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55–224 2010

THE FUTURE OF THE POST–9/11 GI BILL 

CLAIMS PROCESSING SYSTEM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JANUARY 21, 2010 

Serial No. 111–56 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

( 


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COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

BOB FILNER, California, Chairman 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South 

Dakota 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

DEBORAH L. HALVORSON, Illinois 

THOMAS S.P. PERRIELLO, Virginia 

HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico 

CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

JOHN H. ADLER, New Jersey 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

GLENN C. NYE, Virginia 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana, Ranking 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee 

Malcom A. Shorter, Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South Dakota, Chairwoman 

THOMAS S.P. PERRIELLO, Virginia 

JOHN H. ADLER, New Jersey 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas, Ranking 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

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 

January 21, 2010 

Page 

The Future of the Post-9/11 GI Bill Claims Processing System .......................... 1 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Chairwoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin .............................................................. 1 

Prepared statement of Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin .................................. 22 

Hon. John Boozman, Ranking Republican Member ............................................. 2 

Prepared statement of Congressman Boozman ............................................. 22 

WITNESSES 

U.S. Department of Defense, Captain Mark Krause, USNR (Ret.), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Program Manager, Space and Naval Warfare 

Systems Center Atlantic, Department of the Navy ........................................... 4 

Prepared statement of Captain Krause .......................................................... 23 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Hon. Roger W. Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, Office of Information and Technology .................................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement of Mr. Baker ................................................................... 25 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

Post-Hearing Questions and Responses for the Record: 

Hon. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Economic Opportunities, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, to Mark Krause, 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Program Manager, Space and 

Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, letter dated January 25, 2010, 

and responses ................................................................................................ 29 

Hon. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Economic Opportunities, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, to Hon. Roger W. 

Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, letter dated January 25, 2010, and VA 

responses ....................................................................................................... 31 


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THE FUTURE OF THE POST–9/11 GI BILL 

CLAIMS PROCESSING SYSTEM 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2010 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:13 p.m., in 

Room 334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Stephanie Herseth 

Sandlin [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Herseth Sandlin, Perriello, Adler, and 

Boozman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN HERSETH SANDLIN 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 

The Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Economic 

Opportunity, Oversight Hearing on the Post-9/11 GI Bill LongTerm Solution will come to order. 

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative 

days to revise and extend their remarks and that written statements be made part of the record. 

Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

Some of those in attendance may recall that our first hearing of 

2009 was on the implementation of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. This was 

followed up by supplemental hearings that sought to ensure the 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) progress on the shortand long-term information technology solutions. 

I hope that it is clear to our panelists before us today that by 

making this our first hearing of 2010, we demonstrate the continued importance of the subject at hand. 

I am sure my colleagues will agree that the current delays in 

processing education claims are simply unacceptable. A number of 

my colleagues not on this Committee have spoken to me directly 

or have written to me documenting experiences of student veterans 

that they represent who have suffered some of the consequences of 

the delays in processing these claims. 

While the Administration shares my concerns regarding these 

shortcomings, more has to be done. However, the blame doesn’t 

rest solely with the VA. The processing of a single claim requires 

multiple steps involving multiple parties and computer systems, all 

of which must work in sync with one another in order for veterans 

to receive his or her benefits in a timely manner. These computer 

difficulties demonstrate the need for a fully functional Long-Term 

Solution. 


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Furthermore, the Subcommittee’s staff recently visited the VA’s 

Regional Processing Center and Education Call Center in 

Muskogee, Oklahoma, and some concerns have been raised from 

that visit. They include the closure of Education Call Center hours 

on Thursdays and Fridays. This provides veterans only 3 days to 

call for assistance on education matters. While we understand the 

value of using Call Center staff to process education claims, the VA 

can have the Call Center open 5 days a week by dispersing the 

same work hours throughout the week. 

Second, the availability of temporary employees after September 

2010 is a concern. While we all would like to have a fully operational Long-Term Solution by December of this year, the reality 

of the limited time frame to implement this complex Information 

Technology (IT) system may require the VA to push back its deadline. Ensuring that VA has the trained personnel to continue to 

process education claims and field incoming calls can help avoid 

further delays in receipt of education benefits. 

The third concern involves VA’s current policy limiting Education 

Call Center operators from taking action on education claims outside of that particular region. The current policy requires that 

claims originating outside of the Muskogee region must be referred 

to the appropriate regional office (RO) for action. We have been informed that by authorizing these operators, who are responsible for 

taking all education benefit calls, to make simple updates to a veteran’s file would result in faster service and avoid long wait periods 

for action. 

And finally, the visit to the Education Call Center raised equipment concerns that create dropped calls and require constant maintenance that I hope the VA will address quickly. 

I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panelists participating in today’s hearing, specifically on how the VA is addressing these concerns and making progress in implementing its LongTerm Solution that seeks to streamline the way education claims 

are currently processed. I would now like to recognize the Ranking 

Member, Mr. Boozman, for any opening remarks he may have. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin appears on p. 22.] 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOOZMAN 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The successful development and implementation of the new computer system to manage the Post-9/11 GI Bill is vital to delivering 

accurate and timely education benefits, not just for the Chapter 33 

but for all of the education programs. 

Before we begin, I would like to echo some of the things that the 

Chair just spoke in regard to, the three issues that they had some 

concern about in the Muskogee RO. I have had the opportunity to 

go to Muskogee, and they do a great job. They work awfully hard. 

And I think it is an operation that we can be very proud of. 

One of the things that came about while they were there in 

meeting with managers and frontline claims and Call Center workers, the staff expressed their concern, as was mentioned, that the 

Call Center was closed 2 days a week to allow the workers to assist 

in processing education claims. While the staff readily agreed that 


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the diversion of some labor hours to processing claims, they suggested that perhaps spreading those processing labor hours over 

the work week would allow the Call Center to remain open. As a 

result of that discussion, local VA management forwarded a request to the VA’s Office of Field Operations to make the changes 

suggested. And again, I think therein lies our concern. 

And I think we have a little bit of concern about, maybe about 

those people not being empowered to, perhaps, being on the ground 

to actually determine what they feel like is best within a degree 

and, as these things come up, to respond and have some flexibility 

to solve these kind of problems. 

The Call Center operates from 7:00 to 5:00 central time, but no 

one answers calls coming outside those hours. That means that 

anyone living outside the continental U.S. has a very limited window in which to contact the Call Center. Given the high rates of 

blocked and dropped calls, I think it is probably fair to assume that 

if you are a beneficiary living in the Pacific and European areas, 

which there are, a bunch of people in that category, I think they 

probably have a significant problem of getting assistance from the 

Call Center. 

Again, I think that perhaps the solution might be to stagger the 

working hours of a few employees to cover the wider range of the 

day. If that takes additional overtime or incentive pay based on the 

staff’s discussions with the Call Center employees, the extra hours 

of pay or pay differential would be welcome. 

Another thing that came up was that the staff said that, every 

call they take regarding the Post-9/11 GI Bill, it is not uncommon 

at all to hear complaints about the difficulty in getting through to 

the Call Center. And as I have said earlier, I think that, in working 

those things out, I do think that it would be to everyone’s benefit 

if the Muskogee team had the flexibility to kind of adjust things 

depending on how things were going so that they could be as efficient as possible. 

Regardless, closing the Call Center 2 days per week when there 

are alternatives to meet the VA’s claims production needs and provide customer service I think are out there at the same time. 

So, again, that is something that we need to perhaps talk about 

at a later date. But we just kind of throw that out, realizing, and 

again, it is sad that as we have these kinds of hearings, we are 

talking about the negative things or things that we see that perhaps need to be improved. On the other hand, I very much compliment the people who are working really hard in Muskogee at the 

Call Center to do the very best job that they can do. 

I guess what I am saying is, if there is something that we can 

do helping you or if you can look or if there are things we can do 

to improve that, I think that we would be very happy to assist you 

in doing that. 

So thank you very much, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Congressman Boozman appears on 

p. 22.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Boozman. 

I would like to welcome our panelists testifying before the Subcommittee today. 


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Joining us on our panel is Mark Krause, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Program Manager (Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD); and the 

Honorable Roger Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and 

Technology, Office of Information and Technology (OI&T), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Baker is accompanied by Mr. 

Jan Frye, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Acquisition, 

Logistics and Construction, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; 

and Mr. Keith Wilson, Director of Education Service, Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) with the U.S. Department of Veterans 

Affairs. 

Gentlemen, welcome. We look forward to your testimony. 

Captain Krause, we will start with you. 

We welcome you back, and you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENTS OF CAPTAIN MARK KRAUSE, USNR (RET.), U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS PROGRAM MANAGER, 

SPACE AND NAVAL WARFARE SYSTEMS CENTER ATLANTIC, 

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND HON. ROGER W. BAKER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY 

FOR INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS; ACCOMPANIED BY JAN R. FRYE, DEPUTY 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY, OFFICE OF ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS, AND CONSTRUCTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS; AND KEITH WILSON, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF EDUCATION SERVICE, VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN MARK KRAUSE, USNR (RET.) 

Captain KRAUSE. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, 

Ranking Member Boozman, and Members of the Subcommittee. I 

appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss 

the current status of the Chapter (CH) 33 Long-Term Solution. My 

testimony will address the key milestones and dates, current 

progress of the Long-Term Solution, capabilities of the planned releases and the project challenges. 

The Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution key milestone dates and 

milestones are as follows: March 31, 2010, plan date for Release 1; 

June 30, 2010, plan date for Release 2; September 30, 2010, plan 

date for Release 3; December 31, 2010, plan date for Release 4. 

Progress of the Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution: During the 4 

months since our last meeting with the Subcommittee, the Chapter 

33 team has accomplished the following: Completed a rules-based 

engine locating all Chapter 33 business rules in one area separate 

from the application logic, consistent with service-oriented architecture principles; established the development and production hosting capabilities in a secure cloud computing environment with 

secure network connections to VA legacy systems; successfully integrated subject matter experts from the VA’s field operations into 

the development process to ensure the Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution application will best support the veterans claims examiners’ 

(VCEs’), processing requirements and priorities; completed a comVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:12 Jun 14, 2010 Jkt 055224 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\VA\55224.XXX APPS06 PsN: 55224

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plex data interface with VA/DoD Identity Repository, called 

VADIR, application. 

Our near term goals include deploying an early Chapter 33 LongTerm Solution Release 1.0 in March 2010 to a limited number of 

VCEs, or claim examiners, where original claims can be moved to 

and processed in the Long-Term Solution automated rules-based 

environment. 

Explanation of the system being developed: There are four Veterans Affairs regional processing offices responsible for processing 

thousands of claims for veterans seeking to use Chapter 33 educational benefits. The adjudication process relies on highly trained 

VCEs, or claim examiners, to determine eligibility, calculate entitlement, and process the award. This requires them to interface 

multiple disjointed systems and perform significant manual entry. 

The objective of the Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution is to support 

new legislative requirements with a Web-based tool that will provide automation and standardization to the adjudication process. 

