is it working? And so my 

question to you is what has been your interaction with the VA? 

Have they been responsive to some of your suggestions or other 

suggestions out there? And where do you think we go from here in 

order to improve it? Because I gleaned from your testimony that it 

is good, it is worth preserving, but we need to make it a lot better 

than what it is in order to have it accomplish the purpose for which 

it was intended. 

Mr. LEGHORN. So the success of the VEC is based off of how 

many veterans are going to use it, or are using it. And the best 

way to do that is success stories. We mention in our testimony that 

we have not had a single case where a veteran was preemptively 

contacted by an employer for an interview for a job, or anything 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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like that. And I think that is what the platform was made for. You 

know? So if we could only get the employers to preemptively use 

the platform and reach out to a veteran, that is how we are going 

to get the success stories to sell the VEC to more veterans and get 

more utilization. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Let me ask you this, then. Particularly on the 

issue of public-private partnerships, we have a shortage of truckers 

in this country. In my state the natural gas industry is going to 

be employing a lot more people in the years to come. From a public-private partnership perspective, getting certain industries where 

there is in demand employment opportunities to become more acclimated to VEC so that it is much employer driven as it is veteran 

driven, do you have any thoughts on making it, I mean, you seem 

to suggest though the demonstration of real and impactful publicprivate partnerships is worth considering. How should we consider 

that? How could we make it better by involving private industry 

more? 

Mr. LEGHORN. The most obvious point of contact is obviously 

with TAP program at the point where the veteran is transitioning 

out from military service. I think if there is a place for the private 

sector to engage veterans to let them know what is out there, and 

what fields are direly in need of workers—— 

Mr. COSTELLO. And you would agree that that is not happening 

right now, but that should be happening? And if that were to happen, then the VEC program would be markedly improved, right? 

Mr. LEGHORN. Correct. 

Mr. COSTELLO. My time is expired. Thank you. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Ms. Radewagen, you are now recognized for five 

minutes. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Takano. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your testimony 

today. Thank you for your service to our nation. 

Mr. Hubbard, would you please explain why you believe a partnership between VA and the National Student Clearinghouse could 

improve GI Bill processing times? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you for the question, ma’am. Absolutely. So 

as I pointed out previously, the current process, you see the schools 

going to the different departments and agencies. To your question 

what we are proposing with our partner in National Student Clearinghouse is that schools would go directly through this centralized 

organization and then to the different departments and agencies. 

What this process allows is for the National Student Clearinghouse, who already collects 97.7 percent of all higher education 

data regarding completions, time to degree, and a various other 

host of information, what they can do is then understand what is 

going on on the ground, complement that with their research, use 

what they are getting from the Department of Education, the Department of VA, and the Department of Defense, in a combination 

to understand what they can do to improve. That streamlined authority would allow them to clean the data for compliance. If issues 

come up where the data is coming across and it is either fractured 

or they need to change something, they can turn that around much 

quicker and they do not rely on a paper-based system to inform 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
15 

veterans of mistakes, thereby allowing them to turn it around quite 

quickly. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. Thank you. I have a couple of little questions 

for Mr. Leghorn. Can you please go into more detail about how a 

small investment in improving the system that certifies monthly 

enrollment for GI Bill users could save VA money in the end? 

Mr. LEGHORN. Ma’am, again, I am not the person that handles 

education issues for the American Legion. So if I could take that 

question for the record I could get you a better answer. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. Thank you. Here is another one. Please expand 

on your statement that VA and Labor must not lose sight of the 

human factor when it comes to these IT systems. How is that? 

Mr. LEGHORN. Okay. So thank you for your question. And the 

point of IT is to automate simple tasks. And what we found in the 

past was a veteran would usually come into a one-stop center and 

in the very beginning they were being triaged by DVOPs or LVERs. 

