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JOBS FOR VETERANS ACT THREE YEARS LATER:

ARE VETS’ EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS WORKING

FOR VETERANS?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 2, 2006

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho, Chairman 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

RICHARD M. BURR, North Carolina 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Ranking Member 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

JAMES M. JEFFORDS, (I) Vermont 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

KEN SALAZAR, Colorado 

LUPE WISSEL, Majority Staff Director 

D. NOELANI KALIPI, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

FEBRUARY 2, 2006

SENATORS 

Page 

Craig, Hon. Larry E., Chairman, U.S. Senator from Idaho ................................. 1

Akaka, Hon. Daniel K., Ranking Member, U.S. Senator from Hawaii ............... 3

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator from Georgia ............................................... 4

Murray, Hon. Patty, U.S. Senator from Washington ........................................... 5

Burr, Hon. Richard M., U.S. Senator from North Carolina ................................. 7

Salazar, Hon. Ken, U.S. Senator from Colorado ................................................... 8

Obama, Hon. Barack, U.S. Senator from Illinois .................................................. 9

Thune, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from South Dakota ........................................... 49

WITNESSES 

Principi, Hon. Anthony J., Former Secretary of Veterans Affairs ....................... 11

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13

Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Larry E. Craig ............... 14

Ciccolella, Hon. Charles S., Assistant Secretary for Veterans’ Employment 

and Training, U.S. Department of Labor ........................................................... 15

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16

Response to written questions submitted by: 

Hon. Larry E. Craig ...................................................................................... 21

Hon. Daniel K. Akaka .................................................................................. 27

Hon. Barack Obama ..................................................................................... 29

Nilsen, Dr. Sigurd R., Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security 

Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office ................................................. 30

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31

Response to written questions submitted by: 

Hon. Larry E. Craig ...................................................................................... 46

Hon. Barack Obama ..................................................................................... 48

Poriotis, Wesley, Chairman, The Center for Military and Private Sector Initiative ......................................................................................................................... 65

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68

Proposal, Veterans Job Development Corps ............................................... 71

White paper, Branding the Veteran ............................................................ 80

Written questions submitted by: 

Hon. Larry E. Craig ...................................................................................... 83

Hon. Barack Obama ..................................................................................... 83

Sharpe, Jr., Joseph C., Deputy Director, National Economic Commission, 

The American Legion ........................................................................................... 83

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 85

Response to written questions submitted by: 

Hon. Larry E. Craig ...................................................................................... 89

Hon. Barack Obama ..................................................................................... 92

Weidman, Richard F., Director of Government Relations, Vietnam Veterans 

of America ............................................................................................................. 92

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 95

Written questions submitted by: 

Hon. Barack Obama ..................................................................................... 100

Hon. Larry E. Craig ...................................................................................... 100

Page

IV

APPENDIX 

Madsen, Roger B., Director of the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 107

Miller, Randy M., Chairman and CEO of ReadyMinds, prepared statement ..... 108

GAO report ............................................................................................................... 113

Table, Fiscal Year 2005 DVOP and LVER Actual FTE Utilization .................... 173

(1)

JOBS FOR VETERANS ACT THREE YEARS 

LATER: ARE VETS’ EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS WORKING FOR VETERANS? 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2006

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:33 a.m., in room 

SR–418, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Larry Craig (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Craig, Burr, Thune, Isakson, Akaka, Murray, 

Obama, and Salazar. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG,

U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO 

Chairman CRAIG. Good morning, everyone. The U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs will be in order. Let me welcome all of 

you to the Committee this morning. Thank you. 

Today, we will be discussing a most important topic, jobs for our 

Nation’s veterans. Each year, roughly 200,000 service members are 

separating from active duty, and for the most of them, obtaining 

a job is a critical step in successfully transitioning to civilian life. 

Last year alone, over 42,000 of those separating service members 

were 20 to 24 years old, who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

Ensuring a smooth transition for those young service members 

who bravely fought for freedom should be a national priority. Yet 

as the chart behind me shows, these unemployment rates among 

young veterans have risen dramatically since the war on terror 

began and now are approaching double the unemployment rate of 

nonveterans in the same age group. I must add, in a strong economy, as is true in most areas of our country, these figures just 

don’t fit. 

This trend suggests to me that we, as a Nation, must do more 

to help those young veterans succeed in civilian life and in the civilian job market. Much of that help must continue to come from 

leaders in the business community and in the public sector who 

recognize the distinct advantages in hiring former service members. Some of that help will come from employment programs that 

can provide veterans with resources, knowledge, and assistance 

that they need to find meaningful employment. 

Today, we will examine the effectiveness of two such programs 

administered by the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment 

2

and Training Service, the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program, 

and the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative Program. For 

most of a decade, Congress, GAO, and others have expressed concern that these programs are not focusing on those most in need 

of services, including recently separated veterans and veterans 

with disabilities. 

In fact, in 1999, the Commission on Service Members and Veterans Transition Assistance found that those groups of veterans 

often did not receive the services they needed because the program 

structure was outdated, inflexible, and unfocused, and because 

there was no real accountability for employment outcomes. That 

led to years of hearings, proposals, and reports, which eventually 

culminated in the passage of the Jobs for Veterans Act of 2002. 

In December of last year, the GAO completed a comprehensive 

review of the changes that have been made in the VETS employment programs in the 3 years since the passage of the Jobs for Veterans Act. Today, we will hear about many of those changes, including new performance measures, efforts to reward high performance, and increased use of case management services. We also will 

hear that services providers believe that these changes have improved the quality of services to veterans and have improved veterans employment outcomes. 

However, we will also learn that there are no data showing that 

these changes have led to better employment outcomes for veterans, and we will hear that accountability remains problematic. 

Perhaps most significant, we will examine the high unemployment 

rates of young, recently separated veterans and veterans with disabilities, which suggest that these programs still are not effectively 

targeting services to those most in need. 

As we begin this discussion, I want to stress that I have no 

doubts about the dedication and the sincerity of those who provide 

employment services to veterans and those who administer these 

programs. However, after decades of commissions and GAO reports, congressional hearings and attempt at reform, it is time to 

embrace Benjamin Franklin’s admonition that the definition of insanity, ladies and gentlemen, is doing the same thing over and over 

and expecting different results. 

If these programs, as currently structured, are not helping those 

veterans most in need, I believe we must acknowledge that. It is 

time for fundamental changes in how we provide employment services to our veterans. 

To begin this important discussion today, I must tell you that I 

am pleased to welcome back to this Committee the Honorable Anthony J. Principi, whose groundbreaking work both as Chairman of 

the Transition Commission and as Secretary of Veterans Affairs led 

to increased scrutiny of veterans employment services and the continuing search for ways to improve them. 

Welcome to you, Mr. Secretary. It is great to have you, and we 

want to thank you for joining us today. 

We also are pleased to be joined on our first panel by the Honorable Charles Ciccolella, the Assistant Secretary for Veterans’ Employment and Training, and Dr. Sigurd Nilsen, Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues at the GAO. 

Welcome to all of you. 

3

On our second panel, we are pleased to be joined by Wes 

Poriotis—I always struggle at pronouncing names correctly because 

my very difficult name, I enjoy having it pronounced correctly—

Chairman of the Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives 

and Joseph Sharpe, the Deputy Director for the American Legion’s 

National Economic Commission, and Rick Weidman, the Director of 

Government Relations for Vietnam Veterans of America. 

Welcome to all of you. Before we start taking your testimony, let 

me turn to my colleagues on the Committee and, of course, to my 

Ranking Member, Senator Danny Akaka. Danny? 

STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA, RANKING MEMBER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Chairman Craig, for calling this hearing today. And Chairman Craig, I just want to wish 

you well this year and wish us well this new year as we continue 

to work on this Committee for veterans across our country. 

I want you to know I look forward to working with you again because I enjoyed so much working with you in the past and look forward to the future. Last year this Committee was very busy and 

I am sure this year will be no different. 

Before I move into the substance of the hearing, I would like first 

to thank Chairman Craig for attending Committee hearings in my 

home State of Hawaii during January. 

Chairman CRAIG. He drug me out of the deep snows of Idaho and 

pulled me across all of those islands, out in the Pacific, warm 

breezes blowing. Thank you, Danny. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator AKAKA. You are very welcome and now you know how 

hard I had to try to do that. Not only Chairman Craig, but his staff 

also, and I really appreciate that. And, my own staff, they did a 

great job in listening to our veterans out there in Hawaii. As Senator Craig and his staff can attest, these hearings were very well 

attended on four of the islands in Hawaii. 

I hope that VA, the Department of Labor, and this Committee 

will continue to recognize the obstacles that Hawaii’s veterans face 

as they assess the benefits and care they have earned through 

their selfless service to this country. Veterans in one State must be 

sure that they receive services as veterans in other States do, and 

the best kinds of services. 

I also want to thank the witnesses for coming to this first Committee hearing today. I especially want to welcome back our good 

friend first, the Secretary of Veterans, Tony Principi, before this 

Committee. Mr. Secretary, we appreciate all the years you have 

served this Nation on behalf of our veterans, and I want to thank 

you. I know you are a busy man, and thank you for being here with 

us today. 

Also I want to thank the others on this panel as well and the 

second panel. 

Today, the Committee will look into the employment and training services available to veterans. Specifically, we will hear about 

the implementation of the Jobs for Veterans Act. 

I am proud that the Committee has chosen to tackle the issue 

of veterans employment. Holding a hearing on the implementation 

4

of JVA is a wonderful start this year. I am hopeful that we will 

expand upon this hearing to investigate other areas involving veterans employment, such as the Uniformed Services Employment 

and Re-Employment Rights Act. We must make certain that we are 

doing all we can to protect the rights of our service members who 

have set aside their lives to serve our country. 

Several years ago, Secretary Principi, you chaired the Congressional Commission on Service Members and Veterans Transition 

Assistance. That Commission made several recommendations for 

improving employment and training. I hope that you will discuss 

these recommendations today. 

GAO recently published that a third of our States reported that 

local accountability had either lessened or not improved as a result 

of the Jobs for Veterans Act. I agree that States need flexibility to 

serve their veterans population. However, States must provide accurate employment data so the Department of Labor can properly 

conduct oversight. I want to hear from the Department of Labor 

what can be done to rectify the situation. 

I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this, and I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CRAIG. Thank you very much, Senator Akaka. 

Let me turn to Senator Isakson for any opening comments he 

would like to make. Johnny? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. I want to thank you, Chairman Craig, and I 

want to take this opportunity to thank the panelists for being here. 

At this particular time in our Nation’s history, this is probably as 

important a topic as we could be discussing, given the number of 

veterans who are deployed. 

But I would like to take a little bit of a different tack, Mr. Chairman, if I can, and I know I will be accused of maybe being what 

we refer to in sports as a ‘‘homer’’, but I want to refer everybody 

to the cover of this month’s American Legion magazine and the picture of Bob Nardelli, who is the president of the Home Depot. And 

I want to talk for one second about a gentleman by the name of 

Ted Daywalt in Georgia. 

First of all, the Home Depot—this happens to be an interview 

about their program, where last year they donated 1 million manhours and millions of dollars to repair homes of veterans who are 

deployed around the world, for their spouses and their children. 

But in addition, the Administration recently gave Home Depot its 

highest award for their employment program of veterans, which, 

among other things, includes obviously what we expect, which is 

re-employment, but it includes the extension of benefits, extension 

of training, compensation, equalization, and everything a person 

would hope an American veteran would receive from American industry. 

As we look to Government programs to solve these programs, 

and certainly we should, I encourage us to use these programs to 

be catalysts in American industry to show vividly and demonstrate 

what corporations in America are doing. The Home Depot is not 

the only one. But I would submit to you there are a lot of corporaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
5

tions that could do better. And sometimes it is out of sight, out of 

mind. So as we have this hearing, I hope it will encourage us to 

do that. 

Secondly, I don’t have a picture or a magazine about a gentleman 

by the name of Ted Daywalt, but I just want to pay tribute. He is 

a veteran who started a business about 9 years ago to employ veterans and find jobs for veterans and match veterans with jobs. People like that who are out there and those businesses that, in fact, 

do it should equally be encouraged and served by the Veterans Administration to help them in those placements because there is no 

better way to find a job than to match it with an activist in the 

community and an employer in the same community. 

In my testimony today I want the record to reflect my personal 

deep appreciation to the Home Depot for not its token commitment, 

but its complete commitment to the veterans of the United States 

of America, both those who are activated that work for them, as 

well as those they employ who return from active duty who didn’t 

work for them before. 

If I remember correctly, the number is in the tens of thousands 

of employees. We are not talking about a handful of people. We are 

talking about tens of thousands of employees who are service members—Guardsmen, Reservists, and active duty—who have been 

touched. 

Then equally to those community activists, former veterans, who 

established their life’s business to find veterans jobs and employment in their communities upon returning home. The two best programs we could have for veterans in our country is a corporate 

America that is equal to the task of providing employment when 

they return and extending benefits while they are away and activists with veterans experience who act as job finders in our local 

communities. 

I appreciate the time, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CRAIG. Very well spoke, Senator Isakson. Thank you 

for citing that example. It is really a stellar example. 

Let me turn now to Senator Patty Murray. Senator? 

STATEMENT OF HON. PATTY MURRAY, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

WASHINGTON 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Akaka, for calling this really important hearing. I want to join in 

welcoming all of our panelists. Secretary Principi, it is great to see 

you again. Assistant Secretary Ciccolella, thank you so much for 

your work as well, and Dr. Nilsen. 

When our veterans come home from fighting for us, they need to 

come home to a community that will support them and they need 

to come home to a job. That is really why this hearing is so important. When it comes to veterans employment, I get to see the challenge from three different perspectives. 

First, as the Ranking Member on the Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee, working with Senator Isakson, overseeing the efforts of the Department of Labor to help our veterans. 

Also, of course, serving on this Committee, where we look at how 

the VA is meeting its veterans’ needs. And finally, when I am home 

in Washington State, talking with veterans on the ground and 

6

hearing from them firsthand what the real challenges are on the 

home front. 

I have held 8 roundtables and 1 VA field hearing in Washington 

State, and no matter where I was or what we focused on, there was 

one clear message I was hearing from our veterans, and that is veterans are falling through the cracks. Whether it is getting health 

care or getting job training, veterans are falling through the cracks 

today, and I want to give you some examples. 

Last August, in Longview, Washington, I met a veteran who had 

been discharged from the National Guard 2 months earlier without 

any financial benefits. He couldn’t find a job. He was married, had 

three kids, and he told me he had to go sign up for food stamps. 

That is a man who served our country with honor, and he was falling through the cracks. 

Guard members have told me that they are falling behind at 

work after they have been deployed for a year or more, and they 

don’t know how to get the training so they can catch up again. 

Other Guard members have been telling me about employers who 

are nervous about hiring Guard members since they might have 

medical issues, or they may be deployed again in a short time. 