This will significantly reduce the time to process a claim and the 

number of VCEs required. Additional benefits will be efficiency, accuracy, predictability and reliable results. Additionally, the tool 

will support the need for transparent data exchange and reporting 

while being flexible enough to adapt to future changes in policy and 

law. 

The capability of the planned Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution releases are, Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution Release 1.0 will be deployed to incorporate the core features necessary to process new 

claims to include tuition payments, housing allowances, reenlistment incentives, books and fees. The primary objective of Release 

1.0 will be to validate application performance, deployment strategies, and expected changes to business operations. A key system 

interface will be eligibility data from VADIR, the VADIR application. 

Release 2.0 will begin the transition from the current Chapter 33 

interim solution front-end tool (FET) and job aid, enabling the 

claim examiners to completely migrate off the Chapter 33 interim 

solution. Release 2.0 will expand the capabilities of the earlier release by enabling VCEs, or claim examiners, to amend awards and 

process transfer of entitlement claims. 

Release 3.0 will improve claims processing efficiency by automating the complex Chapter 33 financial transaction/authorization 

process currently required to authorize payments for claims. This 

will be achieved by establishing a system interface with the VA’s 

financial accounting system. 

The feedback from Releases 1 through 3 will determine the requirements and scope of Release 4. 

The challenges being overcome include translating the complexity of the Chapter 33 benefits adjudication into a business rules 

approach that will enable the system to quickly adapt to legislative 

interpretations, changes and priorities. Number two, it will include 

access to the limited number of subject-matter experts in claim adjudication processes and policies; identifying the myriad number of 

scenarios for amending/changing award amounts; converting data 

from the VA interim solution because of independent workarounds 

and interpretations at RPOs; and five, the complexity and inconVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:12 Jun 14, 2010 Jkt 055224 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\VA\55224.XXX APPS06 PsN: 55224

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sistency in systems architectures and data across multiple VA and 

DoD systems. 

Training requirements: A Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution team 

is currently developing a Web-based interactive training system to 

teach VCEs how to use Long-Term Solution application to process 

Chapter 33 claims. The training system will include self-paced tutorial material and hands-on processing of simulated Chapter 33 

claims; 508 compliant learning system to assess individual VCE’s 

progress and demonstrate competency using the LTS system; classroom training materials to teach the RPO training coordinators 

how to administer the Web-based system to the claim examiner 

community; and on-site support during the initial RPO deployment. 

We are confident that the release of the Chapter 33 Long-Term 

Solution will be completed by December 31, 2010. 

Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my statement. I would be 

pleased to answer any questions you or any of the other Members 

of the Subcommittee may have. 

[The prepared statement of Captain Mark Krause appears on 

p. 23.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Krause. 

Mr. Baker, you are now recognized. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER W. BAKER 

Mr. BAKER. Thank you and good afternoon, Chairwoman Herseth 

Sandlin, Ranking Member Boozman, and Members of the Subcommittee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today with my 

colleagues from both VA and SPAWAR to discuss the status of the 

Post-9/11 GI Bill. My testimony will address the current status of 

education claims, steps taken to reduce the pending inventory and 

prepare for the spring enrollment period, and the status of the implementation of the Post-9/11 GI Bill Long-Term Solution. 

Since May 1st of 2009, VA has received over 1.5 million claims 

for education benefits under all education programs, and we processed approximately 1.4 million claims. VA has issued over $1.3 

billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments to approximately 

180,000 individuals and their educational institutions. 

Claims processing time frames have risen due to the increased 

workload from the Post-9/11 GI Bill. As we are all aware, many 

veterans enrolled in schools during the fall of 2009 encountered unacceptable delays with respect to their receipt of their benefits. I 

believe it is important to convey, on behalf of Secretary Shinseki 

and every member of the VA team, our apologies for those delays 

and our understanding of the impact, that the impacts of those 

delays on veterans are unacceptable. 

We believe we have identified and resolved the causes of many 

of those delays, and that the results of the spring enrollment will 

be substantially improved over those of the fall. While we continue 

to receive fall semester enrollment certifications even today, there 

are currently under 1,500 fall enrollment certificates remaining to 

be completed, with those remaining requiring further information 

from the student before they can be completed. 

VA has taken numerous steps to reduce the number of pending 

claims and prepare for the spring enrollment period. I detail a 


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number of those steps in my written statement, so I won’t go over 

them here. But as a result of those improvements, VA has been 

able to increase its daily completions of Chapter 33 enrollment certificates from an average of 1,800 per day we experienced during 

October 2009 to the nearly 7,000 per day or more we have been 

able to achieve during January, a very substantial improvement. 

As of January 13th, VA had received Post-9/11 GI Bill spring enrollments for just over 111,000 veterans, of which 80,000 had been 

processed. We took aggressive actions to eliminate the backlog of 

fall enrollments and were using all available resources to ensure 

veterans receive their education benefits from the spring terms accurately and on time. 

To help ensure that veterans who enroll in the spring term receive their benefits on time, VA set a goal, and one that we are 

confident that we can achieve, to process any enrollment certification that we receive before January 19th, I guess 2 days ago at 

this point, for payment by February 1st of 2010. And we believe we 

are on track to meet that goal. 

On November 9, 2009, the Office of Information and Technology 

delivered the third and final phase of the interim claims processing 

solution, and that is the one we are using today to process, which 

provides increased functionality and additional automation for 

processing Post-9/11 GI Bill claims. This phase provides the 

functionality for processing both amended awards and overlapping 

terms. And I am sure we will have substantial discussion of what 

amended awards are here during this, as they are part of the complexity of the Long-Term Solution. 

So, moving to the Long-Term Solution, as you know, we 

partnered with SPAWAR to develop an end-to-end claims processing solution to utilize rules-based industry standard technologies. And that is our long-term strategy for implementing both 

the Post-9/11 GI Bill and other education claims processing as we 

move forward. 

The Post-9/11 GI Bill includes numerous eligibility entitlement 

criteria and contemplates benefit determinations that can best be 

made using rules-based technology that requires minimal human 

intervention. 

The automated system, the long-term automated system, is 

scheduled to be released in four phases. Release 1 is to replace the 

current functionality of the interim solution and eliminate the need 

for external job aids. Release 2 will provide an automated data feed 

for both claim and veteran information. Release 3 will provide 

automated data feeds into the VA financial processing systems. 

And Release 4 will provide a veteran self-service interface to view 

the status of claims. 

While Release 1 remains scheduled for deployment on March 

31st of 2010, this release has been changed to a limited pilot release, which will deliver the ability to complete original claims and 

many other capabilities. We plan to deploy Release 1 to a limited 

set of claims processors to restrict the impact and training for the 

user community. 

VA expected Release 1 to also include functionality for a number 

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creased appreciation of the complexity of amended awards. As our 

subject-matter experts worked with the SPAWAR team, new software requirements were identified, and it became clear those requirements could not be incorporated into the March 31, 2010, 

milestone requirement. 

Under the program management accountability system that we 

introduced last June, missing that milestone date would have substantial consequences. And so we made a decision, in conjunction 

with VBA, our VBA customers, to allow the delivery of reduced 

functionality in order to make the milestone date. 

Most importantly, because this will be the first delivery of software for the Long-Term Solution, I believe it is critical that real 

users begin to use this software for production work, because that 

is the only way we can assure ourselves that the software that is 

being delivered is an acceptable product and something we can rely 

on for the long term. I don’t mean to imply any doubt in the product. As a software person, I just am saying, the only way I know 

exactly what I am getting is when real users are using it. And so 

I am looking forward to that March 31, 2010, release and putting 

it in front of real users. 

While complete functionality for the subsequent releases is yet to 

be determined, VA anticipates Release 2, to be delivered on June 

30, 2010, will include the remaining features necessary to migrate 

the claims processors off the interim processing solution. VA, 

OI&T, and SPAWAR will conduct meetings the week of January 25 

to finalize the functional requirements for Releases 2, 3 and 4 of 

the Long-Term Solution. We still anticipate the successful delivery 

of all functional requirements to the Long-Term Solution by December of 2010. 

Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my statement. I believe that 

Mr. Wilson will now go through the PowerPoint slides that you had 

asked us to prepare to address some of the direct questions. 

Mr. WILSON. Good afternoon. 

Going directly to slide two, the slides that we have prepared provide amplification of the information that has been covered by Mr. 

Krause and Mr. Baker. 

Slide two talks about the specifics of the requirements that we 

have of the Long-Term Solution and, by extension, our SPAWAR 

partners: Obviously, processing of original and supplemental 

awards, both claims from veterans as well as transfer-of-entitlement claims, Frye scholarship claims, et cetera; automated calculation of those awards, and I would add to that, not just automated 

calculation but automated processing as well, as it is one thing to 

do the manual calculations but another to pay the benefit as well; 

retrieval of demographic and service information; very importantly, 

interfaces to our payment systems, so that we can properly account 

for the money being expended; and, vitally important for many of 

our customers, a self-service interface as well, a Web-based selfservice interface allowing our customers to go online and retrieve 

a lot of the information that they currently have to call us or email us to receive. 

Slide three talks specifically about Release 1 of the Long-Term 

Solution and what is being delivered and what is not being delivered. First of all, on the left-hand side, the functionality that is 


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going to be provided does allow processing of original Post-9/11 GI 

Bill claims. It provides automated calculation of the payment 

awards, the overlapping terms of intervals for amended awards, et 

cetera. It does not provide for automated processing. It provides for 

automated calculation of the award amounts in those categories, as 

well as also providing demographic information. It pulls information from VADIR, which is our DoD data source. 

On the right-hand side, the delayed functionality. What we will 

not get is conversion of existing records in the interim solution into 

the Long-Term Solution. We will not be able to process transfer-ofentitlement cases, Frye scholarship cases, supplemental awards, 

anything involving a kicker, a Chapter 33 kicker or a supplemental 

kicker, and claims containing amended awards. 

In other words, what Release 1 is going to give us the capability 

of doing is processing any new original claim that comes to us that 

does not require any modification. Any individual whose claim we 

have already processed in the interim solution stays processed in 

the interim solution during Release 1. So, from a user perspective, 

there is not a large category of cases that we will be able to work 

with Release 1, but it does give us, as Mr. Baker indicated, the 

ability to begin using the application itself and begin getting expertise on that. 

The long-term deployment schedule, this has been talked about 

a little bit. Slide four provides a summary of the specific types of 

functionality we will get in each of the phases. I have already 

talked about Release 1. Release 2, from a user perspective, Release 

2 gives us efficiencies. That is the first point at which we are going 

to start gaining productivity. And the reason is, Release 2 gives us 

the functionality of auto populating fields as well as auto calculation of award amounts. So there will be a lot of replacement of the 

manual multiple-system typing of information in. That will be replaced by the automated data feeds that we will receive from the 

schools, from the students when they enroll, as well as automated 

DoD information coming into the system. So Release 2 really is a 

game changer from a user point of view. That will give us some 

good efficiencies. 

Release 3 will provide that interface into our payment systems. 