And then they thought, well, if we put an admin assistant there 

to triage the veterans we free up the DVOPs and LVERs to do 

their jobs. And then we are getting to the point where what we are 

seeing is in order to free up the secretaries’ time they are using IT 

to triage the veterans by a website or the phone system. And but 

let us say you are dealing with a veteran that has great distrust 

in the VA, reluctant to seek government services, and the first contact they, or the first interpersonal transaction they have with the 

Department of Labor at the state level or VA is a machine. That 

is going to deter them from seeking more services. And that is 

what the American Legion is afraid will happen as we go forth and 

automate more and more functions. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield 

back. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well if there are no further questions you gentlemen are excused and thank you for being here today, and I appreciate your service. 

I will call up our second and final panel to the witness table. 

With us today is Mr. Curt Coy, the Deputy Under Secretary for 

Economic Opportunity for the Veterans Benefits Administration of 

VA. He is accompanied by General Rob Worley, Director of VA’s 

Education Service; Mr. Jack Kammerer, Director of VA’s Vocational 

Rehabilitation and Employment Service; and Mr. Steven 

Schliesman, Assistant Deputy Chief Information Officer for VA’s 

Office of Information and Technology. 

Welcome back, Mr. Coy, General Worley, Mr. Kammerer. And it’s 

nice to have you with us here today, Mr. Schliesman. 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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STATEMENT OF CURTIS L. COY, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY 

FOR ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS. 

ACCOMPANIED BY JACK KAMMERER, DIRECTOR VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION AND EMPLOYMENT SERVICE, VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

VETERANS AFFAIRS; MG ROBERT M. WORLEY II, USAF (RET.), 

DIRECTOR, EDUCATION SERVICE, VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS; 

STEVEN SCHLIESMAN, ASSISTANT DEPUTY CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, OFFICE OF INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

STATEMENT OF CURTIS L. COY 

Mr. COY. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today to discuss the Office of the Economic Opportunity 

IT capabilities. I am accompanied today by my colleagues Rob 

Worley, Jack Kammerer and Steven Schliesman. 

It has certainly been a very busy and challenging several years 

and we are proud to report to the committee several success stories. When the Post-9/11 GI Bill was established in 2008, we immediately began the process of developing a long-term solution for 

education claims processing. Perhaps the most significant enhancement was in September, 2012, when end-to-end automation was 

successfully activated. Since that deployment, over 6,000 claims a 

day are processed without any human intervention. The last fiscal 

year, 52 percent of all Post-9/11 GI Bill supplemental claims were 

fully automated with another 35 percent partially automated. 

This automation has significantly reduced education claims processing times from an average of 17 to 7 days for supplemental 

claims and 31 to 18 days for original claims. We have also maintained a payment accuracy rate of 99.4 percent. 

The GI Bill Comparison Tool was internally developed and deployed in February, 2014, allowing prospective students to compare 

educational institutions using a number of measures and attributes, helping veterans be better informed consumers. As of this 

month, 1.2 million unique visitors have accessed the tool. We are 

working on the next release of the tool prior to Veterans Day this 

year, which will add even more functionality. 

We also developed and launched the GI Bill Feedback System, a 

centralized online reporting system that allows students to report 

their experiences with educational institutions. Depending on the 

nature of the feedback, VA may also serve as an intermediary between the student and the school, or VA may launch a targeted 

risk-based review of the school. 

We began accepting complaints in January of 2014 and as of this 

month there are over 4500 complaints submitted, of which 3700 

have already been resolved. 

Finally, as a result of market surveys, VA deployed an online assessment tool called Career Scope that allows users to assess their 

interests and aptitudes before using the GI Bill. As of last month, 

over 16,000 have already initiated assessments in Career Scope. 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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Certainly not to be outdone by their education colleagues, our 

VRE team is working on several enhancements. Perhaps the most 

significant is a new VRE case management system, a veterans-centered paperless service delivery tool. When delivered by our OIT 

colleagues, it is expected that VRE will be able to support veterans 

and reduce the administrative burden on their counselors. The 

total two-year IT development effort that began this September is 

the total funding of $9.7 million. 