One Guard member at our Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee 

hearing testified that he lost his business because the SBA programs that are intended to help small business owners and the 

self-employed didn’t work with the realities of mobilization. I have 

also heard about the Transition Assistance Program, the TAP program, doesn’t work within the 3- to 7-day timeframe that our 

Guard members are given to separate, and it is too focused on the 

needs of traditional forces, which is a finding that has been confirmed now by a GAO report as well. 

The good news is there are steps that we can take. Three years 

ago, we looked at the problems that veterans were having finding 

jobs, and we saw a broken system. After a lot of work, we did pass 

the Jobs for Veterans Act. That goal was to streamline the programs and bring together the stakeholders to help veterans find 

employment. 

I think that law made a lot of progress and it is a great thing. 

The system is working better than it did in 2002. But since we 

passed that law, a lot of things have changed, and the veterans job 

system hasn’t kept pace. If we are going to help meet the current 

challenges, we need to recognize three facts. 

First, on sheer numbers, we have got a growing veterans population, and those large numbers are outpacing the support that we 

have in place. Compared with past wars, we have more disabled 

veterans who are coming home and they are having a very hard 

time finding a job. 

Secondly, many of the veterans who are now coming home are 

members of the Guard and Reserve, and they face some very 

unique challenges that we are not equipped to handle today. About 

40 percent of those serving in Iraq today are in the Guard and Reserve. Many of those Guard and Reserve members, when they come 

home, live far away from a military base or any other kind of support center, and help is not just around the corner. So we have got 

to do a better job of outreach. 

7

A challenge they often have is the very short transition period 

that they have. If we don’t get them the help that they need in that 

very short window, they often fall through the cracks. 

Third, many of our returning veterans don’t know that help is 

available, and the people who can help them don’t know that veterans need their assistance. I heard from Guard members who 

were struggling and didn’t know that help was even out there. 

Last October, a few months ago, I met with a group of veterans 

and employment leaders in Vancouver, Washington, and at the 

table, there were two Washington National Guard members, Nathan Rivera and Doug Dupee. Nathan had come back from the 

Middle East in March, a number of months earlier, 8 months earlier, and still had not found a job. Doug told me he had given up 

finding a job and finally had just gone back to school. 

Sitting at the same table was a man named Jerry Bloss. He is 

a veterans representative, working at the Work Source Center 

there in Vancouver. Jerry sat there and listened to these two stories and he turned and said to them, ‘‘I could help you guys, but 

I didn’t know how to find out.’’

Mr. Chairman, we need to do a better job of connecting those veterans who need help with the people who are on the ground ready 

to help them. Mr. Chairman, it is great that we have made some 

progress in updating a jobs program from the cold war era to the 

needs of 2002, but now I firmly believe that we need to bring this 

up to date to meet the challenges that we are now facing in 2006. 

Otherwise, we are going to continue to see our veterans fall 

through the cracks. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator, thank you for that very thorough 

statement. It is appreciated. 

Senator Burr, any opening comment? 

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD M. BURR, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

NORTH CAROLINA 

Senator BURR. Mr. Chairman, I will. I am not sure that I can 

add to what my two colleagues before have said. Let me welcome 

our panelists today. Secretary, it is good to see you. 

I sit here in hopes that one day we won’t need legislation for U.S. 

corporations that are successful to realize the reason they are successful is because so many brave people have made sure they could 

do what they do. This weekend, I was at a university event where 

Magic Johnson was honored and clearly a star. 

As he stood up to be recognized for the over 30,000 jobs he has 

created in 80 cities for minorities, he said, ‘‘I shouldn’t be here receiving recognition for something I am obligated to do, and that is 

to go back to the communities that I grew up in, the communities 

that supported me in my career, and to use my rewards to touch 

somebody else’s life.’’

We need the Act that we have got in place, but we also need a 

spirit in this country where we all go out and remind American 

business companies why they have the ability to operate and to be 

successful. They should fall all over themselves to absorb these individuals as they come back. 

8

I commend Home Depot and the other companies. Johnny is 

right to highlight them. They have been really a leader in it. I commend companies like Wachovia that have really handled the callup of Reservists and Guard, and they have done it in a way that 

has not only made sure that they had a job when they came back, 

but that their families were taken care of while they were gone. 

Sometimes we are given challenges to make us stronger. I hope 

that is what we are going through now. At the end of this process, 

we will see if American business responds to the challenge. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator, thank you. 

Senator Salazar, thank you for joining us. Any opening comment? 

STATEMENT OF HON. KEN SALAZAR, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

COLORADO 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you, Chairman Craig, for holding this 

very important hearing. To our distinguished panel, welcome this 

morning. Particularly former Secretary Principi, it has always been 

an honor to watch your work and to know of your great service to 

our country in so many different capacities. 

When our service members enter active duty, they are often uprooted from their lives, their families and their communities. They 

are also removed from their previous jobs and, in many cases, this 

change becomes a permanent case. 

The transition from a life of relative normalcy to a life of military 

service is an extremely difficult one to make, but most of our brave 

men and women in uniform make it willingly, in full recognition 

of the sacrifice they are about to make for our country. 

As we watch these same members of our military return from 

Iraq and Afghanistan, we sometimes overlook the drastic nature of 

the transition that they face. That is why it is so important that 

we have this hearing today. As difficult as it is for someone who 

is 18, 19, or 20 years old to leave their home and family to enter 

a dangerous theater of war, it can be equally difficult for them to 

return to the lives that they have left behind. 

Among the more difficult aspects of this transition is the need to 

once again come home to find a way to make a living. Often, the 

jobs they left behind are no longer there. And now, several years 

later, the experience they had gained before has lost its value. 

Our Government and our Nation owes it to these veterans to 

help provide them with the resources and guidance they need to 

find good jobs. That is why we have the Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service Program. That is why Congress passed the Jobs 

for Veterans Act 3 years ago. And that is why we are holding these 

hearings today to make sure that we fulfill our promise to the Nation’s veterans. 

I am troubled, frankly, when I look at the chart that is behind 

the Chairman today, and I compare the unemployment rates that 

apply to veterans and nonveterans. When I look at an unemployment rate of 14 to 15 percent for our veterans, it is troublesome 

to me. Because when I look at those kinds of unemployment rates, 

it reminds me of the rural parts of my State of Colorado, which 

9

sometimes are the most difficult places to find any kind of economic revitalization. 

Those kinds of unemployment rates, when you compare it to the 

unemployment rate of the Nation at 5 percent, seem to me to be 

totally unacceptable. How can we have an unemployment rate for 

America where we are at approximately 5 percent, and yet among 

the people who have served our Nation, who have sacrificed so 

much for our Nation, the unemployment rate among veterans is 15 

percent? 

I believe that we can do better and I believe that the Veterans’ 

Administration, working with this Committee, has all the right intentions. If there is anything that we can do to make sure that we 

bring that red line down to a point where it is more close to the 

unemployment rate of the Nation as a whole, I believe that we 

would be doing a great service to our country. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on this 

very important subject. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator Salazar, thank you very much. 

Senator Obama, any opening comment? 

STATEMENT OF HON. BARACK OBAMA, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

ILLINOIS 

Senator OBAMA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, my colleagues, Mr. Secretary, and the other panelists. I want to very 

much thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Akaka, for 

calling this hearing. 

At the outset, let me say that the Labor Department’s VETS program does terrific work across the country. You have got a network, as I understand it, of 2,400 veterans employment specialists. 

The reports I have heard back is that VETS provides comprehensive services to help veterans get and keep high-quality jobs. 

But we are here today to perform a check-up of the program 3 

years after Jobs for Veterans Act went into effect, and I have a particular interest in this check-up because it appears that there are 

some problems with Illinois’s veterans employment system. 

As I understand it, Illinois ranks dead last in the Nation for the 

job placement rate of its veterans. Dead last. According to Labor 

Department statistics, only 34 percent of veterans who seek assistance are finding jobs. That is almost half the national average of 

62 percent and 9 points lower than the second-worst State. 

Obviously, I was shocked to hear this news because I think, as 

you are all aware, Illinois is a State with a proud tradition of serving veterans. We have a lot of talented, dedicated, and hard-working people who work for the State of Illinois on this issue. They 

care about veterans, but for some reason, the system is not translating into measurably good performance. 

I believe there are two major causes for this problem. One is 

funding. The second is accountability. To the funding issue, since 

the JVA changed the formula, Illinois’s funding has dropped 18 

percent, which has led to a reduction in staff and reshuffling of 

workers between offices. This is a problem that, from what I gather, is shared by a number of other States. 

I was just reviewing some statistics here, and it appears that 

there are at least 31 States who saw problems with respect to fundVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
10

ing as a consequence of the bill that was passed, which I wasn’t 

here when the bill was passed. I am trying to figure out how that 

could have occurred. But an 18 percent drop is obviously going to 

have some impact on performance. My understanding also is that 

8 of the 10 lowest performing States saw their funding decrease 

significantly since 2003. 

We have got a major funding issue, but the problem is more than 

just reduced funding. States like North Dakota and Vermont, 

which each saw their funding drop by a third, still remain among 

the highest performing States in the Nation. While, obviously, Illinois is a big industrial State and has a different set of problems 

than small States like North Dakota and Vermont, and although 

I think money makes a difference, I am not somebody who is suggesting that we just throw money at the problem. So that leads to 

a second issue, the issue of accountability. 

One of the JVA’s most important goals was to improve accountability in the system. It was supposed to make it easier for States 

to keep track of local performance and, in turn, for the Feds to 

keep track of the States. The GAO reported in December that in 

this crucial area, the Labor Department is coming up short. A third 

of the States said monitoring has not improved since 2003, and 21 

States couldn’t even keep track of local-level data. 

In the case of Illinois, the Labor Department argues that Illinois 

is actually doing much better than its raw numbers show and that 

the low job placement rates just reflect a difference in counting 

methods. But we would be wrong, I think, to minimize this problem 

as a minor accounting issue. If we can’t quantify the problem, we 

are not going to be able to address any problems that may be there. 

And unfortunately, for too long, the Labor Department doesn’t 

seem to have a handle on what is going on in Illinois. 

I am encouraged by steps that the Labor Department has recently taken, but I think much more needs to be done. Step one, 

I guess, would be to get the numbers right. Part of the goal originally of the JVA was to standardize in some fashion how we are 

tracking this stuff. So I am going to be interested in figuring out 

why that is not happening. 

It means figuring out, as Senator Murray eloquently stated, 

which veterans are falling through the cracks and developing a 

plan to improve services across the board, but particularly to target 

those who are in most need of help. 

One last point, Mr. Chairman, I think we also have to draw attention to the problem of homelessness among veterans, which is 

so intimately tied to employment. Elaine Knox of the Illinois Department of Employment Security said you can’t concentrate on 

employment if you don’t have a home. This year, there are 54,000 

veterans—54,000 veterans—who will sleep on the streets of Chicago. Fifty-four thousand in one city in America, and that is just 

a remarkable number. 

I have introduced legislation to begin addressing this problem. I 

appreciate the Chairman’s commitment to hold hearings on this 

issue later this year. But I think it is important for all of us to 

note, as we are talking about the issue of employment, that it is 

going to be intimately tied with stabilizing the lives of a lot of these 

veterans. 

11

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator, thank you. I think, to this panel, you 

have heard the concerns, and there are many. That is why we are 

here. We believe the program is substantially underperforming, 

and we want to know why. So we thank you for being with us 

today. 

Let me turn to the gentleman who started this ball rolling in 

looking at veterans employment. That started 10 years ago with 

the Transition Commission. Mr. Secretary, again, welcome before 

the Committee. The microphone is yours. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ANTHONY J. PRINCIPI, FORMER 

SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

Secretary PRINCIPI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, 

Senator Akaka and Members of the Committee. It is a pleasure to 

be back before you, and I commend you, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Akaka, and all the Members, for holding this hearing and for everything you do for our Nation’s veterans. 

Senator Isakson, I just want to comment on Home Depot as well. 

As Secretary, I learned firsthand about Home Depot’s commitment 

to veterans, and I really do believe they are a corporate model that 

should be emulated across the country. 

I know it comes from Bob Nardelli’s heart because I remember 

he told me one day that his dad, who is a decorated World War II 

veteran in his late eighties, volunteers every day at the VA medical 

center, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. I think it is that commitment 

that has made him such a force in veterans employment issues and 

I think it is shared by others as well. But I did want to mention 

that because he is such a great man. 

Our Nation depends upon the willingness of the men and women 

who embody our armed forces to assume the risks and endure the 

hardships necessary to secure our freedoms and independence, and 

those risks and hardships are difficult realities at all times and in 

all places. But they are magnified now for the service members—

active and Reserve, Guard—who have responded and are now responding to the demands of the global war on terror, particularly 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Just over a year ago, while serving as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, I was privileged to share the holiday seasons with our men 

and women in uniform in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, and 

I know that I share the same belief of every Member of this Committee when I say that they are truly America’s best. 

Not diminishing my fellow Vietnam veterans and all veterans of 

previous wars and peacetime service, I think we have fielded the 

very best in courage and compassion on the battlefield of Iraq and 

Afghanistan, and they certainly make me proud to be an American. 

Just as those men and women assumed an obligation to our 

country when they took their oaths of enlistment, so did our country assume a reciprocal obligation to them when they complete 

their service. When they set their uniforms aside, assume the honored title of veteran, we owe them the assistance they need to 

make a successful transition to civilian life. And suitable employment is the key to a successful civilian life. 

12

A veteran with a good job is a veteran with a head start in overcoming the ‘‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’’ and in laying 

a firm foundation upon which he or she can build a life and a family. Conversely, a veteran searching for a job is a veteran burdened 

with an unnecessary handicap in dealing with the challenges of life 

and a veteran attempting to build a future on a foundation of sand. 

That is why the Congressional Commission on Service Members 

and Veterans Transition Assistance placed such a heavy emphasis 

on reform of Federal programs assisting veterans in obtaining their 

first jobs and again why I commend this Committee for holding 

this hearing. 

The Transition Commission’s research led us to believe that the 

organizational structure for veterans employment programs was 

not conducive to success. And back then, if I recall the statistics 

correctly, the unemployment rate for recently separated active duty 

service members was 20 percent higher than their nonveteran 

counterparts in the same age group, 20 to 24. 

We found back in 1997, 1998 that only 300,000 of the 2 million 

veterans who registered with the employment service obtained 

suitable employment, and only 12 percent obtained permanent employment. We felt that that was really unacceptable and that reforms were necessary in this program. 

Most importantly, we found that there was little that the Federal 

Department of Labor Veterans’ Employment and Training Service 

could do to effectively influence outcomes at the local level because 

of the statutory limitations with which they had to work. 

I am pleased that the Congress enacted reform legislation in response to the Commission’s findings, and I commend GAO and the 

Congress for following up on the effectiveness of that legislation. 