And from a user perspective, what that means is that the process 

that we currently have in place that takes about 200 people to complete the fiscal transactions, the administrative work to actually 

get the payments out the door, will be replaced by that phase, that 

Release 3 functionality. And then Release 4 will provide those user 

interfaces that I talked about. There will be a Web-based ability to 

go on, both self-serve, as well as to find out the status of, for instance, enrollment certs coming in from schools. Students will be 

able to go online and find that information out directly. 

Slide five talks about VA future staffing. The key message here 

I believe is that VA will be making determinations on how to gear 

down staffing based solely on the successful deployment of the 

functionality. As you are aware, we hired 530 additional people 

originally. We augmented that with 230 additional people. We have 

additional people brought in to do fisc-auth transactions, in other 

words the administrative transactions to pay the benefits. We will 


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begin reducing the workforce, subject to the successful deployment 

of the Long-Term Solution, beginning in fiscal year 2011. 

Slide six provides some updated information concerning exactly 

where we are with the spring enrollment. These are the same figures on this slide as Mr. Baker mentioned in his testimony. I do 

have updated information. As of this morning, VA has received enrollment certifications for 123,887 students. VA has processed 

103,843 of those enrollment certs for the spring semester. 

We have taken a lot of actions over the last many months as we 

have learned from our experiences in the fall term. The bottom line 

is we have increased our staffing, claims processing staff, from approximately 800 individuals at the beginning of the fall enrollment 

to 1,200 claims examiners currently. That includes contract support 

for working some of our simpler non-Chapter 33 claims, redirecting 

200 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) hires from 

five different regional offices around the country, implementing significant streamlining policy and procedures, obviously providing 

the advance pay mechanisms and continuing to utilize the 230 additional staff that were hired under ARRA. 

Slide seven in some ways talks again about the requirements of 

the Long-Term Solution. The importance of the Long-Term Solution 

is its flexibility, providing that self-service functionality that students need, providing the flexibility for a rules engine that will 

allow us to quickly adapt to new changes in legislation, payment 

rates, et cetera, and developing all of this in a service-oriented architecture that will be flexible as we continue to expand the system. Obviously, what we are trying to do is minimize human intervention as much as possible. 

Slide eight—unfortunately, I should have removed slide eight. It 

is a repetition of the earlier release dates that I talked about. I 

don’t believe there is anything particularly new on that slide. 

That concludes my portion of the presentation. We would be 

happy to take any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Baker, and the referenced slides, 

appear on p. 25.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Thank you all for your testimony. 

Let me start with a statement, Mr. Wilson, that you made. On 

slide four, the Long-Term Solution Release 2.0 scheduled for June 

30, 2010, that allows for the automated data feeds from the 

schools. You said this is a game changer from the user point of 

view. 

For Mr. Baker or Mr. Wilson, I assume that the goal for the 

Long-Term Solution Release 2.0 is to have that operational for 

processing fall 2010 semester claims, correct? 

Mr. BAKER. Yes, that is correct. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That being the case, Mr. Baker, according to your testimony, Release 1.0 has been modified to reduce its 

functionality because of this new software requirement that you recently identified. 

Mr. BAKER. Yes, the increased complexity, yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Why did it take until just recently to 

identify the need for the new software requirement? 


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Mr. BAKER. Actually, what occurred is, as the subject-matter experts and the software people were sitting down together to walk 

through, what does an amended authority really mean, what are 

the intricacies, the decision trees required for an amended award, 

they kept uncovering, if you will, more and more depth of what was 

required in the software and amended awards. And it went beyond 

the estimates they had originally had for what it was going to take 

to do amended awards. 

So as we determined that the amount of work required to make 

that March 31st date exceeded the amount possible to accomplish, 

we had to determine what would come out of that release. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. How confident are you that the June 

30th date deadline can be met in light of how important that deadline is to the fall semester? 

Mr. BAKER. We are pretty confident of that. As you can imagine, 

we have had some significant focus on that as well. What we have 

talked about is, what is it possible to do in the June 30th time 

frame? We know that we can get everything in that was originally 

scheduled for Release 1. And Release 1 was intended to be the replacement for the current system, so a functional replacement. If 

we had delayed Release 1 until about mid May, we would have had 

a fully functional release. There is about that much additional 

work that was added. So we know that will come in. And we will 

be releasing that functionality in incremental pieces along the way 

to mid May and, if VBA determines it is appropriate, allowing the 

users to work with the increased functionality in that time frame 

and then adding those automated feeds that are critical as we 

ramp up to June 30th. 

So we have a reasonably good confidence in the June 30th, and 

if you don’t mind, I will elaborate on that just a little bit further. 

The thing that I have to tell you that I am pleased with in the slip, 

and I know this is going to sound a little strange, is that in December, this project team was able to tell us that they had a problem 

with meeting the March 31st date. That is not a usual thing inside 

of VA projects. Usually you hear about it March 30th, you know, 

that it is going to happen on March 31st. That gave us time to 

make rational decisions about, do we want to allow the slip, or do 

we want to force the delivery date so that we see the software? And 

what is the impact of that on subsequent releases? And so that is 

why we have a reasonable degree of confidence that we are going 

to have what we need on June 30th for a more automated system 

going into the fall semester. That has exactly been our focus with 

that June 30th release. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, I would request that, as the project 

team—with all the internal milestones you are trying to meet, and 

you have been very helpful to our Committee and to our Committee 

staff in sharing information at every step of this process. But in 

light of the problems that we have had with the interim solution, 

in light of the importance of this Long-Term Solution, we need to 

stay on top of this day by day, week by week. If there is any other 

problem that is revealed to your project team, we just need to be 

made aware of some of that ongoing work because of the importance of these deadlines in meeting the benefits needs for the students and understanding what more you might need from us. This 


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is a high priority, not only among this Committee, but the colleagues that we hear from who have student veterans that are experiencing problems. 

We want to make sure that we are able to answer questions immediately for them, which will lead to some of the other questions 

that we are going to have about what is happening in the spring 

semester. But we really want to work closely with you to ensure 

these targets are met; we are ready to go in the fall. For example, 

do you have a target date for getting the new software requirements then? When are you supposed to have that? Since that was 

going to possibly slip until May, you have reduced the functionality 

so you can stick to the March 31st timeline. When will the new 

software requirements that were uncovered in December be ready? 

What is the target date to integrate them after Release 1.0 in 

March? If you can answer, great. But that is one thing I think we 

need to have. 

Mr. WILSON. Let me try to take a shot at it, and Mr. Baker probably can do a more articulate job than I, but from an operational 

perspective, from a non-IT perspective, I look at it this way. We 

provided the functional requirements for what we needed in the 

Long-Term Solution at the beginning. That has been laid down. 

But when you look at those functional, requirements, in some ways 

it is like an onion. You know what you have in front of you, but 

as you peel it back, there is more and more inside. So as the users 

are sitting down with the programmers and they are saying, first 

of all, they are saying, we need to be able to account for interval 

pay. They understand that, but as they get into that, they have to 

understand what the mechanics are that are involved with interval 

pay. And those discussions occur on a regular basis because of the 

agile development process. They are constantly going around and 

around working on those things, moving on to the next stage. 

Mr. BAKER. I think, directly to your question, I believe we have 

those detailed requirements now. It was, as we were putting those 

specifically down, we determined that there was more there than 

could be met for March 31st. But we know that short, what we call 

sprints, additional sprints, will get those done after the March 31st 

and deliverable after the March 31st date. That is why we believe 

that all of those requirements that would have gone into the first 

release that we originally scheduled for March 31st, it is about mid 

May that they will be able to have walked through all of those 

things. 

Now, I am going to look at Mr. Krause and see if I can make certain that we are in agreement on this one. 

Captain KRAUSE. Yes ma’am, Madam Chairwoman, the requirements, the bow wave of requirements that we saw in the beginning 

of December are going to be completed by June 30th in Release 2. 

This is a good news story. If we had done this the traditional way, 

the waterfall way, where you get all your requirements up front 

and you just start plugging away at the plan, this would have been 

a 2-year slip, a 1- to 2-year slip, having hundreds of requirements 

show up a few months before you are getting ready to deploy. 

But that is not what we did. We have an agile methodology. We 

do 2 week sprints, and we were able to recover. It looks like we 

are going to do a 3-month functionality slip. That is unheard of in 


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a major software project. So this is good. A limited release is industry best practice. The big bang, I know you have seen other examples of a big bang strategy with software releases. That usually 

doesn’t go very well. So a limited release is a proven industry best 

practice, where we will ring out the application; we will refine the 

production in deployment processes and production support mechanisms; and we will be able to gauge the real world impact on the 

users of the data sources and legacy systems. So this is going to 

really be good, and it will make the June 30 deployment of Release 

2 much easier. So this is good-good, win-win stuff I think. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. You have alleviated some of my 

concerns. Although I don’t know, is the onion fully peeled yet? 

Captain KRAUSE. It is not, but a large majority of it is. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. You answered one of the questions I had 

for you, Mr. Krause, which was that these are limited releases. 

Captain KRAUSE. Release 1 is a limited release. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Are all the releases limited? 

Captain KRAUSE. No. Release 2 will be to all the VCEs, if you 

will, the veterans claim examiners. 

Mr. BAKER. Release 2 will be a full replacement of what we are 

using right now for functionality. We will no longer be using the 

old interim solution. We will be fully on to the new Long-Term Solution. 

Captain KRAUSE. And there will be a transition where the users 

will have to transition off that. That may take a few weeks. You 

can’t just say, okay, turn off your computer; now use this one. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That will lead to some other questions I 

have about the training, but I do want to recognize the Ranking 

Member for his questions. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Captain Krause, in regard to Release 3, is there any way at all 

to get that done in time for the fall 2010 semester? 

Captain KRAUSE. Release 3 is, and this is good news, too, is that 

VA, the financial accounting system folks, the people that maintain 

that application, have stepped up to the plate and said that interface belongs to us; we are going to do the lion’s share of that work. 

And they have. So a lot of that, that question would have to be answered by someone that is doing the financial accounting system. 

But they have stepped up to the plate. We are partnering with 

them. And I don’t know if they can increase the—I don’t know the 

answer to that question, but I think we as a team can find that 

out. 

Mr. BAKER. Let me give you a very direct answer to that. This 

team has been highly accurate, from my view, in what they can tell 

me about what is going on. One of the things that we are going to 

offer to do with your staffs is start bringing them in and talking 

about the monthly project plans that we get. They are very, very 

good. I would be very reticent to tell you that we can move up 

functionality. We have been asked that several times in the past, 

and the answer is, we are doing about what we can do to make this 

deliver. 

The good news is, as Captain Krause says, they are doing very 

short bursts of work verifying that and then moving on to the next 

piece, so much as all of us would like to move it up. The other 


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thing that I will tell you is that we will do that release on September 30th and make that available to Education Service to determine whether they want to install it. One of the things, as IT people, we have to be sensitive to on the business side is, what is the 

impact of installing a new release, especially on a date like September 30th, which is right in the middle of the peak for the fall 

semester? And so we will at that point in time know all the training required, all the benefits, from a processing time, they will 

gather all of the intricacies of doing the change and be able to 

make a business decision of, does it make sense to install this on 

September 30th, or does it make sense to put it in at a different 

point in time? 