Leveraging an existing VHA system, VRE has also developed an 

online electronic medical referral process, eliminating a cumbersome, paper-based system. Since its release eight months ago, 

VRE has successfully referred over 1900 veterans to VHA for medical services. 

This year, VRE also rolled out its Telecounseling Pilot Program 

in March. This provides secure video conferencing to enable VRE 

counselors to remotely meet with and counsel veterans. Although 

this is in its initial phase, it has significant potential to increase 

VRE’s responsiveness to veterans’ needs, reduce travel costs and 

time for veterans. 

VA, Defense, Labor, Education, SBA and OPM collaborated to design and develop the Veterans Employment Center. With its inception, the VEC consolidated several government sites, bringing together job opportunities and allowing users to build an online profile that can be shared in real time. We also have a job bank that 

provides over 2.2 million jobs. 

The VEC also integrates and promotes our public-private partnerships by linking a broad set of resources, programs and services 

offered by VA-partner organizations. As of this summer, the site 

has grown to nearly 1.5 million page views by approximately 

135,000 users each month. We continue to improve the VEC thanks 

in large part to the support of DOL, DoD, and our public-private 

partners. 

Interestingly, the VEC and the GI Bill Comparison Tool were 

built using a VA in-house digital services resources, a world-class 

team of talent from firms like Amazon and Google. As I have mentioned, it has been a busy time working to strategically leverage 

the best in IT, implementing legislative changes, and looking to 

help veterans attain personal and economic success, our core mission in the Office of Economic Opportunity. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement, and we would be 

pleased to answer any questions from you or other members of the 

subcommittee, sir. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF CURTIS L. COY APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX] 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, thank you, Mr. Coy, for your testimony, 

and I now yield myself five minutes for questions. 

The first question is, we have heard that there was a significant 

increase in processing delays for Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits after 

there was a decision by former Undersecretary Hickey to shift overtime funding that was originally allocated for education staff to instead fund mandatory overtime to bring down the compensation 

claims backlog, so VA can meet its self-imposed date; is this true? 

Mr. COY. Yes, sir. 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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Dr. WENSTRUP. Do you find this to be true? You do find it to be 

true. Thank you. 

Mr. COY. I would be happy to explain more by—— 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Sure, please. 

Mr. COY. We generally allocate, in recent years it has been about 

$6 million for overtime. We basically split that in half, half for the 

spring semester, half for the fall semester. We do this so we don’t 

have to hire more staff to cover those peak periods and so it sort 

of levels things out. This past year, we spent the $3 million in the 

spring semester and processing times were just fine. Coming up 

this fall, around April, May, June time frame, the decision was 

made that we had our $3 million left for the fall, that 2 million of 

that $3 million would be recouped. They did that and in fact processing times began to get delayed. Some time in September, we received an additional $500,000, but that wasn’t enough to be able 

to keep us from getting back on track. 

So the bottom line is, is we had at peak about 155,000 claims 

that we were behind in, right now we have an inventory of about 

43,000 claims. In prior years—this is now after the automation of 

supplemental claims—in prior years, that high was around 95,000. 

So you can see that we exceeded that. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. So what would you suggest going forward? 

Mr. COY. I would suggest that hopefully this was a one-time 

anomaly, because much of the claims backlog is down, and so I 

don’t anticipate this happening again. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. We heard rumors that since VA can’t 

truly track how many veterans actually use the VEC, there is potential that a large amount of the site visits are being done by automation and not actual individuals. Have you found that to be 

true? Can you comment on that? 

Mr. COY. I’m sorry, comment on? 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, that there are a lot of the visits to the sites 

being done by automation rather than actual individuals checking 

into the site. 

Mr. COY. I don’t have any evidence of that, Mr. Chairman. We 

have seen the VEC usage grow over the course of time. Part of that 

is, is you heard some of the testimony from our VSA and Legion 

partners, we are listening to that feedback. One of the biggest complaints that we think we have heard from our customers, if you 

will, is the Skills Translator. We are releasing a new Skills Translator in hopefully the next week or two, barring a crash of IT, if 

you will, that will enhance that Skills Translator such that it can 

be much more useful to our veterans. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Going back to the potential for these automated 

visits. I guess the question would be, how long did someone stay 

on the site? Because if it is like ten seconds, then that probably 

gives us the wrong number as far as usage. 