While I am not in a position to opine on the effect of reform legislation or the effectiveness of veterans employment assistance programs as they exist today because I really haven’t been close to it 

anymore, I will take the liberty of suggesting some questions, the 

answers to which may illuminate paths the Committee may desire 

to follow. 

Do employment program managers and workers, for both veteran-specific programs and for programs serving the general population, have clearly defined goals and performance standards for 

placing veterans in suitable jobs? This question is applicable to employment service processes and especially for their outcomes. 

Have program leadership at both the State and the Federal level 

established management information systems that measure actual 

verified performance against those standards? 

Perhaps most importantly, as Senator Obama pointed out, do the 

States hold their local offices accountable for their outcomes, and 

does the Federal Department of Labor hold the States accountable 

for their outcomes in finding veterans decent, good jobs upon which 

to build a successful life? 

Are there sanctions for poor performance? Are there rewards for 

good performance? Are those sanctions and rewards effective? If 

there are States or offices that have not met standards, what corrective actions have been taken, and what is the effect of those actions? 

13

While there are virtually limitless nuances to oversight of a program this diverse and this important, I believe that the answers 

to these questions will give the Committee a great deal of insight 

into whether the Congress satisfied its obligation to America’s veterans when it enacted Public Law 107–288. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be pleased to respond to your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Anthony J. Principi follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ANTHONY J. PRINCIPI, FORMER SECRETARY OF

VETERANS AFFAIRS

Good Morning Chairman Craig, Senator Akaka, members of the Committee. 

Our nation depends upon the willingness of the men and women who embody our 

Armed Forces to assume the risks and endure the hardships necessary to secure our 

freedoms and independence. Those risks and hardships are difficult realities at all 

times and in all places, but they are magnified now for the servicemembers, active 

and reserve, who have responded, and are now responding, to the demands of the 

global war on terror, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Just over a year ago, while serving as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, I was privileged to share the holiday seasons with our uniformed defenders in Afghanistan and 

in the Persian Gulf and I can assure you that those men and women are America’s 

best; and they make me proud to be an American. 

Just as those men and women assumed an obligation to our country when they 

took their oaths of enlistment, so did our country assume a reciprocal obligation to 

them when they complete their service. When they set their uniforms aside and assume the honored title of ‘‘veteran’’ we owe them the assistance they need to make 

a successful transition to civilian life. 

Suitable employment is the key to a successful civilian life. A veteran with a good 

job is a veteran with a head start in overcoming the ‘‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’’ and in laying a firm foundation upon which he or she can build 

a life and family. Conversely, a veteran searching for a job is a veteran burdened 

with an unnecessary handicap in dealing with the challenges of life and a veteran 

attempting to build for the future on a foundation of sand. 

That is why the Congressional Commission on Servicemembers and Veterans 

Transition Assistance placed a heavy emphasis on reform of Federal programs assisting veterans in obtaining their first jobs and why I commend the Committee for 

holding this hearing. 

The Transition Commission’s research led us to believe that the organizational 

structure for veterans’ employment programs was not conducive to success. While 

we found some states provided effective services to veterans, other states were ineffective. Most importantly, we found that there was little that the Federal Department of Labor Veterans Employment and Training Service could do to effectively 

influence outcomes at the local level. 

I am pleased that the Congress enacted reform legislation in response to the Commission’s findings and I commend the Government Accountability Office and the 

Congress for following up on the effectiveness of that legislation. 

While I am not in a position to opine on the effect of reform legislation or the 

effectiveness of veterans’ employment assistance programs as they exist today; 

I will take the liberty of suggesting some questions the answers to which may illuminate paths the Committee may desire to follow. 

Do employment program managers and workers, for both veteran specific programs and for programs serving the general population, have clearly defined goals 

and standards for placing veterans in suitable jobs? This question is applicable to 

employment service processes and especially for their outcomes. 

Have program leadership, at both the state and the Federal level, established 

management information systems that measure actual verified performance against 

those standards? 

And, perhaps most importantly, do the states hold their local offices accountable 

for their outcomes and does the Federal Department of Labor hold the states accountable for their outcomes? 

Are there sanctions for poor performance? Are there rewards for good performance? Are those sanctions and rewards effective? If there are states or offices that 

have not met standards, what corrective actions have been taken and what is the 

effect of those actions? 

14

While there are virtually limitless nuances to oversight of a program this diverse 

and this important, I believe that the answers to these questions will give the Committee a great deal of insight into whether the Congress satisfied its obligation to 

America’s veterans when it enacted P.L. 107–288. 

Thank you Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to respond to your questions. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. LARRY E. CRAIG TO

HON. ANTHONY J. PRINCIPI

Question 1a. In your written testimony, you suggest that this Committee attempt 

to ascertain the answers to several key questions in order to measure whether reform legislation—the Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA)—has been successful. The questions you posed include: Do the states hold their local offices accountable for their 

outcomes and does the Federal Department of Labor hold the states accountable for 

their outcomes? Are there sanctions for poor performance? Are there rewards for 

good performance? And are those sanctions and rewards effective? If the Committee 

discovers that the answers to those questions are negative, should we conclude that 

fundamental reform is still necessary? 

Answer. If the Committee determines that states are not holding local offices accountable for veterans’ employment outcomes, and that the Federal Department of 

Labor does not hold the states accountable for their outcomes, then fundamental reform remains necessary. 

Question 1b. If so, what reforms would you recommend that the Committee consider? 

Answer. One reform the Committee should consider would be competition for DOL 

funding to provide employment services to veterans. The prospect of competition 

would provide an incentive to state program leadership to improve service and, in 

the event that service did not improve, would provide a mechanism to transfer resources to other providers better able to provide veterans with the services they 

need. 

Question 2. Attached is an organizational chart reflecting the Government Accountability Office’s best attempt to capture the various Federal and State entities 

that administer the Department of Labor’s grants for veterans’ employment services. As the former head of the second largest bureaucracy in government, I am sure 

you are aware of the impact organizational structures can have on an agency’s ability to establish clear lines of program authority and accountability. What is your 

reaction to an organizational chart like this one? 

Answer. More important than an organizational chart are the ability to establish 

performance standards and to hold local leadership accountable for their performance. 

The chart indicates that ETA and VETS would be ‘‘accountable for national performance goals’’ and that the ETA and VETS Regional Administrators would ‘‘initiate corrective action as needed’’. The chart also specifies that the ETA Regional 

Administrator and the DVET would have ‘‘program oversight but not supervisory 

authority over state and local staff’’. The State Workforce Agency would be ‘‘accountable for state performance goals.’’ First-line employees in the One-Stop Career Center would be ‘‘accountable to the state agency.’’

The key questions unaddressed in the organizational chart are the mechanisms 

for that accountability. 

Question 3. The report of the Congressional Commission on Service members and 

Veterans Transition Assistance recommended that veterans’ employment grants to 

States be subject to competition from other, non-State providers. Given your role as 

Chairman of the Transition Commission, what did you believe to be the benefit of 

awarding the grants on a competitive basis? 

Answer. As noted in my response to the first question, the prospect of competition 

would provide an incentive to state program leadership to improve service and, in 

the event that service did not improve, would provide a mechanism to transfer resources to other providers better able to provide veterans with the services they 

need. 

Question 4a. During your tenure as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Administration proposed that the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program and the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative program be transferred to the Department of 

Veterans Affairs (VA) and that VA establish a new competitive grant program. 

What was your response to those who suggested that VA should not administer the 

grant program because veterans would ‘‘lose out’’ on the Department of Labor’s vast 

infrastructure of One-Stop centers? 

15

Answer. The validity of that concern is proportional to the extent to which veterans’ current access to that ‘‘vast infrastructure’’ does, in fact, meet their needs to 

obtain suitable employment. The ability to establish performance standards and to 

hold local leaders accountable for their outcomes would likely have more impact on 

program effectiveness than the name of the Department administering the program. 

However, there is no reason why a statute transferring overall responsibility to VA 

could not also require DOL funded ‘‘One-Stop’’ centers to provide veterans with employment services. 

Question 4b. Do you still believe this to be a good idea? 

Answer. VA has no mission other than service to veterans. It has no non-veteran 

constituencies competing for attention or resources. I am confident that, if assigned 

the mission, and entrusted with the necessary resources and the ability to hold program managers and workers accountable for outcomes, VA could and would provide 

veterans with excellent service. 

This opinion should not be construed as a criticism of DOL since I do not believe 

that DOL has, or has had, the ability to hold the organizations and personnel providing services to veterans accountable for their outcomes.

Chairman CRAIG. Tony, thank you very much. 

And now let us turn to the Assistant Secretary for Veterans’ Employment and Training, the Honorable Charles Ciccolella. Chick, 

welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES S. CICCOLELLA, ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY FOR VETERANS’ EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding the hearing. 

I will keep my oral statement to 5 minutes, and I ask that my 

statement be entered into the record. 

Chairman CRAIG. Without objection, your statement will become 

a part of the record. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. I will try to give a brief summary of our 

progress in implementing the Jobs for Veterans Act and the program accountability for the DVOP, the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program, and the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative Program. 

The JVA significantly changed the way in which employment 

services are provided to veterans through the workforce system, 

and we are now in the third year of its implementation. We think 

the law is working well. It is certainly beginning to work well, and 

we think that there is a bright future on this law. 

When the JVA first came out, we took a very business-like approach to its implementation. We knew that it had to be implemented right away. So we took the larger pieces first, and we put 

the issues in priority. We established the funding formula very 

quickly for the DVOP and LVER grants. That took regulations to 

do. 

Some States were, in fact, negatively impacted by the funding 

formula. We made every effort to mitigate the impact of that negative impact. 

Working with the Employment and Training Administration in 

the Department of Labor and the other Department of Labor agencies, we implemented the priority of service provisions as a department. We published general guidance to the State workforce agencies, and then we followed that guidance up with very specific program guidance for each of the programs for which veterans would 

receive priority of service. 

16

We changed the way in which we monitored State performance 

to provide more flexibility to the States to operate the JVA program, and we publish guidance on the use of part-time staff, the 

veteran representative staff. 

Some things have gone well, and some things are still yet to be 

done. We haven’t fully fixed the Federal Contractor Program requiring these companies to lift their job openings and make them 

available. We have not implemented a national threshold for entered employment from which determinations of deficiency can be 

made in the States because we don’t have the data yet to do that. 

We are still working on those items. And the States have struggled 

with the positive incentives issue because of particular State laws 

or prohibitions against the use of cash awards. 

But I would like to assure the Committee that the changes in the 

JVA have paid huge dividends. If you look at entered employment 

rates from 1991 to 2001, you find that they range from 19 to 32 

percent. With the implementation of the JVA and other significant 

changes that we made in the Department of Labor and in the Veterans’ Employment Training Service, we are now looking at much 

higher veteran employment rates. The entered employment rate in 

the last year was 62 percent. 

A lot of States are exceeding that average. In fact, only 13 States 

are not exceeding it, and 4 of those States are very close. I will not 

fail to mention that some of those increases are the result of a better reporting system because we get the data now from the unemployment insurance wage records that the employers in the States 

actually report. But we believe it is also due to better program administration, accountability, and leadership. 

Every one of our State directors is focused on higher performance 

goals, and they have specific instructions to do that. We recognize 

that what gets measured gets done. We know that what counts are 

real results, and we think we are achieving that in most States. 

Not every State is where we want them to be, but every State has 

made significant progress. 

We still have a great deal of work to do, but we believe we have 

a very positive agenda in improving employment outcomes through 

the DVOP and the LVER program, just as we continue to make 

progress in protecting service members’ employment and re-employment rights and in improving the transition assistance employment workshop. 

We want to work closely with the Committee to continue to improve veteran employment outcomes in every State, as well as improving employment protections under the USERRA law and our 

transition employment workshops. 

I want to thank the General Accounting Office for their review 

of the JVA because it has been helpful to us. And with that, I 

thank the Committee, and I am prepared to respond to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Charles S. Ciccolella follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES S. CICCOLELLA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR

VETERANS’ EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Chairman Craig, Ranking Member Akaka, and distinguished members of the 

Committee: 

17

It is my honor to appear before this Committee today. Thank you for conducting 

this hearing on the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) programs 

that provide employment services to our Nation’s veterans and how VETS is implementing the Jobs for Veterans Act with particular emphasis on performance and accountability. 

The enactment of the Jobs for Veterans’ Act (JVA), P.L. 107–288, in November 

2002 has resulted in significant improvements in the provision of employment services to veterans and is showing a positive impact on veteran employment outcomes. 

We are starting the third year of implementing the law and we have already seen 

major improvements. My testimony today will describe some of those accomplishments and some planned improvements for the future. 

The JVA substantially changed how the Federal Government interacts with states 

to provide meaningful employment services to our veterans. For instance, the JVA 

entitled veterans and, in some circumstances, their spouses to priority of service 

under job training programs funded by the Department of Labor (DOL). Additionally, the JVA dramatically redefined the roles of the veterans’ representatives (the 

Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists and the Local Veterans’ 

Employment Representative (LVER) staff) and redefined the Federal-state relationship as a partnership in providing assistance to veterans seeking employment. 

Under the JVA, states are required to submit grant applications to VETS for DVOP/

LVER funding, which VETS allocates to states in proportion to the number of veterans seeking employment in a state. To encourage improved and modernized employment services to veterans and to recognize excellence in the provision of these 

services, the JVA also authorized VETS to institute a performance incentive awards 

program whereby 1 percent of the funds made available to states could be used to 

provide incentive awards directly to DVOP specialists and LVERs, as well as others 

in the state workforce agency. Moreover, the JVA required that VETS develop a 

comprehensive performance accountability system, including the establishment of 

performance standards and outcome measures. Overall, the JVA has provided opportunities to maximize the flexibility afforded to the states in providing veterans 

employment assistance while at the same time ensuring states’ accountability. 

First, allow me to briefly describe the impact of the JVA. In a qualitative sense, 

the Act has provided the states with greater flexibility to adapt their programs to 

the unique needs of local areas where veterans need jobs and employers are seeking 

capable applicants. Our outcome data also indicates progress in helping veterans secure employment. During Program Year (PY) 2003, which ended on June 30, 2004 

and encompassed the first year of implementation, the Entered Employment Rate 

was 58 percent for veterans and 53 percent for disabled veterans. At the end of PY 

2004, outcomes for veterans and disabled veterans showed an increase in each category to 60 percent for veterans and to 56 percent for disabled veterans. The Employment Retention Rate for PY 2003 was 79 percent for veterans and 77 percent 

for disabled veterans. Just 1 year later, at the end of PY 2004, the retention rate 

for veterans increased 2 percentage points. For disabled veterans—those veterans 

historically requiring additional assistance to seek and find jobs, and to remain employed—the retention rate also increased 2 percentage points. This comparison of 

outcome data demonstrates the positive impact that implementation of the JVA has 

had on this Nation’s veterans. 

As I mentioned earlier, we are just starting the third year of JVA implementation. 