I think all those things have to factor in. Right now, given the 

fact that we have just experienced a reduction in functionality, I 

really hate using the word ‘‘slip,’’ but I think I will go ahead and 

do it, I wouldn’t want to then try and say, how do we do more? 

How do we bring things back in? 

I am focused on, and I think everybody here sees that we are focused on March 31st, June 30th, and December 2010. Those to me 

are the hardest dates in there. The September date, while important, is the one that I think we leave up to VBA to determine when 

they want to install it. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Captain Krause, I have three daughters, and they 

help me with my iTunes and get songs, legally, not any other way. 

But I guess what I am saying is, is that, I can text and this and 

that, but using some technology can be a bit challenging. On the 

progress of the CH 33 Long-Term Solution in your testimony, will 

you explain to me the first two bullet points? 

Captain KRAUSE. What page is that on, sir? 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Page 2, where it starts, ‘‘completed a rules-based 

engine locating all CH 33 business rules.’’ 

Captain KRAUSE. Is this under the section under the progress or 

the milestone? 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Under the progress. 

Captain KRAUSE. Progress. Essentially this is the question about 

the secure cloud computing environment. And actually, you are 

using a cloud right now. If you have an e-mail account with Google 

or Yahoo or one of the e-mail or even your music that your daughters help you download, you have to go to a cloud to get it. The 

cloud essentially is maintained by the service provider, and it has 

the applications and the data in it. So, in our case, we have gone 

to a commercial provider where our applications and data will be 

stored and maintained, and we don’t really have to think or worry 

about the infrastructure. That is not really our concern. 

We rent—no, we don’t rent. We lease that service. We purchase 

a service from this commercial provider. It is a hosting service. And 

so another way of explaining cloud computing, it is an application 

hosting service instead of something we buy or maintain. And so 

it is very scaleable. And essentially all you have to worry about is 

connecting to the cloud. You don’t have to worry about the details 

inside the cloud. So that is kind of a real simple way of describing 

cloud computing. 

And in this particular case, they have given us a segmented 

cloud of our own for the VA that specifically complies with the VA 


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security requirements, pays attention to personal identifiable information, which is sensitive data like your Social Security number, 

that you don’t want exposed. Those kinds of protections this cloud 

environment gives us in this situation that is maintained for us. So 

that is the second bullet. 

Mr. BAKER. If I could, I just need to put a point as the security 

head for VA and the IT. We have sent the folks out and determined 

this is as secure as if we were processing it in one of our own data 

centers. There is a lot of security around this. So I want to assure 

people there is not an issue with that. 

Captain KRAUSE. And Mr. Baker I think has the final sign-off on 

that solution, too, so we stay very close with him on giving briefs 

on what the status of that is. 

And sir, you asked about the third bullet. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Just the first two. 

Captain KRAUSE. Okay, the first two. Again, the rules-based engine is essentially an engine where you can input the rules and essentially update the software—in the old way of thinking, if you 

made a change to software, you would have to go in and change 

all the code, do regression testing, test the whole application. And 

it could take several months, if not years, to do it. 

In this application, the vision eventually is for Mr. Wilson’s folks 

to have access to the rules-based engine, and when he comes up 

with a rule, they come out with a Frye amendment or some other 

change. His folks go into the Web, change the rules engine, and it 

automatically is implemented in the software without having to go 

in and change the application code. So that is kind of what serviceoriented architecture, that is one of the benefits of service-oriented 

architecture (SOA), is you can reuse code and you can go in and 

make changes on the fly that are immediately implemented. 

So that is why we are laying the foundation for this project on 

a SOA-based foundation, which may be painful now, but in the long 

run, it will avoid years of software changes that are not going to 

be required. We will be able to do it very immediately. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Good. Thank you very much. One other thing, this 

came up at the Call Center when the staff was down visiting. It 

appeared—well, what seems to be happening is that if a veteran 

calls with an issue and the employee sees a simple fix to the solution; in other words, it comes into the Call Center, they could go 

in and dig around and figure out what was wrong, and yet unless 

the call came from the jurisdiction of the Muskogee center, they 

really couldn’t fix the problem. So is that—I guess what we are 

asking is if that is really—is there a way perhaps for those very 

simple things that—is there a way to do that instead of fixing it, 

then having to send a request to another center someplace, and 

then that kind of stacking up there until they get to it, does that 

make sense? 

Mr. WILSON. It does make sense. And the short answer is, yes, 

that capability exists. When we set up the National Education Call 

Center, we did staff the Education Call Center with a certain number of veterans claims examiners to be able to address specifically 

those situations. So I do have as a task following this hearing to 

find out the specifics I need to provide a full answer. But right 

now, the Education Call Center does have that capability. 


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Mr. BOOZMAN. Okay. Good. I appreciate that. Like I said, that is 

a little thing, but it does seem like it might be something that 

might make things a little bit more efficient. I think what you are 

going to do for us, Mr. Baker, in the sense of updating us periodically with your briefings, I think that is really excellent, and we 

appreciate you being willing to—I think that will just help us as 

we go along with the process. 

So thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Boozman. 

A question for any of you. I think when we were talking about 

the Release 1.0 versus Release 2.0, is Release 2.0 pretty much fully 

supplanting Release 1.0? How long do you anticipate it is going to 

take to train the veterans claims examiners in each of the releases? 

Captain KRAUSE. In the testimony, I talked about our strategy 

for training the veterans, if you will, using folks on-site. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Training veterans to use it. 

Captain KRAUSE. On training the veterans claims examiners, you 

are right. We haven’t done this before. SPAWAR folks have not 

trained VCEs before. All the training now has been done inside of 

VA. So I don’t know that we have a feel for that yet. I think we 

will have a feel for that once we do the limited release. I think we 

will have a better feel for it. 

The things that I mention on page 5 of the testimony are things 

that are ongoing right now. But I think if you can go to the Web 

and you can actually do your training online and do simulated 

claims and if you have an on-site person to help you, I think it— 

I don’t know that we have an estimate to determine that. 

Mr. WILSON. The training that is going to be used for the LongTerm Solution is different than the way we have trained people in 

the past in that integrated into the application itself is self-paced 

training modules. So those individuals will be able to use the application itself to train. It will have use cases, et cetera, in it. So we 

would expect that to be a more efficient process than gathering 

people together in classrooms, preparing training material, et 

cetera, et cetera. 

What I can tell you is the training for the interim solution, the 

initial training for the interim solution was about 40 hours per person, about a work week per person. We would expect this initial 

training to be something less than that, but we don’t have yet exactly defined what that less would be at this point. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, that will be important to pull together and to share with us after Release 1.0. Because while meeting the technical requirements of the system, you know the personnel training requirement could cause a slip, in terms of meeting 

the needs of the veterans when they need it as we get ready and 

into the fall semester. 

Mr. BAKER. Part of the reason for the June 30th release date is 

to make certain that we have plenty of time to do the training to 

make certain that people are really up to speed. I mean, clearly, 

one of the issues in the fall was we had a brandnew law, brandnew 

system, lots of new folks. And bringing them up to speed was one 

of the issues. They know—the people are there. They are trained. 

They know the law. They know the process now. We won’t have 


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those issues. But it is a new system, and we know we are going 

to need training time on this. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Captain Krause, it sounds, as you described it, in terms of this kind of service that there is a significant 

degree of flexibility so that if Congress chooses to modify this benefit in any way, that we have a flexible system to work with. We 

don’t have to start from scratch, and we don’t have an old legacy 

system and the restrictions that imposes on us to be able to make 

legislative changes to modify benefits and then can’t meet the expectation of the delivery of those benefits. We want to make sure 

that it is flexible in the future. While you have described the flexibility it offers to set it up, after the system is established, what 

happens? I mean, the relationship here continues, or is the VA 

somehow going to have the in-house technological expertise to go 

in and make some of the changes, given the flexibility of the system that, Captain Krause, you described the system would provide? 

I mean, is VA going to be able to do that? 

Captain KRAUSE. In my opinion, I think so. The people that I 

have met that work in the VA, they have some really highly competent IT technical experts that could easily do that. Eventually we 

will be transitioning this system over to a VA data center to be 

managed by the VA, but I am confident that they can. They have 

SOA experts, service-oriented architects, experts that are working 

closely with us, that we are working closely together. And I think 

there will be the cross pollination there by the time it is deployed. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. 

Any thoughts. 

Mr. BAKER. I think the logical thing is to expect a transition. I 

don’t think any of us expect that on December 31st, it will be all 

VA and no SPAWAR on this. Because while it is rules-based, I 

think the best way to think of rules-based is, in between natural 

language and programming, there is an area. And we talk about 

training. We are going to want to make certain that the subject 

matter experts in the Education Service really understand what 

they are doing when they change those rules. And so there will be 

support on that. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I am sure you would appreciate if Congress knew what we were doing when we changed the rules. 

Mr. BAKER. That is really what education is doing, is reflecting 

Congress’s will. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. So we want to make it easier. Nice answer. 

We are going to work to share information because there are 

some very important pending bills, some of which we have had a 

chance to discuss, have hearings about, that we already have found 

agreement to try to change and support. The new benefit is very 

complex, but there will be changes made. We want to make sure 

that we are sharing information; we have an understanding, so 

that when we do make those changes, we are easing the path, not 

complicating it. 

Mr. BAKER. Just to be very clear, implementing a rules-based engine does not guarantee that every time there will be no programming. It greatly increases the probability that we can change someVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:12 Jun 14, 2010 Jkt 055224 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\VA\55224.XXX APPS06 PsN: 55224

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thing without having to say, it will take us 6 months and 15 programmers to do that. 

But given the range of things that Congress might decide that 

it wants to do with a program such as this, with a benefit such as 

this, there is no way to anticipate everything that could possibly 

occur. I say that as the person that is going to have to implement 

these things after SPAWAR is no longer involved with it. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I have some questions here on the Call 

Center. Mr. Boozman has already directed some of his questions to 

you on that, as well as sort of workforce issues here to sort of 

elaborate on the PowerPoint on page 5, but I will submit those to 

you in writing. 

I just want to spend the rest of our time, a few more moments 

on the still-pending claims for the fall semester of last year and the 

spring semester of 2010. I know you gave us the updates on the 

numbers here. 

Mr. Baker, I think you said there are 1,500 remaining claims for 

the fall 2009 semester, and that, for the bulk of those, more information is needed from the student. What kind of information? The 

student has the responsibility of providing some information, but 

is there any way, in light of the fact that these are pending claims 

for last semester, that we can expedite this? What kind of additional information do you need from the student? 

Mr. BAKER. I am going to ask Mr. Wilson to answer that one. 

Mr. WILSON. It will generally fall in a couple categories. First of 

all, the 1,500 number, we are down to about somewhat less than 

1,000 now. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Is that certificates of merit, or is that 

payments? 

Mr. WILSON. These are payments. We are specifically talking 

about fall payments. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. So all the certificates of eligibility for last 

fall, there is nothing pending there. 

Mr. WILSON. No, that is not correct. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Is it less than 1,000 pending payments? 

Mr. WILSON. Of payments. I am talking strictly about enrolled 

students, individuals we know are enrolled for the fall, that had 

not received payment yet. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Is it payment for tuition? Is it payment 

for housing? 