Mr. COY. Well, I have that in my cheat sheet, Mr. Chairman, it’s 

about six minutes. And actually the real number is five minutes 

and I think 53 seconds on average. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Okay. So how long has VEC been in existence? 

Mr. COY. It was released and announced in April of last year. 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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Dr. WENSTRUP. Okay. So we have about 200,000 veterans 

transitioning from military service every year and there are, what, 

about 20,000 veterans that have profiles on the VEC at this time? 

Mr. COY. Currently, it’s about 23,000, and that has grown somewhat significantly in the last several months. Part of the issues 

that you heard from our SVA and Legion partners is that the adoption of the VEC, part of that issue is that we have revamped our 

TAP curriculum to include the VEC. Our partner at the Department of Labor has also revised their curriculum. We are also seeing 

some significant help in our Veterans Economic Communities Initiative, where we have individuals that are accountable for 

leveraging the VEC. 

So we hope and expect to see the VEC starting to gain in its use. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, I hope so too, obviously. And I just hope it 

is not based on little interest by our veterans or an access issue. 

So I will look forward to hearing how we do as we move forward. 

Mr. COY. Yes, sir. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. And with that, I yield back. And, Mr. Takano, 

you are now recognized for any questions you may have. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Coy or Mr. Worley, I understand that the updates to the GI 

Bill Comparison Tool will include valuable information to help students decide where to use their GI Bill benefits, including information about transfer rates, the different types of degrees or programs 

offered, and the importance of school accreditation. Can you just 

tell me briefly, how do community colleges compare to four-year 

non-profits or for-profits on a GI Bill Comparison Tool calculus? 

Mr. COY. Thank you, that’s a great question. And the GI Bill 

Comparison Tool is what we think to be one of our real success stories. It’s only 18 or 20 months old now and we have seen almost 

universal acceptance of the tool. We have had three new releases 

of the tool and we have never seen any downtime with the tool. 

Probably the only criticism that we get from the tool is that there 

is not enough and we want more. 

We listen. We are going to do a significant release, as I indicated 

in my oral testimony, on or before Veterans Day, which will include 

outcome measures for all four-year and two-year schools. Part of 

those outcome measures is in fact the transfer rate of students 

going from community colleges to four-year school. 

Rob, anything else you would like to add? 

General WORLEY. The only thing I would add is just to back up 

to the creation of the outcome measures and the tool itself. The fact 

that we have a transfer-out rate on the tool is a result of the vetting of these tools with the larger community, both other federal 

agencies, as well as the community college associations. And so 

there are both completion rates, graduation rates, as well as the 

transfer-out rates that are focused on the two-year institutions. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. Can you share with us your reasoning for including this new information about transfer rates, for example, on 

the GI Bill Comparison Tool? Was it based on problems you were 

seeing with certain types of schools? 

Mr. COY. No, sir. The development of these outcome measures 

has taken several years and it has developed into a sort of seismic 

shift in the way schools are looking at leveraging the GI Bill and 


VACREP0180 with DISTILLER
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serving our veterans. The outcome measures, and there’s five or six 

of them, as Mr. Worley indicated, was done in conjunction and a 

partnership with Education, Labor, and a host of other associations, where we could narrow down getting information about individual schools. And what we are doing is we are taking the results 

of those outcome measures, which currently are on the GI Bill Web 

site and available for anybody to look at, and we’re including that 

and inculcating that into our GI Bill Comparison Tool. 

Mr. TAKANO. What information does the updated Comparison 

Tool provide students on whether their credits will transfer, say if 

they start at a community college, out of community college or a 

for-profit, or later transfer to a four-year, non-profit college, does it 

provide information such as that? 