In the first 2 years, we have laid the foundation for further improvements. Since 

the passage of the JVA we have: 

• Issued guidance redefining the responsibilities of the DVOP specialists and 

LVER staff; 

• Developed training programs that support the JVA by: 

• Addressing the new provisions of the law; 

• Incorporating the changes in DVOP and LVER responsibilities; 

• Emphasizing the integration of DVOP specialists and LVER staff in One-Stop 

Career Centers, as required by JVA; and 

• Disseminating a framework to apply veterans’ priority of service to programs 

funded by DOL. 

• Trained over 7,348 participants (including state, Federal and Veterans Service 

Organization staff) in 224 classes held since November 2002; 

• Published regulations implementing the JVA-required state grant funding formula and applied this new methodology to calculate state grant allocations for fiscal 

year 2004, fiscal year 2005, and fiscal year 2006. 

• Adopted new outcome-based performance measures. 

I’d like to briefly review several of these changes and their impact. In addition, 

I will address our plan to implement some of the improvement proposals made by 

the General Accountability Office pursuant to the JVA. 

18

DVOP AND LVER RESPONSIBILITIES

The JVA redefined the roles of the DVOP specialist and LVER staff allowing for 

a more general and flexible application. Both positions can now be appointed by the 

state on a half-time or full-time basis as the state determines appropriate, to meet 

the employment needs of veterans at the local level. The DVOP specialist is primarily responsible for providing intensive, one-on-one services to the individual veteran with an emphasis on the disabled veteran. The LVER’s emphasis is on providing employment assistance to the veteran, as well as the bigger picture of facilitating employment, training, and placement services to veterans throughout the 

workforce system, thereby connecting employers with the veterans they require to 

keep their businesses growing. The LVER also assists in reporting on the character 

of services provided to veterans and state workforce agencies’ compliance with laws, 

regulations and policies regarding services to veterans. The implementation of these 

changes to enhance services for veterans occurred through coordinated workgroups 

with representatives from many stakeholder groups, including VETS, National Association of State Workforce Agencies, state workforce agency management staff, state 

veterans program managers, DVOP specialists, and LVER staff. 

TRAINING

In response to the new law, we instructed the National Veterans Training Institute (NVTI) to conduct initial orientation sessions for all states, to redesign the employment specialist training courses and to provide readily available information 

about the JVA on-line, 24 hours a day. These sessions were attended by DVOPs, 

LVERs, local office managers, and other state workforce agency officials as well as 

VETS’ staff. 

The Veterans Services Orientation course was redesigned to provide an overview 

of the law and reflect the new roles and responsibilities of the LVER staff and 

DVOP specialists and how they work with other state agency staff. The Case Management course was redesigned to focus on the provision of intensive services primarily by DVOP specialists, but some LVER staff attend based on requests from 

the states. A new course, Promoting Partnerships for Employment, was specifically 

built around the new roles and responsibilities of the LVER in the workforce system. This course focuses on applying labor market information, working closely with 

agency partners, learning to be the veterans’ representative for office partnerships, 

informing other staff on the requirements under JVA, and developing a public relations plan. 

With the changes and new curriculum development, since November 2002, NVTI 

has conducted 224 classes with a total of 7,348 participants. These participants included: 

• 2,907 LVER staff and 3,158 DVOP specialists 

• 388 other state staff (including management) 

• 447 VETS staff 

• 52 Department of Defense staff 

• 396 members of Veterans Service Organizations 

FUNDING CRITERIA

In accordance with the Jobs for Veterans Act, VETS provides funding to state 

workforce agencies for the appointment of LVER and DVOP staff to enhance the 

services provided to veterans. State grant allocations are determined using a formula that is based on each state’s relative share of the national total number of 

veterans who are seeking employment. In the state plan submitted and/or updated 

on an annual basis, the state indicates how veterans will receive priority of service 

within that state. The state workforce agencies work in cooperation with all partners at the state’s One-Stop Career Centers to assist veterans, transitioning service 

members, homeless veterans, incarcerated veterans, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program participants. 

To further implement the JVA and to be responsive to the President’s Management Agenda, VETS made changes to the provisions of the fiscal year 2004 Jobs 

for Veterans state grant application. The JVA authorized VETS to phase in over a 

3-year period the manner in which funds are made available to states. Accordingly, 

both the fiscal and the performance reporting requirements and the reporting systems for the Jobs for Veterans state grant program were changed in fiscal year 

2004. 

During fiscal year 2004, VETS shifted the oversight focus from the former process, 

based on inspection checklists, to a more cooperative approach focusing on assistance and staff training. This oversight shift reflects a stronger emphasis on the 

19

partnership between the state and VETS in ensuring that the needs of employment 

seeking veterans are met. To further solidify VETS’ vision of ‘‘veterans succeeding 

in the 21st Century Workforce,’’ quantitative performance measures and outcome 

goals for veterans are negotiated with the state. 

MONITORING

As part of the JVA implementation, the Department and VETS implemented a 

comprehensive performance accountability system. The states submitted their first 

5 year plan for fiscal year 2005 and an annual plan for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. 

During the year, states submit quarterly manager’s reports on services to veterans 

which describe how well the state is achieving its performance goals, and how veterans’ priority of service is observed with regard to intake, job referral, and other 

One-Stop Career Center activities. Finally, our State Directors conduct assessments, 

which are focused on technical assistance and needed training, and reflect a stronger emphasis on the partnership between the state and VETS in ensuring the needs 

of employment seeking veterans are met. 

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

In order to measure the outcomes associated with veterans served by the OneStop Career Center system, VETS identified three outcome measures: 

• Entered Employment Rate; 

• Entered Employment Rate following Staff-assisted Services; and 

• Employment Retention Rate. 

These three measures are applied to the outcomes achieved by all veterans and 

to the outcomes achieved by disabled veterans, producing a total of six measures 

for which performance targets are negotiated with each state workforce agency. The 

target levels negotiated for these six measures vary widely among the states. However, the establishment of target levels provides a useful starting point by which 

Federal and state partners can come together and develop strategies to improve employment outcomes for veterans. 

In addition to the performance targets negotiated with the states, VETS also 

adopted the Entered Employment Rate for veterans and disabled veterans and the 

Employment Retention Rate for veterans and disabled veterans as Departmental 

performance targets in the Department of Labor (DOL) Strategic Plan. 

To provide a further indicator of performance, VETS initiated a program of state 

Grant-Based Performance Measures for outcomes associated with the services provided specifically by DVOP specialists and LVER staff. 

The measures negotiated with each state incorporate numerous data elements directly related to the provision of services. Grant-based performance measures were 

first implemented in PY 2004. Our initial assessment of these grant-based measures 

is that they have provided a good starting point for assessing the employment outcomes directly related to the services provided by DVOP specialists and LVER staff. 

Therefore, VETS intends to work with the state workforce agencies and other stakeholders in order to further develop and refine these measures for PY 2006. 

The attachment to my testimony lists these performance measures. We have recommended to the states that they be used in developing DVOP and LVER performance plans. 

DOL Initiatives: 

Just as the Department and VETS have been implementing the JVA’s new service 

delivery system concept, the Department has been making major improvements to 

the One-Stop Career Center system, through which the majority of DOL employment services are delivered. Because veterans’ employment services operate within 

the One-Stop Career Center system, improvements to the system benefit veterans 

as well as other customers. 

Data collection and reporting is an integral part of the nationwide One-Stop Career Center system. A major innovation, the Wage Record Interchange System 

(WRIS), implemented in PY 2003, has improved the validity of the outcome data reported by the states. WRIS, which is funded by DOL and administered by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA), allows states to exchange 

quarterly wage data regarding individuals who have received workforce investment 

services and match that data across state lines. All states except Hawaii, Puerto 

Rico, and the Virgin Islands participate in WRIS. This new methodology is more reliable in tracking and determining outcomes on entered employment, employment 

retention, and average wages. 

Another major innovation is the adoption of Common Measures. Common Measures is a Federal Government-wide initiative that uses the same definitions across 

20

departments and programs to facilitate the comparison of different program measurements. Under common performance measures, VETS will track entered employment, employment retention, and average earnings after participation. Baseline 

state performance levels will be established in PY 2005 and goals will be negotiated 

with the states in PY 2006. 

GAO REVIEW OF THE JVA

As previously mentioned, the JVA required a full review of employment reforms 

by the GAO, to include an assessment of the DVOP and LVER programs. We 

worked very closely with the GAO on this review. I would like to take this opportunity to comment on some areas in the GAO report. 

GAO recommends we ‘‘provide states and local areas with clear guidance and assistance regarding the integration of veterans’ staff into One-Stop Career Centers.’’ 

DOL concurs with this recommendation. It is essential that DVOP specialists and 

LVER staff be fully integrated into the state’s One-Stop Career Center system so 

that they can assist veterans in accessing the full range of workforce services available. 

To improve DVOP and LVER integration in the One-Stop Career Centers, DOL 

has undertaken two collaborative initiatives and has planned a third. The first initiative, the ‘‘Key to Career Success Campaign,’’ involves collaboration between the 

DOL and the Department of Defense. During pre-separation briefings provided at 

Department of Defense transitionsites and Transition Assistance Program (TAP) 

employment workshops administered by VETS, veterans will be given a brochure 

containing a plastic card similar to the cards customers can get from major grocery 

chains. The brochure and card contain information on the One-Stop Career Center 

system and the assistance available to veterans seeking employment. There is a tollfree help line and a service locator web address that will assist veterans in locating 

the closest One-Stop Career Center by entering their zip codes. 

The campaign has been initiated to address priority of service among all training 

programs funded by DOL. It is intended to help all eligible veterans with specific 

targeting to those who have attended the TAP employment workshop and pre-separation briefing to leverage the power of the nation’s network of over 3,400 One-Stop 

Career Centers. In addition, it highlights the acknowledgement of an individual as 

not just an individual, but a veteran seeking employment. Veterans who come into 

the One-Stop Career Centers can be easily identified and afforded the priority they 

so rightly deserve to pursue employment and training opportunities. This initiative 

is just getting into full swing, but we expect it to afford the states a greater opportunity to provide priority of service to veterans. 

A second initiative launched by the Secretary in October 2004 mobilizes One-Stop 

resources to deliver personalized job assistance and career development services to 

veterans and transitioning service members who are severely injured in the Global 

War on Terrorism. REALifelines (Recovery and Employment Assistance Lifelines) is 

a person-to-person, face-to-face initiative involving Federal and state veteran employment staff in a partnership that provides job training, assistance, and placement services whenever and wherever these service members need it. 

In support of this initiative, VETS’ Federal staff collaborate with the Department 

of Defense and military service representatives in the Military Severely Injured 

Center and throughout the United States, including at major military medical centers and medical holding companies on military installations. VETS’ State Directors 

and Regional Administrators monitor REALifelines in the field. States are responding well to REALifelines, and DVOP specialists in particular are becoming intimately involved in this important initiative. A Web-based REALifelines Advisor (at 

www.dol.gov/elaws/realifelines.htm) is also available to service members and provides job training information and services, as well as referral information. 

Finally, VETS plans to sponsor a study during this fiscal year to examine JVA’s 

impact on employment services to veterans, as well as the impact of other initiatives 

focused on improving employment services in the workforce system. A key objective 

of that study will be to identify specific areas in which clear guidance and assistance 

are required to improve the integration of DVOP specialists and LVER staff into 

One-Stop operations. 

The GAO also recommended that the Department ‘‘provide states and local areas 

with clear guidance and assistance regarding the provision of priority of service.’’ 

DOL generally concurs with this recommendation, but we believe we have worked 

hard to provide good guidance to the states in implementing this important provision. While we agree that many of the programs impacted by priority of service 

might benefit from additional clarification or from the provision of technical assistance, DOL also believes that the priority of service provision has been implemented 

21

more completely than the report indicates. For example, the Department has disseminated policy guidance specifying distinct criteria for applying veterans’ priority 

of service for 15 programs in the workforce system. This guidance is consistent with 

our interpretation that veterans are only eligible for priority of selection to participate in a specific program after they have met all the other statutory eligibility requirements for that program. Because of the interaction between priority of service 

and the specific requirements of the impacted programs, the application of priority 

of service will necessarily take different forms, particularly where another statutory 

priority must be applied in conjunction with veterans’ priority of service. 

GAO recommended we ‘‘disseminate best practices for incentive award programs.’’ 

The Department concurs with this recommendation as well. Best practices for incentive award programs should be shared among the states. Some states are prohibited 

from providing incentives to individuals and, even with a ‘‘best practices’’ guidelines, 

it is still unlikely that all states will be able to make use of incentive funds for 

awards to individual employees. DOL believes that there are alternatives to the current program, such as a national awards program, or the recognition of a service 

‘‘unit’’ in addition to an individual. 

Another important recommendation from the GAO is that VETS ‘‘target monitoring results for program improvement.’’ The Department agrees with this recommendation. In the past year, DOL has taken a significant step to improve coordination of monitoring activities. For instance, we have identified VETS field staff as 

regional accountability contacts. These staffs actively participate in bi-weekly conference calls hosted by DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA). In 

conjunction with ETA’s Regional Accountability Specialists, these VETS staffs are 

responsible for working with state workforce agencies staff regarding performance 

measurement of employment services for veterans. Linking regional accountability 

specialists from both agencies provides the foundation for jointly planning and conducting monitoring visits and jointly enforcing corrective actions as needed. To support these joint efforts, we intend to revise the monitoring guide for Jobs for Veterans grants by focusing on quality of service and accountability of performance. 

PART

During 2005, the DVOP/LVER program was evaluated using the Office of Management and Budget’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). The results of that 

review will be published in conjunction with the roll-out of the President’s fiscal 

year 2007 Budget. I believe that the PART review has provided us with information 

that we can use to improve program performance, both at the national level and 

at the grass-roots level where veterans are served. 

CONCLUSION

When I appeared before this Committee for my confirmation, I said that I believed 

we have a tremendous opportunity to move to a higher level in helping service members and veterans obtain better training for better jobs. Our economy is strong, our 

country needs workers, veterans are outstanding employees, and there are many 

new career opportunities, especially in high growth, high demand industries. We are 

working hard to fully implement all provisions of the Jobs for Veterans Act and to 

improve the delivery of services to veterans in America’s workforce system. 

Mr. Chairman, the Department of Labor takes very seriously the mandate of the 

Jobs for Veterans Act and believes we have made major accomplishments in its implementation. We are pleased that GAO so noted. I assure you we will work diligently to address, and where appropriate, take corrective action to fulfill this Congressional mandate. As always, we stand ready to work with you and your staff. 

I am happy to respond to any questions. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. LARRY E. CRAIG TO

HON. CHARLES S. CICCOLELLA

Question 1a. The attached charts, which are based on data provided by the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS), reflect 

that there is little difference between the entered employment rate for veterans 

served by Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists and Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives (LVERs)—61.1 percent—and the entered employment rate for veterans served by Wagner-Peyser staff—59 percent. Also, nonveterans served at the One Stop Career Centers have a better entered employment 

rate (64 percent) than veterans (60.3 percent). Can you explain why services provided by staff who are specially trained to deal with veterans’ employment issues 

22

do not lead to higher entered employment rates than services provided by staff without that specialized training? 