Mr. WILSON. Depending on the case, whatever entitlement they 

are eligible for, no payment has gone out on those to either the 

school or, if it is due to the veteran, the housing or books stipend 

had not gone out. There could be information—first of all, every individual in this category has been contacted by VA, and we have 

been in contact with them to let them know specifically what is 

needed. 

It could be information that is lacking concerning service 

verification from the Department of Defense. It could be information from the schools. It could be that the student did not fill out 

the required information on the application. Unfortunately, it 

would be a case-by-case specific situation. It could be that the 

school is waiting to submit the enrollment information to us because the student may not have completed some kind of requireVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:12 Jun 14, 2010 Jkt 055224 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\VA\55224.XXX APPS06 PsN: 55224

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ment at the school. We would be happy to look into it further, but 

all I have right now is just broad categories of those situations. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I think we do need to look into it further. 

I appreciate that every one of them has been contacted, but as you 

said, it is case by case. 

Is service verification from DoD, the student’s responsibility? 

Mr. WILSON. No, that would be our responsibility. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Again, I think we need more information 

so we can clear the decks as soon as possible. 

Mr. WILSON. I understand. I am happy to do that. 

[The following was subsequently received by the VA:] 

VA contacted students and schools to receive required claim and enrollment documents, and all of the 1,000 claims have been processed. VA continues to receive enrollments for both spring and fall terms. VA is now processing payments for all Chapter 33 claims within 7 to 10 days of receipt 

and consistently completing more claims per week than received. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Regarding spring 2010. I appreciate you 

taking us through some of the steps that you have taken; where 

you are with the numbers. You have bumped up the number of 

claims examiners to deal with some of that. Some of these will relate to the questions I will submit in writing with regard to the 

personnel issues in terms of the temporary workers, who you are 

going to keep, when you start losing temporary employees, et 

cetera. 

I think that, Mr. Baker, you had said it wasn’t out to the schools, 

being a notification, right, that anything received by January 19— 

let me find where that question is. 

Mr. BAKER. That is correct. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Would be processed by February 1, right? 

Mr. BAKER. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. What has been the response from the 

schools thus far? Did you get a significant number of enrollment 

certifications after that letter was sent out a couple of days ago? 

Mr. WILSON. I don’t know that we have had enough time to determine the response from the letter. What I can tell you is last 

week we received 115,000 enrollment certs from schools, so we are 

beginning to get in that highest volume period. We will probably 

top out the 1st week of February in terms of the volume of incoming work, and then it will decline fairly rapidly from there. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. So you have said to those schools, those 

115,000 that came in last week, will all be processed by February 

1. 

Mr. WILSON. Yes, ma’am. February 1 if they are due payments 

on February 1. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Do you have any other questions? 

Mr. BOOZMAN. I am sorry, Madam Chair. I had just one other 

thing real quick, and this refers back to the staff visit. You guys, 

we need to keep them at home so that we won’t make your work 

more difficult. 

But when they were out there, they requested a report detailing 

the workload and resources needed to meet VA strategic goals for 

the education programs through next September. 


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I guess the question is when we might expect that report. And 

that is important so that we can accurately reflect as we do our 

views and estimates. If we have that information, then we can try 

and figure what kinds of resources we need to request to help you 

get the backlog worked out. Again, I think we can be helpful to you 

in that way, but we have to understand what is going on. 

Mr. WILSON. Understood. I can commit to you that we will have 

an answer concerning when we will have that information to you, 

this week. We are still working out some, I guess, ‘‘modeling,’’ for 

lack of a better term, concerning what—when the claims will be in. 

We feel, as Mr. Baker indicated, very comfortable that we can meet 

the February 1 deadline that we put out. Once we get to that point 

and we believe we have achieved that, then we can look more effectively at the resource issues and address perhaps some of the Call 

Center issues, et cetera. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, again, thank you guys for being here. We do 

appreciate you and your staffs and all that you guys represent. I 

know that you are working really very, very hard, and it is just everybody working together try to go sort this out, giving you the resources that you need. We have a great, a great program, but we 

have to figure out how to administer it. 

Like I said, we appreciate your hard work. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Boozman. 

I just have one question that I will ask on behalf of both of us. 

Since we sent the VA a letter together, November 12 of last year, 

we are just wondering if you could provide an update to us, Mr. 

Wilson, as to whether you have implemented any of the recommendations that Mr. Boozman and I made. Could you speak to 

that? 

Mr. WILSON. Yes. Unfortunately, I don’t have the specifics here. 

I will be happy to provide it for the record. 

[The VA subsequently provided the answer in response to Question #8 in the Post-Hearing Questions and Responses for the 

Record, which appears on p. 33.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Yes, if you could get back to us, 

just so we know which recommendations you have acted on, because these were made in light of the problems in the fall that we 

hope to avoid in the spring. We thought we had some good ideas. 

So let us know, if you didn’t implement some of these, what the 

justification was. 

I think that is going to wrap us up, but I really do appreciate 

the testimony and the presentations. 

Before we adjourn the hearing today, I do want to echo Mr. 

Boozman’s opening remarks with regard to the work done by VA 

employees at the Muskogee Regional Processing Center and the 

Education Call Center for their service to our Nation’s veterans 

and their dependents. I know Mr. Wilson that we will work with 

you and Ms. Ruben, to address some of the issues that we have 

raised here today. 

The VA employees there, their strong commitment to our veterans is one that we all share on this Subcommittee. I know that 

the staff appreciated the opportunity to be there more recently. As 

Mr. Boozman said, he has been there previously as well. 


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We will continue to work to make sure that these dedicated employees have the resources that they need, that you have the resources as leaders in your organizations and departments, that you 

need to reduce the backlog of the pending education claims to provide timely customer service. There are existing authorities should 

be utilized for the benefit of the veterans as the first priority. 

We thank you for your service to our Nation’s veterans, and for 

your testimony today. 

The hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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A P P E N D I X 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, 

Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

Some of those in the audience may recall that our first hearing of 2009 was on 

the implementation of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. This was followed up by supplemental 

hearings that sought to ensure VA’s progress on the short- and long-term information technology solutions. I hope that it is clear to our panelists before us today that 

by making this our first hearing of 2010, we demonstrate the continued importance 

of the subject at hand. 

I’m sure my colleagues will agree that the current delays in processing education 

claims are unacceptable. While the Administration shares my concerns regarding 

these shortcomings, the blame does not rest solely with the VA. The processing of 

a single claim requires multiple steps involving multiple parties and computer systems, all of which must work in-sync with one another in order for a veteran to receive his or her benefits in a timely manner. These computer difficulties demonstrate the need for a fully functional Long-Term Solution. 

Furthermore, the Subcommittee staff’s recent visit to the VA’s Regional Processing Center and Education Call Center in Muskogee, Oklahoma has raised some 

concerns. They include: 

• The closure of Education Call Center hours on Thursdays and Fridays provides 

veterans only 3 days to call for assistance on education matters. While we understand the value of using Call Center staff to process education claims, the 

VA can have the Call Center open 5 days per week by dispersing the same work 

hours throughout the week; 

• Second, the availability of temporary employees after September 2010. While we 

all would like to have a fully operational Long-Term Solution by December 

2010, the reality of the limited time frame to implement this complex IT system 

may require the VA to push back its deadline. Ensuring that VA has the 

trained personnel to continue to process education claims, and field incoming 

calls, can help avoid further delays in receipt of education benefits; 

• The third concern involves VA’s current policy limiting Education Call Center 

operators from taking action on education claims outside of the Muskogee region. The current policy requires that claims originating outside of the 

Muskogee region be referred to the appropriate Regional Office for action. We 

have been informed that by authorizing these operators, who are responsible for 

taking all educational benefit calls, to make simple updates to a veterans file 

would result in faster service and avoid long wait periods for action; and 

• Finally, the visit to the Education Call Center raised equipment concerns that 

create dropped calls and require constant maintenance which I hope VA will address quickly. 

I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panelists participating in today’s 

hearing, specifically on how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is addressing 

these concerns, and making progress in implementing its Long-Term Solution that 

seeks to streamline the way education claims are currently processed. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Hon. John Boozman, 

Ranking Republican Member, Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

Good afternoon. Madam Chair, the successful development and implementation of 

the new computer system to manage the Post-9/11 GI Bill is vital to delivering accurate and timely education benefits, not just for Chapter 33, but for all the education 

programs. 


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Before we begin, I would like to address three other issues that affect delivery 

of education benefits to our veterans and are easily solvable. The first two are issues 

involving the operation of the National Call Center in Muscogee. 

Our staffs visited the Regional Processing Office and the National Call Center in 

Muscogee last week. They met with managers and frontline claims and Call Center 

workers. While meeting with management, the staff expressed their concern that 

the National Call Center was closed 2 days per week to allow the workers to assist 

in processing education claims. While the staff readily agreed that diversion of some 

labor hours to processing claims they suggested that spreading those processing 

labor hours over the work week would also allow the Call Center to remain open. 

As a result of that discussion, local VA management forwarded a request to the VA’s 

Office of Field Operations to make the changes suggested and therein lies my concern: Why does it take a suggestion from congressional staff to raise such a commonsense issue and why do those responsible at the local level need to get permission from central office? 

Second, the Call Center operates from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. central time with no one 

to answer calls coming outside those hours. That means people living outside the 

continental U.S. have very limited windows in which to contact the Call Center. 

Given the high rates of blocked and dropped calls, I suspect beneficiaries living in 

the Pacific and European areas have little chance of getting assistance from the Call 

Center. Again, the solution is simple . . . stagger the working hours of a few employees to cover a wider range of the day. If that takes additional overtime or incentive 

pay, based on the staffs’ discussions with Call Center employees, the extra hours 

or pay differential would be welcome. 

Madam Chair, my staff says that every call they take regarding the Post-9/11 GI 

Bill includes complaints about the difficulty getting through to the Call Center. The 

way VA is managing Call Center operations defies logic and decisions on working 

hours should be left to the Muscogee management team. Regardless, closing the Call 

Center 2 days per week when there are alternatives that meet VA’s claims production needs AND provide customer service at the same time, I suppose that is a subject for the future, but given the challenges facing VA, the Department does not 

need to be making their own lives more difficult by mismanaging its operations and 

I hope they will reconsider how they are operating the Call Center. 

Madam Chair, I look forward to today’s testimony and yield back. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Captain Mark Krause, USNR (Ret.), 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Program Manager, 

Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, 

Department of the Navy, U.S. Department of Defense 

Good afternoon, Chairwoman Sandlin, Ranking Member Boozman, and Members 

of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the current status of the Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution (LTS—Chapter 33 of 

Title 38, United States Code). My testimony will address the key milestones and 

dates, current progress of the Long-Term Solution, capabilities of the planned releases, and project challenges. 

CH 33 LTS Key Milestones and Dates are as follows: 

• March 31, 2010—Planned date for Release 1.0 

• June 30, 2010—Planned date for Release 2.0 

• September 30, 2010—Planned date for Release 3.0 

• December 31, 2010—Planned date for Release 4.0 

Progress of the CH 33 Long-Term Solution 

During the 4 months since our last meeting with the Subcommittee the CH 33 

team has accomplished the following: 

• Completed a rules-based engine locating all CH 33 business rules in one area 

separate from the application logic consistent with Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles. 