Mr. COY. We currently provide some minimal information on 

that. We expect some releases next year where schools are going 

to be able to ensure that they fill in those blanks. Right now we 

take that information from the Department of Education’s Web site 

and put it in there. Soon in a release, hopefully early next year, 

we are going to have that capability to have schools input some of 

that information. 

Mr. TAKANO. Well, information doesn’t provide and help students 

understand school accreditation. For example, if students just see 

that a school is nationally accredited, they might not know what 

that means. How does the updated Comparison Tool explain aspects of accreditation that veterans need to know? 

Mr. COY. There’s two to three ways that we do that and we account for that. First on the tool itself, it reflects what the accreditation standards are for that particular school. There’s also an info 

button for somebody to go what does accreditation mean, I don’t get 

this. So we provide that information. Literally just yesterday, we 

released a three-and-a-half minute that talks about know before 

you go and it talks about accreditation in there. We also announced 

yesterday our new choosing the right school and the new updated 

piece in there as well with accreditation. 

So we think we are getting the word out as much as we can on 

the issue of accreditation and we know that it is important to you 

as well, Congressman. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you so much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. 

Mr. Bost, you are recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Coy, is the information on VEC a secure system, and is the 

system hosted on the VA’s Web site or as a third-party system? 

Mr. COY. It’s a great question. First, yes, sir, it is secure. We 

have got no, absolutely no indication that there has been any intrusions. Currently, it is part of the VA’s rollout this Veterans Day for 

Vets.gov. The server that it is hosted on is a VA-approved server, 

but it is in fact a server that we, if you will, lease from a company 

called SalesForce. 

Mr. BOST. Okay. So that is the reason why if you click on it, it 

shows up that it is hosted by a third-party site, correct? That would 

be the reason it does that? 

Mr. COY. I don’t know where it says anywhere on there that it 

is hosted by a third-party site, but I can go back and check. 


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Mr. BOST. If you will check that? 

Mr. COY. Absolutely. 

Mr. BOST. And my next question, and I asked this of the other 

panel, following some of the functional issues we have heard and 

everything like that, do you think maybe it was rolled out too 

quick? 

Mr. COY. Well, it is a great question, I don’t know that I really 

have a great answer for that. We certainly probably would have 

liked in 20/20 hindsight to have resolved several things before we 

rolled out, but we did roll it out. And one of the great attributes 

of the VEC is that it is maintained by our digital services team, 

the team that I mentioned in my oral testimony, is a team that 

right now is about 20 or 22 folks, they want to grow to about 75 

folks. And what this team does is it brings in talent from the outside, from Google, Amazon, LinkedIn. They are one or two-year appointments. So it is sort of like the Peace Corps, they come in and 

they do their thing for a couple years and then they leave, and it 

is a rotating basis. 

And what this allows us to do is rather than this is Release 1, 

this is Release 2, this is Release 3, what it allows us to do is be 

very agile and very mobile, be able to change things pretty much 

on the fly. 

As I indicated, one of the big things that we are going to change 

on the tool coming out in the next week or so is an enhanced Skills 

Translator, which we heard loud and clear was one of the bigger 

complaints. 

Mr. BOST. Just one quick follow-up question on what I was asking before, because right now with the concerns we have had with 

every time we turn around someplace somewhere is broken into to 

get people’s information. Are we sure that the people that sign up, 

all the veterans are protected and their personal information is 

protected through this system? 

Mr. COY. Absolutely, sir. It is one of our highest priorities in this. 

First off, there’s no PII information on the VEC, and it is one of 

the reasons why we have sort of a separate systems, because nobody can go to the VEC and then intrude their e-benefits account. 

We built the VEC such that if you want to save your resume and 

your profile, you have to go through the DS login, but you are not 

in, if you will, the e-benefits such, because e-benefits has a lot of 

information that is in there. 

So I am pretty confident. I don’t think in the world of IT anybody 

can say 100-percent confident, but we are pretty sure. We have not 

seen any intrusions as of yet. 