Question 1b. Can you explain why—in a system that is supposed to provide priority of service to veterans and has staff designated solely to assist veterans—nonveterans are faring better than veterans? 

Answer. The services provided to veterans by DVOP specialists and LVER staff 

are intended to complement and augment, not duplicate or substitute for the services available at One-Stop Career Centers. 

Generally, veterans determined to be job-ready receive assistance from WagnerPeyser staff in accessing core services, whereas veterans determined to have more 

barriers to employment are referred to a DVOP specialist for help in accessing intensive and training services. Although they have been identified as having more 

barriers to employment, veterans served by DVOP specialists have an entered employment rate higher than that of the more job-ready veterans served by WagnerPeyser staff. 

On average, veterans who access One-Stop Career Centers are older than non-veterans who access the Centers. After adjusting for this age difference, veterans accessing One-Stop Career Centers have a slightly higher entered employment rate 

than do non-veterans (61.6 percent vs. 61.2 percent, respectively). Source: DOL analysis for Program Assessment and Rating Tool (PART) Evaluation, June 2005. 

Question 2. One longstanding concern about the DVOP and the LVER programs 

has been a lack of accountability. Now, 3 years after the Jobs for Veterans Act, the 

Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported that greater accountability is 

still needed. Do you think the organization structure depicted in the attached organizational chart may explain, at least in part, why accountability remains a problem? 

Answer. The organization structure chart, created by GAO, correctly shows the relationship between the state workforce system and the Department of Labor VETS. 

We do not believe that this organizational structure has an adverse impact on accountability. 

VETS has implemented a comprehensive performance accountability system, as 

required by the JVA. We believe this is an effective, multifaceted system. It includes 

the following components: 

(a) Five year state plan with annual modifications: This plan, devised by each 

state and reviewed and approved by the DOL, established targets for entered employment and retained employment for all veterans and disabled veterans. 

(b) Quarterly reporting by the states: Managers Reports on the One-Stop Career 

Centers’ service to veterans and a state level Technical Report are submitted. In addition, each state reports through the Labor Employment Reporting System their 

performance outcomes for entered employment and retained employment. 

(c) State assessment tool: The states provide an assessment of 50 percent of their 

One-Stop Career Centers on an annual basis. The VETS State Director then conducts a validation of 20 percent of those submissions. 

(d) DOL/VETS State of the State/Region: As part of the VETS performance management review process, state directors submit annual reports on the state of veterans’ employment in their state. These reports include an assessment of how well 

DVOP and LVER services are integrated and delivered. 

Question 3. You noted in your testimony that the entered employment rates have 

increased over the last few years. But, you also noted that a new data collection 

system was implemented during that time. In view of the new data collection method, is it possible to tell whether employment outcomes for veterans actually improved during that time? 

Answer. The new reporting system has improved the accuracy of data for JVA 

goals, with a corresponding improvement in program management and accountability. 

Outcome data collected through the new system is now available for two complete 

program years. During that time, the rate of entry to employment increased by 2 

percentage points for all veterans (58 percent to 60 percent) and by 3 percentage 

points for disabled veterans (53 percent to 56 percent). Similarly, the employment 

retention rate increased by 2 percentage points for both groups (79 percent to 81 

percent for all veterans and 77 percent to 79 percent for disabled veterans). 

Question 4a. For many years, the GAO and others have recommended that VETS 

clearly identify populations of veterans that should be targeted for assistance and 

set performance goals that will encourage service to those target populations. Has 

this been done? If so, what are the target groups? Are 20 to 24 year olds targeted? 

Question 4b. With the current structure of the DVOP and LVER programs, is it 

possible to ensure that state and local service providers embrace Federal priorities? 

23

Answer. VETS has identified several target populations, and has established a 

monitoring system to track outcomes for them. That tracking system allows the 

agency to determine whether our programs are serving those populations effectively 

or whether increased focus is needed to better serve them. The targeted populations 

are: 

(a) Recently separated veterans (a group that includes most 20-24 year old veterans); 

(b) Returning seriously wounded and injured veterans. VETS, in close collaboration with the DOD and the VA, has implemented a new initiative, called Recovery 

and Employment Assistance Lifelines (REALifelines), to provide these veterans with 

personalized services on a one-to-one basis; 

(c) Homeless veterans; 

(d) Veterans with barriers to employment; and 

(e) Disabled Veterans. 

The annual negotiation of performance targets allows for the incorporation of Federal priorities into state plans. 

Question 5a. In 2001, you testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that ‘‘incentives and sanctions are both important to improve performance’’ and that you were ‘‘investigating other forms of incentives to 

recognize good performance or to impose sanctions when performance is consistently 

unsatisfactory.’’ Does VETS have any meaningful tools for sanctioning states or localities that either do not perform well or do not provide the data needed to assess 

their performance? 

Question 5b. Are those tools used? 

Answer. VETS has the tools to address shortfalls in performance and reporting 

by grantees, including the authority to reduce or withdraw a grant. We employ the 

tools necessary to achieve the desired results. 

The following tools have proven to be the most effective in addressing performance and reporting issues: 

(a) Placing a temporary hold on quarterly allocations motivates non-reporting 

states to take steps to ensure timely reporting. 

(b) When a state is identified as a high-risk grantee, VETS’ field staff provides 

technical assistance in the form of coaching, collaboration and encouraging state-tostate networking to help the state remedy any deficiencies. 

(c) We have also found that one of the best incentives is disclosure. Publicizing 

performance improvements by posting the results states have attained provides an 

incentive to sustained performance as well as a competitive challenge to other 

States to bring up their levels of performance. 

(d) Corrective Action Plans are employed as necessary to address performance and 

other deficiencies within a state. By accompanying Corrective Action Plans with the 

delivery of technical assistance, VETS assures that state grantees are given every 

opportunity to succeed and that employment services for veterans are maintained 

at the highest possible level. 

Question 6. The DVOP and LVER grant funds are non-competitively awarded to 

states. The Commission on Servicemembers and Veterans Transition Assistance, 

and later the Administration’s 2002 legislative request, urged the Congress to embrace awarding DVOP/LVER grants on a competitive basis. What are your thoughts 

on introducing some competition into these programs? 

Answer. By law, DVOP/LVER funds are made available to each state whose application has been approved by the Secretary in accordance with the allocation formula 

established in the JVA. VETS has not considered awarding the DVOP/LVER grant 

funds on a competitive basis within a state as this would interfere with state flexibility. 

Question 7a. Last year, the ‘‘entered employment rate’’ attained by states ranged 

from a low of 34 percent to a high of 80 percent. What accounts for the huge variations in state performance? And what measures have been taken to address those 

variances? 

Question 7b. What leverage—if any—does VETS have over state or local service 

providers that either are performing poorly or not providing reliable data for assessing their true performance? 

Answer. We find that states are highly committed to serving their veterans. Variations in performance often reflect state and local economic conditions. VETS staff 

work directly with a state to resolve issues related to data reliability and low performance. 

We do not believe the 34 percent rate reflects that State’s actual performance. 

(a) Rather, the low reported results can be significantly attributed to the State’s 

data collection processes. 

24

(b) We are working with both DOL’s Employment and Training Administration 

and the State to resolve these reporting problems. 

Question 8a. GAO has reported that 21 states are not reporting local-level performance data. Does this affect VETS’ ability to conduct meaningful oversight? 

Question 8b. It is my understanding that VETS has, in some circumstances, withheld funding from states that have not submitted required reports. If VETS has that 

authority, why is it not used to force those 21 states to submit the local data? 

Answer. VETS negotiates performance targets at the state level, and holds the 

state accountable for its overall performance. In all states, local-level performance 

data is input into a state data system and contained in the state data that is reported to VETS. 

The JVA does not specifically require states to separately report performance data 

at the local level. 

Prior to JVA and states implementing new reporting systems, local performance 

data was provided and some states continue to make such data available. However, 

as mentioned in the GAO review, some states do not retain the ability to separately 

identify the local level data that went into the statewide data. 

Question 9a. At the hearing, we heard that 17 states have not implemented an incentive award program and that other states distributed as little as $16 in award 

money. Based on those statistics, it appears to me that the current incentive program is not an effective tool for enhancing performance. Is that an accurate assessment? And do you believe that continuing an incentive program in a different form 

would provide states with an effective tool for enhancing performance? 

Question 9b. Would linking incentives to employment outcomes for recently separated or disabled veterans help target services to those groups? 

Answer. Incentive programs have been implemented in most states, and some 

have reported that it is an effective tool for enhancing performance. However, it is 

clear that some states are not able to implement incentive programs along the lines 

that Congress intended. 

VETS hopes to extend both the range and the level of success of state incentive 

programs by sharing the best practices of those states that have implemented successful incentive programs. 

In addition, VETS will work with those states unable to implement such programs 

to explore other options available under existing authority that are consistent with 

the goal of state flexibility. 

We are looking at this issue very carefully and plan to make recommendations 

for change on the incentives awards program. 

For those states that are able to implement the incentives, flexibility exists for 

states to link incentives to employment outcomes for target populations, and some 

states are doing so. 

Question 10. You testified at the hearing that VETS has not yet established a national standard for employment outcomes. Given the varying demographics and economic conditions around the country, will it be feasible to establish a realistic, single goal for all states and localities? Or should some flexibility be built into the national standard to account for those factors? 

Answer. A national standard applied to each individual state might set unreasonable expectations for those states that are improving on their relatively low levels 

of performance. At the same time, such a national standard might fail to sufficiently 

challenge high-performing states to continuously improve their veteran employment 

outcomes. 

Instead of a uniform national standard, a performance band could be established 

to include deviations above and below the national average. States performing above 

the performance band would be considered high performers; those within the band 

would be adequate performers; and those below the band would be required to develop and implement a corrective action plan for producing more effective outcomes 

within a specified time period. 

As soon as sufficient data has been gathered to establish a national threshold 

baseline, VETS will implement this provision of the JVA. 

Question 11a. You have testified previously that VETS’ mission is ‘‘to reduce unemployment and underemployment among veterans.’’ So, in determining VETS’ success, should we look at national trends in unemployment rates for veterans? And 

in determining the success of states, should we look at trends in the state veteran 

unemployment rates? 

Question 11b. How do you gauge whether VETS is reducing underemployment? 

Answer. At the national level, we believe the most appropriate criteria for success 

are the annual performance outcomes of veterans entering and retaining employment through the One-Stop Career System. For the year ending June 30, 2005, the 

outcomes met or exceeded established targets. 

25

At the state level, the most appropriate criteria for success are whether their outcome results meet or exceed the target performance levels established in the State 

Plans. 

Reducing underemployment is implicit in VETS’ programs’ objective of placing 

veterans in the best possible jobs, based on their individual aspirations, skills and 

abilities. DVOP specialists and LVER staff provide priority service to both veterans 

who are unemployed and to employed veterans that want to attain higher-level jobs. 

Question 12. In its December 2005 report, GAO stressed that available performance data are not used to target additional guidance or technical assistance. What, 

if anything, is done when performance data indicate that a state or a particular locality is not performing adequately? Are states required to file corrective action 

plans? 

Answer. States are bound by our grant agreement to provide reports and to analyze statewide performance against the negotiated State Plan. 

VETS also analyzes state performance and has meaningful tools to address shortfalls in performance and reporting by grantees. Those tools, which include Corrective Action Plans, are listed in the response to question #5. 

Question 13. In July 2005, you testified before this Committee that you would 

work with the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration to 

encourage states to implement the Wage Record Information System. It is my understanding that this system has some drawbacks, such as the inability to capture 

data about veterans who return to Federal service or who are self-employed. Is that 

the case? And what efforts have you made or will you make to compensate for those 

deficiencies? 

Answer. Every state except Hawaii participates in the Wage Record Interchange 

System (WRIS). 

We are making progress on capturing data on Federal employment. For example, 

21 states are now participating in the Federal Employment Data Exchange System 

(FEDES) project, which provides access to employment records maintained by the 

Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Defense and the United States 

Postal Service. Another seven states are negotiating data sharing agreements in 

order to begin participation. 

WRIS does not capture data on self-employment. 

As discussed in the response to question #18, VETS is currently assessing research initiatives that would investigate the question of what becomes of those veterans served through the One-Stop Career System that are not reported as having 

entered employment. We hope the results of that research will help us better assess 

how to directly address the needs of veterans. 

Question 14. As we discussed at the hearing, the Commission on Servicemembers 

and Veterans Transition Assistance recommended that Congress consider transferring certain functions of VETS to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Then 

in 2002 the Administration submitted a proposal to transfer those functions to VA. 

Would you provide us with any additional thoughts you have about that proposal? 

Is it possible that employment services to veterans could be improved by consolidating veterans’ employment services with other veterans’ services, such as vocational rehabilitation? 

Answer. There is no current Administration proposal to transfer VETS’ functions 

to the VA. 

The Workforce Investment System is highly specialized in providing employment 

services and providing skills training and linkages to the jobs and occupations that 

employers demand. High quality employment services for veterans benefit greatly 

from operation within that system. 

The core function of the Department of Labor and its Workforce Investment System is employment. While it is important that the veterans’ employment programs 

coordinate with VA programs focused on veterans’ health and benefits, I believe veterans are best served by the specialized employment services administered by DOL. 

Question 15a. Last year, over $500 million was spent on unemployment compensation for ex-servicemembers. Are there any specific outreach efforts to veterans who 

are in receipt of unemployment compensation? Is information about these veterans 

communicated to the DVOP specialists and LVERs? 

Question 15b. Does VETS use the amount of unemployment compensation paid as 

a gauge of its success? 

Answer. All states participate in Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services 

(WPRS), commonly called profiling. The intent of profiling is to identify those individuals who are most likely to exhaust their UI entitlement. In some states, veterans who are identified through profiling are referred to the DVOP or LVER for 

employment services. 

26

States often provide a list of UCX (Unemployment Compensation for Exservicemembers) claimants to local DVOP specialists or LVER staff so that they can 

proactively contact the service member by telephone or email and offer direct employment assistance. 

VETS does not use the amount of unemployment compensation paid as a gauge 

of its success. 

Question 16. It is my understanding that the current funding formula is essentially based on the number of veterans seeking employment in a state compared to 

the number of veterans seeking employment nationwide. The Department of Commerce and Labor in my home state of Idaho has expressed concern that this funding 

formula does not take into account rural or geographical issues, labor market conditions, seasonal fluctuations, or underemployment in the state. In order to ensure 

that states have sufficient funds to meet the unique challenges in their individual 

states, should this funding formula be broadened to include more factors? 

Answer. The implementing regulations for the DVOP/LVER funding formula provide that supplemental funding not to exceed 4 percent (4%) of the funds available 

for program allocation may be made available for exigencies, including, but not limited to, needs based on sharp or unanticipated fluctuations in state unemployment 

levels and services to transitioning servicemembers. 