• Established the development and production hosting capabilities in a secure 

cloud computing environment with secure network communications to VA legacy systems. 

• Successfully integrated subject matter experts from the VA’s field operations 

into the development process to ensure the CH 33 LTS application will best 

support the Veterans Claim Examiners’ (VCEs’) processing requirements and 

priorities. 


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• Completed a complex data interface with the VA/DoD Identity Repository 

(VADIR) application. 

Near-Term Goals 

• Deploying an early CH 33 LTS Release 1.0 in March 2010 to a limited number 

of VCEs where original claims can be moved to and processed in the LTS automated, rules-based environment. 

Explanation of the System Being Developed 

There are four Veterans Affairs Regional Processing Offices (RPOs) responsible for 

processing thousands of claims from veterans seeking to use the CH 33 educational 

benefits. The adjudication process relies on highly trained VCEs to determine eligibility, calculate entitlement, and process the award. This requires them to interface 

multiple disjointed systems and perform significant manual entry. 

The objective of the Chapter 33 LTS is to support the new legislative requirements with a Web-based tool that will provide automation and standardization to 

the adjudication process. This will significantly reduce the time to process a claim 

and the number of VCEs required. Additional benefits will be efficiency, accuracy, 

predictability and reliable results. Additionally, the tool will support the need for 

transparent data exchange and reporting while being flexible enough to adapt to future changes in policy and law. 

Capabilities of the Planned CH 33 LTS Releases 

CH 33 LTS Release 1.0 will be deployed to incorporate the core features necessary 

to process new claims to include tuition payments, housing allowances, re-enlistment incentives, books and fees. The primary objective of Release 1.0 will be to validate application performance, deployment strategies, and expected changes to business operations. A key system interface will be eligibility data from VADIR. 

Release 2.0 will begin the transition from the current CH 33 interim solution 

front-end tool and job aid, enabling the VCEs to completely migrate off the Chapter 

33 interim solution. Release 2.0 will expand the capabilities of the earlier release 

by enabling VCEs to amend awards and process transfer of entitlement claims. 

Release 3.0 will improve claims processing efficiency by automating the complex 

CH 33 financial transaction/authorization process currently required to authorize 

payments for claims. This will be achieved by establishing a system interface with 

the VA’s Financial Accounting System (FAS). 

The feedback from Release 1.0 through 3.0 will determine the requirements and 

scope of Release 4.0. 

Implementation Challenges 

The challenges being overcome include (1) translating the complexity of the CH 

33 benefits adjudication into a business rules approach that will enable the system 

to quickly adapt to legislative interpretations, changes, and priorities; (2) access to 

the limited number of subject matter experts in claim adjudication, processes, and 

policies; (3) identifying the myriad number of scenarios for amending (changing) 

award amounts; (4) converting the data from the VA interim solution because of 

independent workarounds and interpretations at RPOs; and (5) the complexity and 

the inconsistency in systems architectures and data across multiple VA and DoD 

systems. 

Training Requirements 

The CH 33 LTS team is currently developing a Web-based, interactive training 

system to teach VCEs how to use LTS application to process Chapter 33 claims. The 

training system will include (1) self-paced tutorial material and hands-on processing 

of simulated Chapter 33 claims, (2) 508 compliant, learning management system 

(LMS) to assess individual VCEs progress and demonstrate competency using the 

LTS system, (3) classroom training materials to teach the RPO training coordinators 

how to administer the Web-based system to the VCE community, and (4) on-site 

support during the initial RPO deployment. 

We are confident that the release of the CH 33 LTS will be completed by December 31, 2010. 

Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer 

any questions you or any of the other Members of the Subcommittee may have. 

f 


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Prepared Statement of Hon. Roger W. Baker, 

Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, 

Office of Information and Technology, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

Good afternoon, Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, Ranking Member Boozman, and 

Members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you 

today to discuss the status of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. My testimony will address the 

current status of education claims, steps taken to reduce the pending inventory and 

prepare for the spring enrollment period, and the status of the implementation of 

the Post-9/11 GI Bill Long-Term Solution. 

Current Status 

On May 1, 2009, VA began accepting applications to determine eligibility for the 

Post-9/11 GI Bill. On July 7, 2009, we started accepting enrollment certifications 

from school certifying officials for veterans utilizing their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits 

for the fall term, and began processing claims for payment. Since May 1, 2009, we 

have received over 1.5 million claims for education benefits under all education programs, and have processed approximately 1.4 million claims. More than 389,000 veterans have applied for certificates of eligibility under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. VA has 

provided decisions with respect to approximately 346,000 of these veterans. VA has 

issued over $1.3 billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments to approximately 

180,000 individuals and their educational institutions. 

Claims-processing time frames have risen due to the increased workload from the 

Post-9/11 GI Bill. For fiscal year 2009, the average time to process all education 

benefit claims took 26 days for original claims and 13 days for supplemental claims. 

For this fiscal year, our average processing time is 59 days for original claims and 

26 days for supplemental claims. Original applications under the Post-9/11 GI Bill 

are taking an average of 61 days to process, while enrollment certifications are taking an average of 38 days. 

Fall Enrollment 

As you are aware, many veterans enrolled in schools during the fall of 2009 encountered unacceptable delays with respect to receipt of their benefits. I believe it 

is important to convey, on behalf of Secretary Shinseki and every member of the 

VA team, our apologies for those delays and our understanding that the impacts of 

those delays on veterans are unacceptable. We believe we have identified and resolved the causes of many of those delays, and that the results for the spring enrollment will be substantially improved over those of the fall. The three primary contributors to the fall processing delays were: 

1. Substantially longer time to process each claim than expected, caused by the 

rudimentary IT tools available in the interim solution; 

2. Startup problems including delays in interim solution functionality that caused 

us to fall behind; 

3. Insufficient staffing levels to compensate for the shortfalls caused by 1 and 2. 

Although we continue to receive fall-semester enrollment certifications even today, 

there are currently under 1,500 enrollment certificates remaining to be completed, 

with the remaining certificates requiring further information from the affected students before they can be completed. 

Spring Enrollment 

VA has taken numerous steps to reduce the number of pending claims and prepare for the spring enrollment period. As a result of these improvements, VA has 

been able to increase its daily completions of Chapter 33 enrollment certificates 

from the average of 1,800 per day we experienced during October to the nearly 

7,000 per day we have been able to achieve during January. These improvements 

include the following: 

• On October 28, 2009, VA awarded a 90-day contract to Affiliated Computer 

Services in London, Kentucky to provide claims processing support for non-Post9/11 GI Bill claims. This effort allows VA to focus resources on the more complex Post-9/11 GI Bill claims. As of January 8, 2010, the contractor has processed over 51,500 claims, and has been instrumental in helping VA reduce its 

pending workload. 

• VA continues to utilize the 230 term employees hired through the funding provided by Congress under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). 

In addition, we implemented a mandatory overtime policy at the four Regional 

Processing Offices (RPOs), requiring all employees to work 3 additional days per 

month. 


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• In an additional effort to reduce the workload and allow the RPOs to divert resources to other areas, we are utilizing 200 ARRA employees at five VA satellite 

offices in addition to the 230 term employees to authorize Post-9/11 GI Bill payments. The employees work 7 days a week based on the workload. • On November 9, 2009, VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) delivered the third and final phase of the interim claims processing solution, which 

provides increased functionality and additional automation for processing Post9/11 GI Bill claims. This phase provides the functionality for processing both 

amended awards and overlapping terms. Amended awards include changes in 

a student’s actual charges for tuition and fees and reduced or increased course 

loads. • We have implemented policies to streamline the entire claims process based on 

case reviews and identifying duplication of efforts and redundant or unneeded 

development. • Because veterans were not receiving their benefits timely, VA began issuing advance housing-allowance payments to veterans on October 2, 2009. As of January 11, 2010, VA made advance payments to over 113,000 veterans, totaling approximately $330.2 million. Out of this total number of advance payments 

made, approximately 76,000 veterans eligible for the Post-9/11 GI Bill received 

approximately $226.5 million. 

Although VA continues to receive and process fall enrollments, we are also focusing on the significant number of spring enrollments that we are now receiving for 

all education programs. As of January 13, VA has received Post-9/11 GI Bill spring 

enrollments for 111,470 veterans, of which 80,464 have been processed. We took aggressive action to eliminate the backlog of fall enrollments, and we are using all 

available resources to ensure veterans receive their education benefits for the spring 

terms accurately and on time. To further ensure veterans who enroll in the spring 

term receive their benefits on time, VA set a goal, one that we are confident we can 

achieve, to process any enrollment certification we receive before January 19, 2010, 

for payment by February 1, 2010. 

Long-Term Solution 

VA partnered with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic 

(SPAWAR) to develop an end-to-end claims processing solution that utilizes rulesbased, industry-standard technologies for the delivery of education benefits. This is 

our Long-Term Strategy for implementing the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The Post-9/11 GI 

Bill includes numerous eligibility and entitlement criteria and contemplates benefit 

determinations that can best be made using rules-based technology that requires 

minimal human intervention. 

VA’s automated IT system is scheduled to be released in four phases to ensure 

robustness and stability. Release 1 of this effort is to replace the current 

functionality of the interim solution and eliminate the need for external job aids to 

process Post-9/11 GI Bill claims. Release 2 will provide automated data feeds for 

both claim and veteran information. Release 3 will provide automated data feeds 

into the VA financial processing systems. Finally, Release 4 will provide a veteran 

self-service interface to view the status of claims. 

While Release 1 is scheduled for deployment on March 31, 2010, this release has 

been changed to a limited ‘‘pilot’’ release, which will deliver the capability to complete original claims; automatically calculate awards including tuition and fees, 

housing, books and supplies, Yellow Ribbon, Montgomery GI Bill-Active Duty and 

Reserve Educational Assistance Program kickers; and automatically calculate 

awards for overlapping terms and intervals. OI&T plans to deploy Release 1 to a 

limited set of claims processors to restrict the impact on the user community. 

VA expected Release 1 to also include the functionality to convert and transfer 

data from the interim processing solution to the Long-Term Solution in order to 

enter supplemental awards for a claimant after an original award was processed in 

the interim solution; process Transfer of Entitlement and Fry Scholarship claims; 

amend awards for increases, reduction, or terminations; and pay Post-9/11 GI Bill 

kickers and supplemental kickers. 

The above-mentioned modification from the reduced functionality in Release 1 is 

caused by a substantially increased appreciation of the complexity of amended 

awards. As our subject matter experts (SMEs) worked with the SPAWAR team new 

software requirements were identified, and it became clear these new requirements 

could not be incorporated by the March 31, 2010, milestone requirement. Under our 

Program Management Accountability System (PMAS), missing a milestone date has 

substantial consequences, and so a decision was made in conjunction with VBA to 

allow the delivery of reduced functionality in order to make the milestone date. 