Mr. BOST. Okay. Have you had any input at all from the DoD 

or DOL with any issues that they have with the system? 

Mr. COY. We developed the VEC in concert with DOL and DoD, 

they were there with us every step of the way. 

There is a bit of history to this. There was a task force that was 

developed on veteran employment, I was on that task force of senior leaders, and we looked at a number of different sites. We had 

a site, it was called VetSuccess, so we had the bones of a site. The 

decision was made that VA would take the lead on developing the 

VEC, and so we charged off and did that. 

Mr. BOST. Okay, thank you. 


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Then I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. 

Ms. Rice, you are recognized for five minutes. 

Ms. RICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So, Mr. Coy, if I could just ask about a couple of the systems. 

I am curious with the GI Bill Feedback System that allows veterans obviously to—their dependents to talk about their experience. And in here it said that there were 4500 complaints submitted, 3500 of them were resolved. Can you just talk about how 

that is working? Because that seems to me to be, you know, any 

business, if you are going to be successful, you want to know do you 

have satisfied customers. 

Mr. COY. Absolutely. It is one of our great sources of pride is the 

ability for a student to lodge a complaint against a school. As I indicated in my oral testimony, what happens is, is in many cases 

it’s a communication problem, it is a problem that is between the 

school and the student, and we hope that that gets resolved. 

But what happens is, is the front end of this tool is automated, 

the back end is rather ugly, because it is an entirely manual process. We have someone who literally looks at every single complaint 

and if in fact the complaint is such that it needs to go to the school, 

the complaint is sent to the school. The school is asked to provide 

a response. Oftentimes, the school reaches out to the student to 

talk about this particular issue. There are times where we initiate 

a risk-based compliance review based upon the information, and 

some of those complaints are not really valid for the tool. 

Most of the complaints that we want to have or the tool is set 

up for issues and concerns about principles of excellence, you know, 

illegal or improper recruiting and marketing and those kinds of 

things. But there are still folks that also, and Rob hates it when 

I say this, but there are cheeseburger complaints, meaning, you 

know, the food in the cafeteria is really bad and you guys ought 

to do something about that. And so we can’t do anything with that. 

But it is a real success story, because what we do is when we 

get—and I have seen a number of these responses from the schools, 

sometimes they are four or five-page letters. They take these things 

very, very seriously. As a result of that, some of these complaints 

are also logged on the Consumer Sentinel database and it is available for it to be reviewed by law enforcement agency. 

The other thing that we have done to try and be incredibly transparent is we put the complaint system responses on the GI Bill 

Comparison Tool, so veterans or students can see how many complaints that school has gotten and what are the nature of those 

complaints. 

Ms. RICE. Two other aspects of this system that I would ask you 

to talk about. The first one is the CareerScope, the Military Skills 

Translator. They seem like really, really good aspects of the system, but I wonder, can you just tell briefly, obviously talk about the 

pluses, minuses, and do you have enough people accessing it? Because it seems to me like that is the kind of directed help that veterans need to not spin their wheels in trying to find either educational or employment opportunities. 

Mr. COY. The CareerScope Tool we did after a significant amount 

of market research, and what we found is we had a tool in our own 


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backyard. The Vocational Rehabilitation and Education—or Employment folks had been using CareerScope for their clients for 

some time now, so we leveraged that and used that CareerScope. 

And it is an interesting tool, because it helps veterans measure 

their interests and aptitudes, what I want to do when I get out or 

what should I do now that I am out. 

In terms of the Skills Translator, that is on the VEC, which is 

a sort of different tool, but the Skills Translator, we are in the 

process of updating and, barring any IT concerns or issues, we expect to have that new and improved and very well thought-out 

Skills Translator before Veterans Day of this year. 

Ms. RICE. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Mr. Costello, you are now recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Thank you. 

And picking up where Ms. Rice left off with that question and 

your answer, the Enhanced Skills Translator you are going to make 

more useful. Can you just describe how it will be more useful? 

Mr. COY. The best I can do probably is give you a good example. 