States may request additional funds above the amount allocated under the funding formula at any time. We recognize that economic and unemployment conditions 

projected at the time of the grant application may not reflect actual conditions. We 

believe that the ability of states to request additional funds provides the necessary 

flexibility to address exigencies. 

The JVA also allows the use of half time DVOP specialists and LVER staff, and 

we believe this helps address the challenges of geographic dispersion. 

Question 17. It is my understanding that a significant percentage of service members come from rural communities. Are One Stop Career Centers an effective means 

for reaching veterans that return to rural areas? Do these veterans have access to 

career counseling by phone or internet? 

Answer. Many rural areas have a half- or full-time DVOP specialist or LVER staff 

person who provides services to their local veterans. In those instances where the 

state determines there are not enough veteran clients to justify a part time DVOP 

specialist or LVER staff person, priority services are provided to veterans by Wagner-Peyser or other One-Stop Career Center staff. 

Many One-Stop services are available to veterans via the internet. The 

CareerOneStop portal (www.CareerOneStop.org) provides an array of services electronically, including: 

• America’s Service Locator (www.servicelocator.org) provides local office information on more than 22,000 local locations, including 3,500 One Stop Career Centers; 

• America’s Career InfoNet (www.acinet.org) provides information on occupations, 

training required for those occupations, and financial assistance available; 

• America’s Job Bank (www.ajb.org) lists over 1 million job openings with priority 

of service afforded to veterans who register their resumes on-line; and 

• Career Voyages (www.CareerVoyages.gov), a career information tool providing in 

depth information on high growth occupations. 

Many states have utilized Workforce Investment Act and Wagner-Peyser funds to 

supplement these nationally funded electronic tools. 

Veterans and transitioning military personnel can call 1–877–US–2JOBS or TTY: 

1–877–899–5627 toll-free to locate the nearest One-Stop Career Center. 

Many One-Stop Career Centers provide services over the telephone. 

Question 18. It is my understanding that no data are collected about veterans who 

do NOT enter employment after receiving services at the One-Stops. Do you believe 

that information could be helpful? Given the current organizational structure of 

these programs, do you have the authority to require DVOP specialists and LVER 

staff to collect additional data? 

Answer. Approximately 60 percent of veterans who exit the One-Stop Career Centers enter employment. We believe data on what becomes of those veterans who exit 

the One-Stop Centers but are not reported to have entered employment might be 

helpful, and are currently assessing research initiatives that would investigate that 

question. 

The results of that research will help us better assess whether we need to collect 

more information and how to do that. 

27

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA TO

HON. CHARLES S. CICCOLELLA

Question 1. In your opinion, should the Federal Government conduct site visits 

more than once every 5 years? 

Answer. I believe that the existing multifaceted performance accountability system, described in detail below, is effective. It can also be adapted to provide enhanced oversight, and provides the flexibility to perform additional site visits as necessary. Examples of conditions that might lead to additional site visits include areas 

where available Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) and Local Veterans’ 

Employment Representative (LVER) positions remain unfilled, or if process data included in the Manager’s Report, described below, indicates a significant drop in the 

services provided to veterans at a specific One-Stop Career Center. Another example 

of a condition that might lead to additional site visits is the aftermath of a catastrophic event, such as Hurricane Katrina. In that specific instance, the VETS State 

Directors from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas conducted numerous site 

visits to assess operating conditions at impacted One-Stop Career Centers and related public workforce facilities. 

The comprehensive performance accountability system, required by the Jobs for 

Veterans Act (JVA), includes the following components: 

a. Five year state plan with annual modifications: This plan, devised by each state 

and reviewed and approved by the Department of Labor (DOL), establishes targets 

for entered employment and retained employment for all veterans and disabled veterans. 

b. Quarterly reporting by the states: Local level Managers’ Reports on the delivery 

of services to veterans at One-Stop Career Centers and a state level Technical Report are submitted. In addition, each state reports their performance outcomes for 

entered employment and retained employment through the Labor Exchange Reporting System. Beginning July 1, 2006, states will also be required to report on the 

average earnings of participants who enter employment. 

c. State assessment tool: The states provide an assessment of 50 percent of their 

One-Stop Career Centers on an annual basis. The VETS State Director then conducts a validation of 20 percent of those submissions. VETS State Directors have 

the discretion and the authority to conduct additional site visits wherever problems 

are suspected. In addition, where problems exist, it is common for the VETS State 

Director to schedule regular site visits until satisfied that the problem has been resolved. 

d. DOL/VETS State of the State/Region: As part of the VETS performance management review process, State Directors submit annual reports on the status of veterans’ employment and training services in their state. These reports include an assessment of how well the DVOP and LVER services are integrated and delivered. 

Question 2. What, besides priority of service, is VETS doing specifically to address 

the 15 percent unemployment rate of younger veterans? I would hate to see a young 

person who served this nation honorably contending with issues of unemployment 

when he or she separates from the military. 

Answer. I share your conviction that no young person who has served in the military should struggle with unemployment upon returning to civilian life. VETS has 

a number of strategies to help young veterans get good jobs quickly: 

a. Research indicates that service members who participate in the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) employment workshops find their first post-military job an 

average of 3 weeks sooner than those who did not attend TAP. Therefore, VETS is 

working to increase the number of troops that participate in TAP employment workshops. In addition, we are exploring with DOD the possibility of increasing the 

length of the TAP workshops from two and one-half days to 3 days in duration. 

b. Our Hire Vets First campaign is a national outreach campaign connecting employers with job-seeking veterans. 

c. The nation’s One-Stop Career System provides priority of service to all veterans 

in accessing employment and training programs. DVOPs and LVERs deployed 

throughout the System assist veterans in identifying and accessing the services they 

need. 

d. VETS will continue to target recently separated veterans through the Veterans’ 

Workforce Investment Program. 

e. VETS is collaborating with the Department of Veterans Affairs on research that 

will lead to a better understanding of the employment challenges faced by young 

veterans. 

f. VETS’ REALifelines program provides one-on-one employment assistance to 

wounded and injured transitioning service members and families to assist their reintegration into the civilian workforce. These services are supplemented by an onVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
28

line employment law advisor (elaws Advisor) that provides access to valuable online resources and contact information for employment assistance in each state 

(www.dol.gov/elaws/REALifelines.htm). 

Question 3. Much of our focus is on services for newly separated veterans. In my 

home state of Hawaii veterans of the first Gulf War and the Vietnam War are coming in for retraining. What specifically is VETS doing to reach out to some of these 

older veterans? 

Answer. VETS and its State Workforce Agency partners conduct ongoing activities 

to reach out to veterans who served in prior conflicts. For example, during the past 

3 months, VETS staff and DVOP/LVER staff from the Hawaii Department of Labor 

and Industrial Relations (DLIR) attended 30 meetings at Veterans’ Service Organizations and at Veterans’ Centers to reach out to veterans of all ages and from all 

conflict eras. 

During January, VETS staff and DVOP/LVER staff participated in a job fair in 

Honolulu that was attended by 180 employers and over 3500 applicants. Similarly, 

the VETS State Director’s recent appearance on local TV helped to ‘‘get the word 

out’’ to veterans of all ages. In addition, the Helmets to Hard Hats program will 

be reactivated this spring and summer on Oahu with strong support from the local 

construction trades unions, DLIR and VETS. 

Question 4. Why is there no coordinated oversight among Labor agencies responsible for implementing the Jobs for Veterans Act’s reforms? 

Answer. VETS and DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) are 

coordinating their oversight of the Jobs for Veterans Act’s reforms. Initially, this coordination was focused at the national level, with the development of guidelines for 

implementation of priority of service. Currently, the focus of that coordination has 

shifted to the regional level. Since ETA’s six administrative regions include designated regional performance specialists, VETS recently assigned regional office 

staff members to serve as VETS’ counterparts to those specialists. The focus of this 

coordination will shift next to the state level, as ETA and VETS initiate coordinated 

monitoring of State Workforce Agency performance. 

Question 5. I am very concerned with the unavailability of local performance data. 

This has weakened Federal oversight. Do you suggest can be done to rectify this 

situation? 

Answer. In all states, local-level performance data is input into a state data system and contained in the state data that is reported to the Department of Labor. 

As mentioned in the GAO review (Veterans Employment and Training Service: 

Labor Actions Needed to Improve Accountability and Help States Implement Reforms to Veterans’ Employment Services, GAO–06–176, December 30, 2005), some 

states do not have the ability to separately identify the local level performance results that went into the statewide performance data. We do not believe that this 

weakens Federal oversight. VETS’ and State staff use internal state systems to 

evaluate process data, such as services provided and veterans served, to identify potential problems. Note this data is different from state performance outcome data, 

from which local performance results might not be separately identifiable. VETS negotiates performance targets at the state level, and holds the state accountable for 

its overall performance. However, sufficient local-level process data are available to 

support VETS’ Federal oversight responsibilities. 

Question 6. In some states, including Hawaii, the law prohibits the use of the Jobs 

for Veterans Act’s monetary incentives. For these states are there better uses for 

the incentive money? 

Answer. Incentive programs have been implemented in most states, and some 

have reported that it is an effective tool for enhancing performance. However, it is 

clear that some states simply are not able to implement incentive programs along 

the lines that Congress intended. 

VETS hopes to extend both the range and the level of success of state incentive 

programs by sharing the best practices of those states that have implemented successful incentive programs. In addition, VETS will work with those states unable 

to implement such programs to explore possible options available under existing authority that are consistent with the goal of state flexibility. 

Flexibility exists for states to link incentives to employment outcomes for target 

populations, and some states are doing so. We are looking at this issue very carefully and we plan to make recommendations for change on the incentives awards 

program. 

29

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. BARACK OBAMA TO

HON. CHARLES S. CICCOLELLA

Question 1. Illinois ranked dead last in the Nation with an Entered Employment 

Rate of 38 percent. I understand there were some accounting problems that make 

those dismal numbers inaccurate. Could you briefly explain those problems, and 

what steps labor has taken to fix them? 

Answer. Two major reporting problems contributed to Illinois’ low Entered Employment Rate (EER). 

The first results from a legal opinion, issued by the State, stating that job seekers 

need not provide their Social Security Number (SSN) when registering for employment services. This resulted in missing SSNs for approximately 20 percent of the 

Illinois Department of Employment Security’s (IDES) registrants. Since those who 

enter employment are identified by using their SSNs to match registrant records to 

employer wage records, those registrants who do not provide their SSNs cannot be 

matched. Therefore, in calculating the EER, they are not included among those entering employment, even though they may have found jobs. The IDES Director has 

asked for a review of this legal opinion. 

In addition to not receiving credit for registrants that entered employment but did 

not provide their SSN at registration, Illinois has also not received credit for registrants that did provide their SSN but entered into employment in another state. 

A number of Illinois residents obtain jobs in adjacent states with IDES assistance. 

Wage records from other states can be obtained through the Interstate Wage Record 

Information System (WRIS). Illinois began using the Interstate WRIS in March, and 

will apply it retroactively. 

Once the State corrects these two reporting issues, we will be able to more accurately assess the outcomes of VETS programs in Illinois. 

Question 2. Your staff has said that in fixing these issues, Illinois placement goes 

up to around 55 percent. I want to parse that out a bit. Isn’t it true that 55 percent 

performance rate still among the worst in the nation? Isn’t it true the 55 percent 

figure does not account for as many as 20 percent of Illinois Veterans seeking care? 

What will Labor do to better account for those missing veterans? 

Answer. The national entered employment rate for veterans is 60.3 percent. If Illinois were to have an EER of 55 percent, the state would be below the national average, but not among the worst in the nation. 

The Interstate WRIS can be utilized to capture future outcomes and can also be 

used to retroactively capture outcomes for past IDES registrants that supplied their 

SSNs and found employment in adjacent states. However, the problem of missing 

SSNs is very difficult to correct retroactively. It is estimated that approximately 20 

percent of IDES registrants did not provide their SSNs. Outcome data will likely 

never be captured for those registrants who leave the system without supplying 

their SSN. This is why it is very important for IDES to resolve this problem. 

We have been working with the State of Illinois for several years to help it move 

to a common information system. We will continue to encourage and assist Illinois 

in finding ways the State can improve the outcomes for its veterans seeking employment. 

Question 3. My understanding is that you have fixed one of the two accounting 

problems starting with the latest numbers from December 31. You expect to fix the 

second problem beginning with the first quarter of this year. So you will have a significantly better numbers May of this year at the latest. I would appreciate a commitment from you to come back to me at that time with an accurate accounting of 

what is going in Illinois, a plan for accounting for that missing 20 percent and a 

plan to improve service for the state’s veterans. Can you make that commitment to 

me? 

Answer. VETS will continue to encourage and work with the Illinois Department 

of Employment Security to modernize and improve its data collection and reporting 

systems, but it is ultimately up to the State to change its practices. I will be happy 

to update you on progress made by the State. 

Question 4. Approximately how many homeless veterans would the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program be able to serve if the program received appropriations 

at the full $50 million authorization level? How does this figure compare to the 

number of veterans served through HVRP during the last fiscal year in which such 

data is available? For the most recent fiscal year in which data is available, what 

is the entered employment rate for homeless veterans served through HVRP? 

Answer. In fiscal year 2004, the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program served 

almost 12,500 participants and achieved a 65 percent Entered Employment Rate 

with an appropriation of about $21 million. By doubling our appropriation to the 

30

authorization level of $50 million, we would probably be able to double the number 

of veterans served. 

Question 5. Last year, our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee instructed 

the Department to add a module on homelessness prevention to the TAP curriculum. What steps has the Department taken to implement this instruction? 

Answer. A module on homelessness that responds to the Committee’s instruction 

has been developed, added to the curriculum of the TAP employment workshop, and 

distributed to the TAP facilitators. The module explains issues surrounding homelessness among veterans and discusses why veterans are particularly vulnerable. It 

also provides resource and contact information for veterans who find themselves 

homeless or on a path that could lead to homelessness.

Chairman CRAIG. Thank you very much, Chick. 

Now let us turn to Dr. Sig Nilsen, director of education and 

workforce and income security issues of the GAO. Dr. Nilsen, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF DR. SIGURD R. NILSEN, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES,

U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Dr. NILSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I am pleased to be 

here today to present the findings from our recent report on how 

the Department of Labor and States have implemented several key 

provisions of the Jobs for Veterans Act. 

As you know, Congress passed JVA in 2002 to improve employment and training services for unemployed veterans and encourage 

employers to hire them. The ability of our Nation’s veterans to 

quickly obtain quality workforce services and employment will become even more important, given the rising number of those leaving active duty and returning home to look for jobs. 

JVA introduced an array of reforms to two of Labor’s principal 

employment assistance programs for veterans—the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program, or DVOP, and the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative Program, known as LVER. In my testimony today, I will highlight, first, actions taken to improve performance and accountability and discuss any challenges we identified; second, whether such action has improved employment outcomes for veterans; and finally, factors affecting program oversight 

and accountability. 