Most importantly, as this will be the first delivery of software for the Long-Term 


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Solution, I believe it is critical that real users begin to use the software for production work, as this is the only way to assure ourselves that the project is delivering 

an acceptable product. 

While complete functionality for the subsequent releases has yet to be determined, 

VA anticipates Release 2, to be delivered on June 30, 2010, will include the remaining features necessary to migrate the claims processors off the interim processing 

solution. VA, OI&T, and SPAWAR will conduct meetings the week of January 25, 

2010, to finalize the functional requirements for Releases 2, 3, and 4 of the LongTerm Solution. We still anticipate the successful delivery of all the functional requirements for the Long-Term Solution by December 2010. 

Temporary Claims Examiners 

To support Post-9/11 GI Bill claims processing, VA hired 530 term employees 

under a 13-month authority that can be extended up to 4 years. The term employees 

are part of VA’s short-term solution until OI&T delivers the long-term claims processing solution. VA will routinely measure the impact the Long-Term Solution has 

on our ability to accurately and timely process Post-9/11 GI Bill claims. 

Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer 

any questions you or other Members of the Subcommittee may have. 

[Text version of PowerPoint Slide Presentation] 

Post-9/11 GI Bill Long-Term Solution Implementation 

January 2010 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Education Service 

Washington, D.C. 

Long-Term Solution Requirements 

• VA enlisted SPAWAR to develop a rules-based automated Post-9/11 GI Bill 

claims processing system that includes and expands upon functionality provided 

by the interim solution. • Key requirements 

• Processing of original and supplemental Post-9/11 GI Bill claims, including 

Transfer of Entitlement (ToE) and Fry Scholarship claims. • Automated calculation of all Post-9/11 GI Bill awards, including: tuition and 

fee payments, housing allowance, books and supplies stipend, and Yellow Ribbon payments; benefit program kickers; overlapping and interval terms, and 

award amendments. • Retrieval of demographic and service data from VADIR. • Interface to payment system for automated payments. • Veteran Self-Service capabilities. 

Long-Term Solution Release 1 Functionality 

Included Functionality Delayed Functionality 

• Processing of original Post-9/11 GI • Conversion and data transfer from 

Bill claims FET into LTS • Automated calculation of payment • Processing of ToE and Fry Scholarawards (including tuition and fees, ship claims 

housing, etc.) • Processing of Supplemental claims • Automated calculation of overlapping • Chapter 33 kickers and supplemental 

term and interval awards kickers • Demographic and service data from • Claims containing award amendVADIR ments (increases, decreases, etc.) 

Long-Term Solution Deployment Schedule 

• LTS Limited Release 1, March 31, 2010—Pilot group of users processing original claims to evaluate the technology and reengineered business processes. Only 

original clean claims; no data transfer from FET; no Transfer of Entitlement 

(ToE) or Fry Scholarship. 

• LTS Release 2, June 30, 2010—Replace Front-End Tool (FET) and Job Aid 

functionality, process ToE and Fry Scholarship claims, and receive data transfer 

from FET. 


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• LTS Release 3, September 30, 2010—Adds interface to financial accounting system. 

• LTS Release 4, December, 2010—External interface to allow for veteran selfservice for applications and claims management. 

VA Future Staffing 

• VA originally hired 530 term employees for 13-month terms that may be extended up to 4 years. 

• VA will begin reducing term employee workforce in the first quarter of FY2011. 

• VA will monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the LTS to inform term employee reductions. 

• VA will make a final determination on when employment terms should end 

based upon completion of LTS delivery. 

VA Benefits During Spring Semester 

• VA has received enrollment certifications for 90,604 veterans, and has processed 

61,595. 

• VA has taken many steps to decrease the claims backlog, including: 

• Awarding a 90-day claims assistance contract to ACS, Inc. for recommendations on non-33 claims. 

• Redirecting 200 ARRA employees at regional offices nationwide to claims and 

payment functions. 

• Implementing streamlining policies and procedures. 

• Providing advance payments to individuals awaiting normal benefit payments. 

• Continuing to utilize 230 ARRA employees hired through August 2009 for 

claims processing. 

VA Requirements For LTS 

• The VA has tasked SPAWAR SYSCEN Atlantic with developing the Chapter 33 

Long-Term Solution (CH33 LTS) to replace the VA’s interim solution for processing veteran education claims under the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008. 

• By offering more ‘‘self-service functionality,’’ developing an accurate yet flexible 

rules engine, and implementing a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) infrastructure, the system will minimize manual intervention and maximize efficiency. 

LTS Implementation Date 

• It is expected that the Chapter 33 Long-Term Solution will be fully implemented by December 2010. 

• This solution will deliver incremental capabilities using an Agile software development methodology with four planned releases to achieve full operating capability (FOC): 

• Release 1 will improve upon existing claims-processing functionality; 

• Release 2 will add automation and efficiency to claims and veteran data; 

• Release 3 will add automation and efficiency to financial data; and 

• Release 4 will improve upon the veteran/claimant experience with self-service 

features. 


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POST–HEARING QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

Washington, DC. 

January 25, 2010 

Mr. Mark Krause 

Department of Veterans Affairs Program Manager 

Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center 

810 Vermont Ave., N.W. 

Washington, D.C. 20420 

Dear Mr. Krause: 

I would like to request your response to the enclosed questions for the record and 

deliverable I am submitting in reference to our House Committee on Veterans’ 

Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity hearing on The Future of the Post9/11 GI Bill Claims Processing System on January 21, 2010. Please answer the 

enclosed hearing questions by no later than Monday, February 22, 2010. 

In an effort to reduce printing costs, the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, in cooperation with the Joint Committee on Printing, is implementing some formatting 

changes for material for all full Committee and Subcommittee hearings. Therefore, 

it would be appreciated if you could provide your answers consecutively on letter 

size paper, single-spaced. In addition, please restate the question in its entirety before the answer. 

Due to the delay in receiving mail, please provide your response to Ms. Orfa 

Torres by fax at (202) 225–2034. If you have any questions, please call (202) 226– 

4150. 

Sincerely, 

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin 

Chairwoman 

JL/ot 

Questions for the Record 

The Honorable Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Chairwoman 

Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

The Future of the Post-9/11 GI Bill Claims Processing System 

January 21, 2010 

Question 1: When you are finished, will VA own all the software and hardware? 

Answer: Yes, the Veteran’s Administration, as a Federal entity, will own all 

SPAWARSYSCEN Atlantic purchased hardware, all government employee developed software, and all software license rights acquired in non-commercial software. 

Commercial software license rights acquired by SPAWARSYSCEN Atlantic transfer 

to the Veteran’s Administration. 

Question 2: You state that you have developed the production hosting capabilities in a secure cloud computing environment with a secure network. Where in VA 

is this being done and where will the bulk of equipment reside? 

Answer: Currently, on behalf of the Veteran’s Administration (VA), 

SPAWARSYSCEN Atlantic is leasing a dedicated cloud computing environment 

within a commercial hosting facility located in Culpepper, Virginia. The production 

environment is within a dedicated private cloud for the exclusive use of the VA. At 

the conclusion of the CH 33 Long-Term Solution project, the VA can continue to pay 

for this commercial hosting service, or transition the application to one of the VA’s 

data centers. 

Question 3: It is my understanding that the current system can only recognize 

the 2009 BAH rate and not 2010 at the same time, making it difficult for claims 

processors to provide veterans a more accurate rate. Will Release 1.0 be able to calculate the housing stipend using multiple BAH rates? 


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Answer: Release 1.0 is a limited pilot release for new claims only. However, 

based on direction from the VA, to ensure consistency with claims processing until 

the CH 33 Long-Term Solution is fully deployed, Release 1.0 will use the same business rules as implemented in the CH 33 interim solution for applying multiple BAH 

rates to housing allowances/stipend calculations. 

Question 4: When do you anticipate having the Web-based interactive training 

system completed and ready to be used as a training tool? 

Answer: Release 1.0 of the CH 33 Long-Term Solution Web-based interactive 

training system will be available to train the VA Education Service Training Team 

beginning 16 March 2010. Release 2.0 of the CH 33 Long-Term Solution Web-based 

interactive training modules is scheduled to be available for the Veteran’s Administration Education Service Training Team by 15 June 2010 to support the CH 33 

LTS Release 2.0 deployment. 

Question 5: How far along are you in testing the completed rules based engine? 

Answer: The commercial off-the-shelf rules-based engine infrastructure has been 

integrated into the CH 33 Long-Term Solution and is an integral component of the 

Release 1.0 capabilities. The business rules have been defined, fully tested and integrated into the LTS Release 1.0 application. As new business rules are incorporated 

they are being tested on a daily basis to validate the performance of the rules-based 

engine. 

Question 6: What problems do VA’s legacy systems present for the new system? 

Answer: 

• Many legacy VA capabilities were developed as stand-alone solutions not intended for an Enterprise Architecture approach. 

• Legacy systems are built on obsolete code without sufficient documentation 

and institutional knowledge which makes developing interfaces for the CH 33 

Long-Term Solution challenging. 

• Lack of standardized IT architectures and data structure across multiple VA 

and DoD systems creates challenges building systems interfaces for the LTS. 

Question 7: Can you elaborate on how Release 1.0 will: validate application performance, deployment strategies and expected changes to business operations? 

Answer: Application Performance—SPAWARSYSCEN Atlantic has worked with 

the Veteran’s Administration to define the performance and demand requirements 

for the applications. We have designed the CH 33 Long-Term Solution with the appropriate infrastructure to support these requirements. In order to test/validate the 

application performance, we have developed performance models and will be conducting the necessary load testing. We will also integrate various application performance management tools to monitor and collect metrics to measure the performance of the production system. 

Deployment Strategies—We are planning to deploy Release 1.0 for use at each of 

the four Regional Processing Offices (RPOs) incrementally on a weekly basis. From 

a technical deployment perspective, we have deployed multiple virtual environments 

within the development and production cloud computing environments to support 

testing, pre-production, and production. We will capture lessons learned from the 

limited adoption of Release 1.0 to improve future release deployments to become 

more effective and efficient. 

Business Operations—Upon the deployment of Release 1.0 we will capture feedback from the RPOs to assess the impact and identify improvements to business operations. We will leverage lessons learned to help improve the operational performance of the RPOs in streamlining the adjudication of CH 33 claims. 

Question 8: Are you confident that VA will be able to maintain and update the system? 

Answer: Yes, we are confident the VA will be able to maintain and update the 

CH 33 Long-Term Solution. 

Question 9: How much training time will be needed to train the claim examiners? 

Answer: We expect it will take a week to train the Veteran’s Administration (VA) 

Education Service Training Team Members (train the trainers) so they can train the 


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Veterans Claim Examiners at the four RPOs. We defer to the VA to answer how 

long it will take them to train the VCEs, or how this training will integrate into 

their training processes. 

Question 10: For the system being developed today for VA, how long into the future will the system be useful and how difficult will it be to perform updates? 

Answer: Generally speaking, software applications that are well maintained and 

updated can continue to be useful for over 20 years. The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) foundation the CH 33 LTS is built on will allow ‘‘faster, better, cheaper’’ 

updates and evolutions in the future. 

f 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

Washington, DC. 