Eleven Bravo is an occupational code. The current Skills Translator 

says basically uses their hands and can read English, I think it is 

something like that. The new Skills Translator takes the research 

that for example LinkedIn has done and used it in a much more 

reliable and commercial way. So we think it shows great promise, 

because one of the bigger problems that many veterans have as 

they are translating out is, so what are my skills and attributes 

and what kind of things can I expect to see. 

And so we think it is going to be a great enhancement. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Do you have a lot of industry participation in 

that? 

Mr. COY. The principal partner we have had in that is LinkedIn, 

and they have done a lot of market research and had a lot of success in that. 

Mr. COSTELLO. But you are ultimately talking about identifying 

what skills—excuse me—you are ultimately looking for industry to 

identify what skills they need, so that when veterans go through 

the Skills Translator process it is leading them to the industries 

where there is employment opportunity; is that correct? 

Mr. COY. Yes. LinkedIn’s market research indicates the sort of 

key words that a lot of industry partners want to see on those particular resumes. It is just a piece of the pie though, because just 

because you did something in the service doesn’t mean you necessarily want to do it in your civilian life. It is why CareerScope 

is important, it measures your interests and aptitudes. It is why 

the Skills Translator is important, because it sort of tells you what 

industry thinks of your skills. And so it goes both ways. 

Mr. COSTELLO. I futuristically here, and I am the first person to 

admit that I am not a tech, you mentioned about the teams that 

you have and you have folks from Google and Amazon that come 

for a year or two, VEC Employees, I don’t even know what this is, 

Agile Methodology and Managing the Software Development’s Life 

Cycle, that sounds pretty good. I intuit—— 

Mr. COY. I thought that sounded pretty good too. 


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Mr. COSTELLO. There are actually a couple sentences before that 

that sound pretty good. One of the frustrations I know I have, I 

think other members, I don’t want to speak for them, share it, is 

when you look at some of the technology that the VA has used in 

other areas, it is almost like dead technology that is just sort of 

like limping along, whereas it appears as though with this, with 

VEC, you have done it in a way that you are constantly going to 

be able to update it and refine it; is that correct? 

Mr. COY. Yes, sir. It is one of the really neat and fun things is 

that when you work with this digital service folks, they are not— 

my colleague Steve is going to hit me, but they are not necessarily 

your stereotypical government employees. These are folks straight 

in from Google and Amazon. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Right. 

Mr. COY. And they are in there to make a difference. And I have 

been in rooms with them where we have had the Comparison Tool 

up on the screen and we are talking about moving things around 

or doing this and what if, and every single time it is, absolutely, 

we can do that. And so it becomes incredibly exciting, because they 

can do it literally just like that right there on the spot and change 

the tool. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Hubbard in his testimony laid out some 

things that should be revised, as well as some questions that I 

think very logically should be addressed. If you had the opportunity 

to look at his testimony and where are you in the process—how 

often are you updating VEC? It seems to me as though you have 

sort of another VEC 2.0 with what you are going to roll out here 

with the Enhanced Skills Facilitator, but how often are you revisiting and working out the kinks and making it better? 

Mr. COY. The short answer is all day, every day. But the longer 

answer is, is right now VA is going to roll out Vets.gov, and it’s a 

new veterans-centric Web site. The Comparison Tool and the VEC 

are two of the superstars that’s going to be initiated with that. So 

they are in the process right now of making the entire VEC more 

user friendly, just like the Comparison Tool. It is going to have a 

different look and feel, it is going to have all of the same information, but a different look and feel and a better user experience. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Do you think you are headed for much better results in terms of, you know, taking that 23,000 and really increasing the number of users, as well as the user experience? I mean, 

I hope that is, we all hope that is where we are headed. Do you 

feel that? 

Mr. COY. I not only feel it, I believe it. I think we are going to 

start seeing some significant changes in the way we do business 

and some significant user-friendly sort of changes to the VEC as 

well. 

Mr. COSTELLO. Well, that is good to hear. Thank you very much. 