First, Labor and States have taken action to implement most 

JVA reforms, but there are still some challenges. For example, 

Labor has issued guidance and conducts ongoing training classes 

on new roles and responsibilities for the DVOP and LVER staff, 

but it is concerned the current training resources will not meet the 

demand. 

The majority of State workforce administrators also reported that 

staff had transitioned to their new roles, but integrating them with 

other staff in the One-Stops has been a persistent challenge in 

some areas. Yet we heard from some staff that it is working very 

well in their local One-Stops, while others said little had changed 

since JVA was passed. 

As for JVA’s incentive awards program, we have heard—the program to recognize quality services to veterans—Labor allocated 

funding to States for incentives, but 17 States, as you have heard, 

including Idaho and Hawaii, don’t have such programs because it 

conflicts with their laws or policies. 

31

Mr. Chairman, you may know in Idaho, for example, the incentives were not implemented because of potential morale problems 

among One-Stop staff with limited opportunities to serve veterans. 

Moreover, States with award programs express mixed opinions on 

the effect of incentives on improving veterans services. 

Labor has also established performance measures like those 

under the Workforce Investment Act, more recently adopted OMB’s 

Common Measures as well. However, Labor said that it needs more 

time under the new system before all States can be held accountable to the same standard for veterans employment. The last estimate we heard was 2007. 

Turning now to whether JVA reforms improved employment outcomes for veterans. Most State officials we surveyed, that is 33 out 

of the 50 States, believed that the reforms have improved the quality of veterans services and their employment outcomes. 

Regarding services, the biggest improvement was in DVOP staff 

spending more time on case management, noted by 42 States as a 

major improvement. Services to disabled veterans had similarly improved. State officials also said that employment outcomes improved, once again, due to the increased availability of case management. 

Finally, Labor’s accountability for the DVOP and LVER programs is weakened by the lack of local performance data. In our 

survey, for example, VETS directors in 21 States reported that performance data from local offices were not available. Federal oversight is further limited by lack of coordination among labor agencies and monitoring programs and sharing the results. 

For example, VETS monitors the DVOP and LVER programs, 

while ETA—the Employment and Training Administration, another part of Labor—oversees other programs like the Workforce 

Investment Act that also serve veterans. But all these programs 

provide services through the One-Stop system. But the two agencies don’t generally work together. Furthermore, Labor doesn’t 

proactively use monitoring results to determine why certain States 

and localities are falling behind and targeting them for greater assistance. 

In conclusion, our work suggests that the reforms embedded in 

JVA are moving VETS services in the right direction, but additional action is needed to enhance employment outcomes for veterans. To this end, our December 2005 report recommended that 

the Secretary of Labor provide clear guidance to better integrate 

veterans services into the One-Stops. We also recommended that 

Labor’s program offices coordinate their oversight of veterans services and that monitoring results be used to make program improvements. 

Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I would be 

happy to respond to questions for you or other Members of the 

Committee at this time. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Sigurd R. Nilsen follows as an attachment:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. SIGURD R. NILSEN, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

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RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. LARRY E. CRAIG TO

DR. SIGURD R. NILSEN

This letter responds to your questions following the Committee hearing on the 

Jobs for Veterans Act held on February 2, 2006. Congress passed the Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA) in 2002 to improve employment and training services for veterans 

as well as encourage employers to hire them. The ability of veterans to quickly obtain needed services leading to employment has taken on a greater level of importance given the large numbers of service members annually leaving active duty and 

returning to civilian life. JVA reformed two of Labor’s programs that focus exclusively on veterans and that are administered by the Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service (VETS). These programs are the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) and the Local Veterans Employment Representative (LVER) program. 

Through these two programs, DVOP staff provide intensive services to eligible veterans while LVER staff conduct outreach to employers, among other duties. 

The information below presents each of your questions followed by our responses 

which were based on information from VETS, the National Veterans Training Institute, and our previous work. 

Question 1. In his prepared statement, Mr. Richard Weidman stated—in response 

to the December 2005 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report—that the 

‘‘conclusion that the [Jobs for Veterans Act] has generally improved services to veterans is based on nothing that could be considered rational, substantiated data.’’ Is 

that an accurate assessment? Do we have any objective means of determining 

whether veterans have benefited from the Jobs for Veterans Act reforms? 

Answer. Our findings are based first, on the responses to our survey of state 

workforce administrators who reported that more time spent on and better quality 

of case management were among the improved services provided to veterans. Second, veterans’ staff in the one-stop centers we visited also told us that the increased 

emphasis on intensive services generally improved overall services to veterans. Mr. 

Weidman is correct in his assessment that VETS does not have good outcome data. 

In fact, we have serious reservations about VETS performance data—both what is 

being measured and the quality of data being reported. In short, VETS does not 

have good data to assess program performance. 

Question 2. Last year, you testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that ‘‘[a]ssessing how well [the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP)] and [Local Veterans’ Employment Representative (LVER)] 

programs are serving veterans may continue to be difficult due to ongoing concerns 

about data reliability.’’ How reliable are the data that we have now? Can we accurately assess performance? 

Answer. There are reliability issues with current performance data, and while 

VETS has taken steps to improve reliability, additional action is needed to accurately assess program performance. VETS officials told us that some states have 

known data reliability issues with their management information systems. In addition, while Labor has established data validation procedures, validation does not extend to the case file level to ensure that DVOP and LVER staff accurately record 

data at the point of service delivery. VETS officials cited concerns that DVOP and 

LVER staff were inputting erroneous data for reasons such as staff not understanding the new definitions of the performance measures, lack of training on entering data into an automated system, and inconsistent registration policies. Therefore, 

based on our assessment of states’ performance data reported to Labor, we determined that the data were not sufficiently reliable to use for the purposes of our report. 

Question 3. At the hearing, we heard about new performance measures that have 

been implemented since the Jobs for Veterans Act. Do these measures allow us to 

determine whether services provided by a DVOP specialist or an LVER had a material effect on helping a veteran find a job? In other words, is the ‘‘entered employment rate’’ a solid performance measure or does it simply measure coincidence—

rather than a cause and effect relationship between services provided and an outcome attained? 

Answer. The DVOP and LVER programs track 3 different types of ‘‘entered employment rates’’ that vary in how closely they are tied to services received by veterans, but we believe that VETS’ performance measures need to be examined and 

likely changed given the new roles that DVOP and LVER staff are performing. For 

example, there is a general veteran ‘‘entered employment rate’’ that is not specifically tied to services received by veterans. Another measure—entered employment 

following receipt of staff-assisted services—provides a link between outcomes and 

services provided by DVOP and LVER staff. In light of their new role, DVOP staff 

have an additional measure that tracks employment following receipt of intensive 

47

services such as case management. However, there are no measures established for 

LVER staff to evaluate their performance in conducting employer outreach, a key 

role under JVA. Moreover, such performance measures are not capable of assessing 

the effectiveness of the one-stop system in serving veterans. Cause-and-effect relationships can be determined only through a carefully designed impact evaluation. 

Examining the relationship between services and outcomes is risky using simple 

outcome data because other factors—such as inherent job readiness differences between those who need intensive services and those who do not—could affect any difference observed in the outcomes these jobseekers achieved. 

Question 4. In its December 2005 report, GAO stressed that in 21 states ‘‘key veterans employment data are not collected at the local level or available through other 

means.’’ Can you explain what data are not being collected and reported? Does the 

unavailability of that data impact the reliability of statewide performance data? 

Does it impact accountability? 

Answer. DVOP and LVER performance data unavailable at the local level in 21 

states include those reported quarterly to Labor in the VETS 200 report—the number of veterans applying for and receiving services and those employed after receiving different levels of services by specific categories of veterans (including all veterans, transitioning service members, campaign, disabled, special disabled, recently 

separated, and female veterans). While a state may track local level data for DVOPs 

and LVERs in its state data systems, these data are not necessarily the same type 

of data tracked in the VETS 200 report and are not reported to Labor. We did not 

assess how the absence of local level data impacted the reliability of statewide performance data, but identified and reported other data reliability issues at the state 

level that precluded using them to assess program performance. We did find, however, that the absence of local level data in 21 states hindered oversight and accountability of local workforce offices and individual DVOP and LVER staff in those 

states. In addition, the absence of individual performance data may compromise the 

ability of these states to design a performance incentive awards program based on 

a methodology that is objective rather than subjective. 

Question 5. In the December 2005 report, you noted that, under the Jobs for Veterans Act, new performance measures are supposed to be weighted to provide special consideration for placement of veterans requiring intensive services. Are the 

new performance measures weighted to do that? Do current performance measures 

encourage service to those veterans most in need of assistance? 

Answer. VETS has not yet implemented a system for weighting the performance 

measures as required by JVA to provide special consideration for such groups as disabled veterans. While VETS issued initial policy guidance in June 2003, officials 

told us that the guidance was abandoned because the weighting system was too 

complex and confusing to implement. VETS has not yet specified when it will implement a weighted performance measurement system. 

Question 6a. It is my understanding that some veterans who access a One-Stop 

Career Center are assisted by staff funded through the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service grant program and the remainder are 

served by other One-Stop staff. As reflected in the attached chart, data provided by 

the Department of Labor show that the entered employment rates for those groups 

are virtually the same. Do the similar entered employment rates for these groups 

suggest that there is little ‘‘value-added’’ in having a separate grant program for 

veterans? 

Answer. The entered employment rates attributable to services provided by DVOP 

staff cannot be compared to other one-stop staff without controlling for differences 

in the job readiness of the veteran populations served. Some one-stop staff we met 

with told us that DVOP staff are more likely to serve veterans in need of intensive 

services, such as case management, while Wagner-Peyser employment services staff 

are more likely to serve job-ready veterans who require fewer services before employment. However, there are no data available to corroborate this. 

Question 6b. Do Wagner-Peyser staff have similar training as DVOP and LVER 

staff? Do they provide similar services to veterans? 

Answer. Wagner-Peyser staff do not generally receive the same training as DVOP 

and LVER staff primarily because they perform different duties. However, Labor’s 

National Veterans Training Institute conducted onsite training in Ohio that included Wagner-Peyser as well as DVOP and LVER staff. In addition, about 20 percent of participants in some of the classes at the Training Institute are staff other 

than DVOPs and LVERs and could include Wagner-Peyser staff, according to training officials. There is also an orientation class to veterans’ programs designed specifically for other one-stop partners. In addition, LVERs are responsible for training 

other one-stop staff to enhance their knowledge of veterans’ employment and training issues and develop their capacity to provide the full range of services to meet 

48

veterans’ needs. Officials from VETS and the Training Institute recognized the need 

for broader training of one-stop staff in serving veterans, but cited difficulties related to the current level of training resources. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. BARACK OBAMA TO

DR. SIGURD R. NILSEN

Question 1. As Secretary Principi asked in his testimony, do employment program 

managers have clearly define goals and standards for placing veterans in suitable 

jobs? I, too, am concerned about the process and outcomes. 

Question 2. While collecting information for your report, did you find that there 

were clearly defined lines of oversight authority from the Department of Labor’s 

Veteran Employment and Training Service to the states? 

Answer.

Subject: GAO Responses to Questions Following Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Hearing on the Jobs for Veterans Act

This letter responds to your questions following the Committee hearing on the 

Jobs for Veterans Act held on February 2, 2006. Congress passed the Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA) in 2002 to improve employment and training services for veterans 

as well as encourage employers to hire them. The ability of veterans to quickly obtain needed services leading to employment has taken on a greater level of importance given the large numbers of service members annually leaving active duty and 

returning to civilian life. JVA reformed two of Labor’s programs that focus exclusively on veterans and that are administered by the Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service (VETS). These programs are the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) and the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative (LVER) program. Through these two programs, DVOP staff provide intensive services to eligible 

veterans while LVER staff conduct outreach to employers, among other duties. 

With respect to performance and accountability for these two programs, you specifically asked whether (1) employment program managers have clearly defined 

goals and standards for placing veterans in suitable jobs, and (2) lines of oversight 

authority from VETS to the states were clearly defined. 

Our responses to your questions are based on information from VETS, results of 

our survey of state workforce administrators and directors of Veterans’ Employment 

and Training, and our December 2005 report, Veterans’ Employment and Training 

Service: Labor Actions Needed to Improve Accountability and Help State Implement 

Reforms to Veterans’ Employment Services (GAO–06–176). 

Performance goals are not consistently established for local offices or individual 

veterans’ staff even though employment outcome goals are established at the state 

level. State workforce administrators in 31 states reported establishing local office 

or one-stop performance goals for DVOP, LVER, or other employment service staff 

while administrators in 18 states reported not establishing such goals. With respect 

to individual staff, administrators in just over half the states reported establishing 

performance goals for DVOP, LVER, or other employment service staff. In the majority of cases, local offices either negotiate their own performance goals with the 

state or use the same goals as the state, according to Directors of Veterans’ Employment and Training surveyed. 

There are clearly defined lines of program oversight authority from VETS to the 

states; however, supervisory authority over state employees—including DVOP and 

LVER staff—lies with the state workforce agency. Despite clear lines of authority, 

however, lack of local performance data and coordination hinder oversight and accountability at the local level. For example, VETS directors in 21 states noted that 

performance data tracked by the VETS 200 report were not available at the local 

level. In addition, Labor’s Employment and Training Administration oversees other 

workforce programs serving veterans—such as the Workforce Investment Act and 

Wagner-Peyser Employment Services—but does not generally coordinate its monitoring activities with VETS. 

If you have any questions about this letter, please contact me at (202) 512–7215. 

You may also reach me by e-mail at nilsens@gao.gov. Cindy Ayers served as assistant director on this engagement, and Meeta Engle was the analyst-in-charge.

Chairman CRAIG. Dr. Nilsen, thank you very much. I recommend 

the report to the Committee for their overview and reading. 

49

Before we start the round of questions of this panel, we have 

been joined by our colleague John Thune. Senator, do you have any 

opening comments? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

SOUTH DAKOTA 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the testimony of the panel, and thank you for holding this hearing to examine the effectiveness of programs that are designed to provide 

meaningful and rewarding employment for America’s veterans. 

I would simply add that that is particular true now in light of 

a lot of our wounded, disabled veterans coming back that we really 

focus on this issue to see that they have, as they transition into civilian life, which is going to be difficult as it is, that they have 

meaningful and rewarding employment opportunities available to 

them. 

I appreciate your holding this hearing and look forward to entering into questions with our panelists. Thank you. 

Chairman CRAIG. Thank you very much, John. 

Mr. Secretary, from the commission’s overview report and the ultimate legislation, in part, some of what was recommended didn’t 

come to pass. Behind you is an organizational chart that was prepared by GAO. It attempts to capture the various Federal, State, 

and local entities’ involvements in providing veterans employment 

services and administering the DVOP and LVER grant programs. 