January 25, 2010 

The Honorable Roger W. Baker 

Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

810 Vermont Ave., NW 

Washington, DC 20420 

Dear Assistant Secretary Baker: 

I would like to request your response to the enclosed questions for the record and 

deliverable I am submitting in reference to our House Committee on Veterans’ 

Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity hearing on The Future of the Post9/11 GI Bill Claims Processing System on January 21, 2010. Please answer the 

enclosed hearing questions by no later than Monday, February 22, 2010. 

In an effort to reduce printing costs, the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, in cooperation with the Joint Committee on Printing, is implementing some formatting 

changes for material for all full Committee and Subcommittee hearings. Therefore, 

it would be appreciated if you could provide your answers consecutively on letter 

size paper, single-spaced. In addition, please restate the question in its entirety before the answer. 

Due to the delay in receiving mail, please provide your response to Ms. Orfa 

Torres by fax at (202) 225–2034. If you have any questions, please call (202) 226– 

4150. 

Sincerely, 

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin 

Chairwoman 

JL/ot 

Questions for the Record 

The Honorable Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Chairwoman 

Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

The Future of the Post-9/11 GI Bill Claims Processing System 

January 21, 2010 

Question 1: How many permanent and temporary employees is VA projecting it 

will need beyond 2010? 

Response: In FY 2011, the implementation of the long-term automated processing solution for Post-9/11 GI Bill claims will allow us to address the expected 

workload and improve claims processing timeliness with 1,521 direct permanent full 

time employees (FTEs). We will carefully measure the impact the Long-Term Solution has on our ability to accurately and timely process Post-9/11 GI Bill claims and 

make appropriate staffing adjustments. 

Question 2: You state that Regional Processing Offices (RPOs) have diverted resources to other areas. As we understand from staff who visited the Oklahoma NaVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:53 Jun 17, 2010 Jkt 055224 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6621 Sfmt 6621 I:\VA\55224.XXX APPS06 PsN: 55224

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tional Call Center, employees are being transferred from their primary job to process claims. Why is this being done and how are the primary job areas being affected? 

Response: Timely delivery of education benefits is a top priority for VA. The 

backlog of education claims was driving call volume at our Call Center in Muskogee, 

Oklahoma to an all time high of 1.26 million call attempts during November. To 

help veterans receive their Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits more promptly, VA trained existing phone technicians at the Education Call Center to process pending education 

claims. Nearly 80,000 claims were pending and timeliness measures were extremely 

high in December when VA decided to redirect phone agents to claim processing. 

On December 10, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) redirected 155 Call 

Center employees to claims processing on Thursdays and Fridays, our lowest call 

volume days. These employees joined 1,032 existing education employees nationwide 

in processing pending education claims for the fall and spring semesters. There is 

a direct correlation between pending claims and increased call volumes; the volume 

of calls exponentially decreases as we are able to pay more veterans. 

This temporary measure improved the timely processing of veterans’ Chapter 33 

claims, and resulted in a lower call volume and blocked call rate during the month 

of January 2010. On February 18, 2010, the Call Center resumed normal business 

hours 5 days a week. 

Question 3: VA received the third and final phase of the short-term solution on 

November 9, 2009 to process amended awards and overlapping terms. What delay 

did this create and was VA able to process amended awards and overlapping terms 

before November 2009? 

Response: The delay in deployment of the final phase of the interim solution 

caused a delay in issuing payment on amended awards and overlapping terms. 

These types of awards can now be completed with the same timeliness as all others. 

However, since the interim solution did not materially improve the speed of processing, the overall effect of deploying the final phase on timely distribution of checks 

will be moderate. VA expects to begin seeing significant improvements in timeliness 

with the deployment of Release 2 of the Long-Term Solution in June 2010. 

Question 4: In visiting the Call Center, it seems that most of the phone technicians were unable to make corrections when a veteran calls them based on regional 

jurisdiction. Why is this the case and is this being reviewed to permit them to make 

corrections? 

Response: VBA and the Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) are working to improve access across jurisdictions. The primary systems used by the education program are The Image Management System (TIMS), Benefits Delivery Network (BDN), and the interim solution. All systems are used to process and make 

corrections to claims. These systems are limited in the volume of users and the capability to cross RPO jurisdictional lines. Due to these system limitations, VBA developed internal processes that allow the Call Center technicians to expedite processing and make adjustments to claims identified as having financial hardships. 

Non-hardship claims are provided to the RPO of jurisdiction for normal processing. 

OI&T plans to make changes to TIMS and BDN over the next few months to improve response time and access for VBA staff. For BDN, OI&T has modified processor usage allocations to provide immediate relief to production activities. OI&T is 

also considering the following options: 

• Add processors to increase the overall capacity of the system; 

• Modify ancillary system programming to reduce the number of queries; and 

• Schedule development, batch processing, and test activities that utilize BDN 

after normal business hours. 

The following improvements are planned for the TIMS application infrastructure: 

• Upgrade application hardware storage; 

• Shorten downtime for system backups by deploying faster tape devices; 

• Balance the distribution of application functions across disk arrays to reduce 

input/output contention; 

• Upgrade to a more stable version of Oracle; 

• Allow claims folder access across jurisdictions; 

• Monitor the application continuously for application load rebalancing; 

• Secure additional application software licenses for additional users; and 

• Determine potential to provide technical contract support on weekends. 


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Question 5: The Call Center is currently opened from Monday to Wednesday during the week. Why is this schedule being followed and why can’t the center open 

5 days a week? 

Response: The timely delivery of education benefits is a top priority for VA. 

There is a direct correlation between the number of pending education claims and 

call volume. A high pending inventory equals a high call volume. Phone technicians 

spend a significant amount of time informing veterans that their claims are still 

pending. Reducing the pending inventory was a key factor in improving Call Center 

performance; therefore VA needed to find additional resources that could quickly 

have a positive impact on the pending inventory. Call Center technicians were familiar with VA systems and could be trained in claims processing faster than new 

hires. As a temporary measure, VA decided to close the Call Center Thursdays and 

Fridays to process more claims for veterans. Thursdays and Fridays are the lowest 

call volume days. 

Since the closure of the Call Center on Thursdays and Fridays, customer service 

and CH 33 claims processing performance improved significantly. 

• Improved Customer Service 

• The Call Center received 769,637 call attempts on Monday thru Wednesday 

during the first 2 weeks in December 2009. By comparison, the Call Center 

received 381,442 call attempts on Monday thru Wednesday during the first 

2 weeks in January 2010. The overall call volume continues to trend down. 

• Improvement in CH 33 Claims Processing Performance 

• Call Center employees complete an average of 700 claims per day on Thursdays and Fridays, plus overtime. They completed approximately 18,000 

claims. • Pending CH 33 inventory is the lowest since August 2009. • Timeliness has improved by 13 days since the end of November 2009. 

VBA is making significant progress with processing the spring enrollments. 

Through March 4, 2010, VA has received spring enrollments for 200,384 veterans, 

of which 190,386 have been processed. The decision to supplement claims processing 

staff by the Call Center employees was a key factor in these improvements. Based 

on our progress, VA resumed normal business hours at the Call Center on February 

18, 2010. 

Question 6: In visiting the Call Center, the employees mentioned that they needed dual monitors and a better phone system. Who in VA will be following up with 

the Call Center to get them the equipment they need? 

Response: The local IT staff received and installed 140 dual monitors for the Call 

Center employees. The issues with the current telephone system in Muskogee have 

been reviewed extensively. The primary issue involves the stability of the current 

Call Center call routing system, and will be resolved with the planned Veterans Relationship Management initiative that includes national call routing. The remaining 

issues involve difficulties with the local instruments and flexibility needed to meet 

mission needs. The local phone switch may need replacement, and options are being 

evaluated for the phone switch replacement and design. 

Question 7: You state that insufficient staffing levels caused problems. Do you 

believe that you have sufficient staff? 

Response: The insufficient staffing levels VA experienced during the fall enrollment period were remedied with the delivery of phase three of the interim claims 

processing solution, the utilization of ARRA employees to assist with the education 

workload, and the claims processing support provided for under the contract with 

Affiliated Computer Services. As a result of these efforts, VA has increased its daily 

completions of Post-9/11 GI Bill enrollment certifications from an average of 1,800 

per day during October to the nearly 7,000 per day in February. 

Question 8: Has VA implemented any of the recommendations that were sent to 

VA from this Subcommittee on November 12, 2009? 

Response: VA has considered or implemented many of these suggestions and is 

working diligently to improve the efficiency of claims processing for veterans. 

VA initially encouraged claimants to apply early for benefits. We received an overwhelming response from veterans, including those who have no immediate plans to 

enroll in school. With the level of our current claims inventory for veterans already 

enrolled, we encourage individuals who are interested in receiving education beneVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:53 Jun 17, 2010 Jkt 055224 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6621 Sfmt 6621 I:\VA\55224.XXX APPS06 PsN: 55224

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fits but not yet ready to attend school to wait until they have decided on a school 

and an educational program. This will allow us to focus on the claims of those who 

are currently attending school. Although our application process does not require an 

individual to positively state they are currently in school, we were able to identify 

those students for whom we received certifications of enrollment through our data 

systems. This allowed our processing offices to prioritize processing for those veterans. 

We also contacted school officials to encourage them to submit enrollment information as quickly as possible, since VA cannot process payments until we receive 

verification from schools that the student is enrolled. 

We agree that VA should inform veterans that they should expect to receive their 

first housing allowance and book stipend in arrears. Although payment of these benefits is consistent with other VA benefit payment practices, there is a need to raise 

awareness about when to expect these payments. Earlier last fall, we issued a news 

release, sent a letter to schools, and posted information to our networking sites to 

explain the payment policy. 

VA informs veterans of the potential benefit of applying for additional Federal 

education programs that could enhance their VA education benefits. We are working 

with the Department of Education to share information about programs available 

to veterans. Our GI Bill Website also features links to several Federal financial aid 

sources. 

VA conducted extensive outreach to inform veterans of the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Each 

individual identified in our data files as having potential eligibility was mailed two 

letters last year. North American Precis Syndicate published articles for VA, as well 

as a television spot. We also entered into a contract with a marketing firm to develop a national media campaign, which will be ready by summer 2010. The marketing firm will explore ways to enhance VA’s Website and create the kind of interactive features suggested in your letter. 

Veterans receiving educational assistance under the Montgomery GI Bill program 

are required to certify their school attendance each month, but those receiving Post9/11 GI Bill benefits are not. VA’s interim payment system does not support a 

monthly verification process for Post-9/11 GI Bill. However, VA’s future payment 

system, which should be fully deployed in December 2010, is expected to utilize a 

monthly enrollment verification process. VA will propose a change to existing regulations to coincide with our ability to support a monthly verification process. 

Question 9: The VA made advance payments to over 113,000 veterans. Do you 

anticipate issuing advance payments this semester if veterans do not receive their 

benefits for the spring 2010 semester? 

Response: Because spring enrollment certifications are being processed timely, 

VA is not making advance payments for the spring 2010 semester. 

Æ 


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