Mr. COY. Yes, sir. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Ms. Radewagen, you are now recognized for five 

minutes. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Coy, how many other veteran job boards like VA For Vets, 

H2H, VetCentral, or others were replaced by the then new and untested VEC? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just use an existing 


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system instead of creating something not only doesn’t seem to 

work, but no one appears to like? 

Mr. COY. I think it would have probably been easier to let some 

other system exist and not take on that challenge most certainly. 

We took a look, our consortium—this was not VA, this was our consortium of our Labor partners, our Defense partners, and the other 

partners that were on that task force that I mentioned. And so the 

decision was made in a consensus way for some of these other sites, 

many of which were very, very redundant. 

And so those decisions were not made by VA, they were made by 

the individual services and whoever was in charge of those particular systems. 

As I mentioned, we have a site, we VA, it was a VRE site called 

VetSuccess.gov, and we saw the bones of that and we leveraged 

that into what is now the VEC. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. Thank you. 

I have been told that certain VA contractors are required to log 

in to VEC each day as a way to increase the number of page views; 

is this true? 

Mr. COY. I have no evidence whatsoever until someone recently 

mentioned that to me. I asked my IT folks to look into that and 

there is no evidence of that. But if there is a source and somebody 

could help me understand better, I would be happy to look into it. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. And actually we have been told that VEC does 

not work on some Internet Web browsers and that on certain DoD 

bases they are unable to access the VEC during TAP due to this 

and other connectivity issues. Can you please comment on this? 

Mr. COY. We did have some issues with connectivity and some 

of the DoD installations. We think we have turned that corner, but 

there’s still probably some sites that we would have a challenge 

with. 

Ms. RADEWAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, thank you. 

I just have one. I want to say, good luck on Veterans Day with 

the rollout of the one site. Yeah, keep your fingers crossed, right? 

And I hope it is successful and I do wish the VA well on that. 

One of the things that was talked about a little bit today and 

there was reports of some scam artists getting to some of the people that had signed up for the VEC, and trying to get money out 

of them. Did you want to comment on that? 

Mr. COY. It was an interesting few days, because there was a 

scam that was perpetuated. The scam basically notified the veteran 

that says, we found your name on the Veterans’ Employment portal—not Veterans’ Employment Center, but portal—and we are 

going to send you a check for a thousand dollars, because we want 

to hire you. And so we want you to deposit that check as soon as 

you get it and go out and buy a computer for less than a thousand 

dollars, and then we want you to take what is left over of that 

thousand dollars and send it back to us in the way of a money 

order. And so anybody that not knows these things, they did. And 

of course when you deposit the check and you go out that afternoon 

and buy a computer, but then ten days later you find out the check 

has bounced, you have already sent a money order back to that 

company, you are out that difference of money. 


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We did a significant marketing campaign to get that information 

out to as many veterans as possible, sort of under the rubric of, if 

it’s too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. But there 

are a lot of those kinds of scams that are out there all the time 

and we try and stay ahead of them. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, thank you very much for doing that and for 

responding to it. These things can happen to anyone at any time. 

If you ever feel that you need our backing to suggest a study, and 

I don’t mean on a punitive way towards anything you are doing, 

but in a positive way to make sure we are protecting our veterans, 

I would be glad to stand with you on that. 

Mr. COY. Yes, sir. Thank you. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. And I thank the witnesses for your 

testimony and for answering our questions. I think it is clear that 

we need to assure that the IT systems need to have the attention 

from VA senior leaders and that they need to be a priority for the 

department in general. 

I do appreciate the valuable discussion from all of our witnesses 

here today on how to improve these systems to help our veterans 

reach maximum economic success, and I look forward to working 

together to do that. 

And I now ask unanimous consent that a statement from the 

Veterans of Foreign Wars be submitted into the hearing record. 

[No response.] 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Finally, I ask that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks, and include any extraneous material in the record of today’s hearing. 

[No response.] 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

And if there is nothing further, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:38 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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