As the former head of the second largest bureaucracy in our Government, I am sure you are aware of the impact organizational 

structure can have on an agency’s ability to establish clear lines of 

program authority and accountability and that there was one underlying theme in most of the testimony this morning and a concern by this Committee. Is it where are we? What are the measurements? How accountable are we? Why is there underperformance, 

and why can’t we get to it? 

What is your reaction to this organizational chart? And the rest 

of the panel, you are going to be asked the same question. Tony? 

Secretary PRINCIPI. Thank you. You know, Mr. Chairman, I think 

more important than an organizational chart—and I think this is 

a step in the right direction—are the ability to establish performance standards in any bureaucracy and to hold local leadership accountable for meeting those performance standards. I think that is 

what is most important. 

I do believe that this chart—and I haven’t had a long time to review it—I think it is a step in the right direction to establish clear 

lines of authority and responsibility and holding people accountable. But in the final analysis, you can have the best organizational 

charts in the world, but you have got to say suitable employment 

outcomes for veterans is the goal and hold people accountable for 

achieving those goals, whatever they might be, and moving on. 

Although I agree with Secretary Ciccolella and Dr. Nilsen that 

progress is being made, it is obvious from the charts that you 

showed that there is still a lot of work to be done. And hopefully, 

this chart, this organizational chart, if it is implemented, will help 

achieve that goal. 

50

Chairman CRAIG. Secretary Ciccolella, can you follow that chart 

without bread crumbs? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Mr. Chairman, the chart appears to be accurate. Let me say this about the system and how it works. One of 

the intents of the Jobs for Veterans Act was to provide additional 

flexibility to the States to run the programs. That was necessary 

because in prior years, the role of the Federal VETS staff was considered to be rather intrusive with sort of a checklist mentality 

with regard to local offices, One-Stops, and because the workforce 

system is moving more in the direction of additional flexibility and, 

in fact, devolvement. 

The reason for that is that local officials, the local workforce investment boards, the One-Stop career centers, which are designed 

to be business driven, they know best where the employment opportunities are, what the training opportunities are, and how to 

make or better make the employer-employee connection. 

The responsibility that JVA puts on the Veterans’ Employment 

Training Service is to hold the State accountable for its performance. In that regard, we require each State to have a 5-year strategic plan and an annual plan. That plan has to address how services to veterans are to be provided. It has to address how the 

DVOP and LVER are to be integrated into that system. It has to 

address the veteran population, the use of incentives, the economic 

conditions in the State. 

We either approve that plan, or we work with the State until we 

get that plan to where it is responsive to veterans’ needs. That plan 

then is followed up with quarterly reviews and with self-assessments that the State does, which we then validate. 

We don’t require the local One-Stops to provide local data because of the reporting systems, and the law simply doesn’t require 

that we get that information in the field, that our Federal staff get 

that information in the field. The reporting system forwards that 

information, and we look at it from a State point of view. 

I believe the chart is accurate. I believe it shows where the supervisory and the programmatic responsibilities are, where they 

lie. It probably looks convoluted, and I do agree with that. But we 

are dealing with a workforce system that is certainly a highly devolved system. It operates a little bit differently in each State by 

design, and consequently, it would operate a little bit differently in 

each locale and area. 

Chairman CRAIG. Thank you. 

Dr. Nilsen. 

Dr. NILSEN. Yes. Putting this together was no easy task, tracking 

the lines of responsibility. But one of the things I would like to 

point out about this, or a couple of things, one is if you look at the 

left-hand side, that is the Employment and Training Administration. They oversee and manage the Workforce Investment Act and 

a host of other job training programs. Much of the authority, as Assistant Secretary Ciccolella said, in those programs goes down to 

the State and is further devolved down to the local level. 

In contrast, on the right-hand side, you have the VETS programs, where there is a lot more authority held at the Federal level 

and even down all the way to the local level. In each State, there 

51

is a Federal VETS coordinator, who is a Federal employee, who 

works to oversee in some ways, has a role in overseeing the VETS 

program at the local level. 

We found in some of our prior work that this creates some conflicts at times between the local office managers at the One-Stops, 

who are overseeing services to all unemployed people and figuring 

out how to help them, when someone else comes in from the outside working with the DVOP and LVER staff and providing some 

direction, which may be not necessarily in concert with what the 

local office is trying to do. So there is conflict there. 

But that is very different from the other side. There is the local 

autonomy on the ETA side. Local areas decide what are the main 

problems, what are the issues, and how are we going to address 

those issues? 

The second thing is if you look up at the second set of boxes, at 

the regional level, there are not really linkages across between the 

ETA staff and the VETS staff at the regional level. It is a responsibility, for example, at the ETA regional level to oversee the States 

and their regions and make sure that they are performing adequately, successfully, and to identify areas for further improvement, if needed. 

We have criticized ETA for not doing enough to help that as well. 

But at the same time, they are also working on better data systems. The other thing that VETS, I think, lacks right now and is 

behind ETA on is good quality data on what they are achieving, the 

number of veterans coming through the door, the number of veterans they are helping, who is helping the veterans? Because right 

now, the idea is that the DVOP and LVER staff are supposed to 

focus on, well, the LVER staff on employers and the DVOP staff 

on the hardest to serve veterans coming in the door and focusing 

their assistance. 

The other members of the One-Stops, be they the employment 

service staff or the Workforce Investment Act staff, are to provide 

services to veterans who don’t have special needs necessarily and 

help them get work. But I think their data systems are not adequate to really capture the full breadth of people coming through 

the door and what is happening to them. 

Chairman CRAIG. Dr. Nilsen, thank you very much. 

Let me now turn to Senator Akaka for any questions he might 

have. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Ciccolella, the entered employment rate for disabled veterans 

in Hawaii as of June 2005 was 49 percent. This figure represents 

the number of disabled veterans in Hawaii who came in for services and subsequently entered employment. 

Just 79 percent of those who entered employment stayed employed. What can be done with your program to help veterans retain their employment? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Thank you, Senator. 

I think the first thing that has to be done, Senator, is to catch 

the service members while they are still in the military, in the 

transition process, as they go through pre-separation counseling. 

We don’t get all of the service members, for operational reasons, 

that the Department of Defense has. But getting more service 

52

members through the TAP, or Transition Assistance Program, 

workshop. That is a 21⁄2-day standard workshop, and the VA also 

participates in it for the third day. 

That helps a service member make the transition, and it provides 

a service member, I think, very good skills. The troops are very, 

very pleased in general with that workshop. Beyond that, Senator, 

we have taken a very, very close look at our disabled veterans, particularly those who are the most seriously wounded and injured. So 

has the VA. And so has the Defense Department. 

In fact, the Defense Department has a center over in Clarendon, 

the Military Seriously Injured Center, and they track those who 

are wounded and injured and disabled from the war on terror in 

Afghanistan and Iraq or wherever. 

We have a network of Federal staff, and we use the DVOP, the 

Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program staff to actually put them at 

Bethesda and Walter Reed and Brooke down in Texas and at Madigan and Tripler. Now you have got Sergeant Jorge up there, 

DVOP Jorge over at Tripler. He is spending now 4 days a week 

over there. 

With the information that DOD has and what they share with 

the VA and with what we have, we can actually track these disabled veterans. We can tell you how many are at Tripler Army 

Medical Center, and a lot more information, and we have their Social Security numbers. So putting that Disabled Veterans’ Outreach 

Program specialist up there several days a week to make contact 

with them. 

Many of these disabled veterans are not ready to go to work right 

away. Some of them are still in the service. But under our program, our Real Life-Lines Program, we have a commitment to be 

there through the workforce system when they are ready. We 

proactively contact them, whether they contact us or not. 

I think that emphasis that I am talking about is a real role 

model. It is a real model practice that improves the quality of our 

DVOPs, our disabled veteran employment representatives across 

the board, and I think it goes a very long way toward pointing out 

that this is what they are supposed to do, this is what these service 

members deserve, and this is what has to be done. 

I truly believe that we are seeing some significant improvement 

in this area, and that will continue. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. 

Secretary Principi, we are now seeing many of our service members electing to leave the service, to leave the service after completing their commitments abroad. Do you have any additional recommendations to ease the transition from the military to the civilian workforce that are not outlined in your last report? 

Secretary PRINCIPI. No. I think our last report, the transition 

commission report outlined excellent recommendations to assist 

separating service members. I am dismayed that the unemployment rate for recently separated service members is still too high 

compared to their nonveteran counterparts of the same age group. 

That is very disconcerting. 

I think, again, it is up to the Committee. If the Committee finds 

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spective organizations accountable for suitable employment outcomes, then further reform is necessary. 

I think one option that you should look at is providing some competition for the funding, the DOL funding that goes to the States 

to provide this service, to put some teeth into the accountability. 

Hopefully, that would be an incentive to State leaders and program 

managers to do the job that they are getting this funding. 

I think back in 1997, when we did our report, there was like $200 million was going out to the States from DOL, and we had 

these incredible statistics whereby only 300,000 of 2 million veterans who were registered are getting jobs. So there is no accountability, and there is no teeth. 

But if you say, ‘‘Listen, if you are not meeting certain performance standards, you are going to be held accountable, and we are 

going to compete those dollars to someone who wants to come in 

and provide that service,’’ then that might tell the States, ‘‘Boy, we 

better do the job.’’ And it might provide a mechanism to provide it 

to companies that really specialize in finding good jobs for people. 

So that is one option you have. 

Of course, our report also mentioned transferring this program to 

the VA. That is another, more major reform. But hopefully, DOL 

VETS can get the job done. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for that response. My time 

has expired, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CRAIG. Danny, thank you. 

Senator Isakson? 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Ciccolella, in the recommendations of the GAO report, it 

says, ‘‘To achieve results from JVA provisions regarding veteran 

hiring practices of Federal contractors, Labor should issue regulations as soon as possible to explore effective methods of enforcement.’’

Is there any requirement in reporting right now by Federal contractors as to their veterans hiring practices? Is there? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Yes, sir. Senator, there is. The Federal Contractor Program has been in effect for a significant amount of time. 

This is a complex issue. The responsibility for the Federal Contractor Program is in three agencies in the Department of Labor, 

and it is also with the Federal contractors because they have the 

responsibility to list their job openings with the State employment 

service. 

There are problems with this program. The law changed the definitions for how Federal contractors report, and we have not published the regulations with those new changes. One of the reasons 

for that is that Federal contractors are required to report under the 

old rules and the new rules. So they will be reporting on the same 

workforce, that they will be dual reporting. 

We have tried to look at that program and work it out. Something needs to be done about the Federal Contractor Program because there simply aren’t any teeth in it, to just put it mildly. 

There are about 200,000 contractors in our database at the Department of Labor. About 100,000 are Federal contractors. They selfidentify on that equal opportunity form that they send over to the 

Labor Department. Many of them don’t do that. 

54

So we don’t know whether we are getting all of the Federal contractors to actually identify themselves as Federal contractors. 

Moreover, in the reporting, which my agency is responsible for, 

while the report is required, there are no requirements to hire veterans. They have to list their work population. They have to list 

their veteran population, but there is no requirement. 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, let me interrupt you there in the interest 

of time. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Sure. 

Senator ISAKSON. Because that is the point I was getting to. It 

has been 8 years since I ran my company, so things may have 

changed. We competed to provide some Government services, housing services, particularly Government agencies with regard to relocation of Government employees and things like that. 

I always remember having to answer specifically the percentage 

of minority participation, minority employment, women participation, and it was broken down into subgroups. I specifically remember that being a consideration in whether or not the Government 

did business with me. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. That is correct. 

Senator ISAKSON. I think those are all important considerations. 

I am going to make two quick points. One, it would seem to me like 

that would be an equal consideration for the employment of veterans, and I don’t remember that question ever being asked of me 

as an employer. Now, again, things could have changed in the 8 

years since I ran the business. 

Second thing, and this came up in a hearing we had in the HELP 

Committee, I just want to make this point. Most of the jobs in 

America are provided by small business. The hardest thing for a 

small business to do is to stay in business while one of its employees has been activated for 12 or 18 months and have that job waiting for them when they get back. 

It is one thing for our great friend Bob Nardelli to provide thousands of jobs out of the tens of thousands that he has. It is quite 

another for a local air conditioning contractor with 12 employees—

and this is an actual example, by the way—to have 2 of their employees called up in the National Guard, which is virtually 20 percent of his employment base, gone for a year, and provide those 

jobs back. 

Do we do anything that is an incentive or a preference to small 

business contractors with the Government who hire veterans? I 

mean it seems like to me we ought to be doing everything we can. 

This is a long question, if it is even a question. But it seems like 

we ought to do everything we can to make it a positive, when small 

businesses compete for our business, that those small businesses 

have a proactive veterans employment program. Is there such a 

thing? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Again, your company, even 10 years ago, was 

required to report under the Federal Contractor Program, and the 

problem with that is that there simply is not—there are no teeth 

in that program. There is no requirement to hire veterans. 

With regard to incentives or with regard to small businesses or 

any business hiring veterans, we have looked at this very carefully. 

We have a Presidential Committee, which has recently expired. But 

55

we have gone out to a number of the trade associations with businesses. We have held job fairs. We have reached a whole lot of employers. 

Today, employers are looking for good employees. We have a very 

active campaign to educate the employer community on the advantages of hiring veterans. Not just their hard skills, but their soft 

skills, because that is truly what employers are looking for. 

You mentioned Home Depot. Home Depot, when we started 2 

years ago, was hiring 5,000 veterans a year. This year, they will 

hire 15,000. We are now looking at Starbucks. It is 100,000 employees. McDonald’s. These companies are looking for small unit 

leaders. They are looking for young E4s and E5s because that is 

what they are. We are not talking about jobs where you are getting 

somebody’s morning coffee or flipping hamburgers. These are jobs 

with career fields. 

We are making some progress in terms of educating the employers with regard to the advantage that they accrue for hiring veterans. Veterans are good for their business, and I think many employers are beginning to realize that. 

We need to reach more employers so that we can tell those employers how they make that employer-employee connection. Once 

you get into the companies and you get into their communication 

systems, then their hiring process will follow suit if they understand how and what the advantages are of hiring veterans. 

Starbucks is going to hire 400,000 people. Now, through the outreach that we are doing through our Committee, they are going to 

start hiring veterans. And they are opening one store every day 

worldwide. 

So it is just a small example, but I am just trying to illustrate 

your point, sir. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CRAIG. Thank you, Senator Isakson. 

Senator Murray? 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator OBAMA. I apologize. I, unfortunately, have got to leave. 

I just would like to make sure that I can submit written questions 

and would ask responses from all of the panelists. 

Chairman CRAIG. Of course, you can. And all of us will be able 

to. Time is going to be a little limited today for direct questions, 

but several issues have come up. My notes are producing questions 

as I listen. So, of course, and we will all do that. Thank you. 

Senator Murray? 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, do you know how many veterans are unemployed 

nationwide? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. We know how many veterans. Senator Murray, 

we know how many veterans enter the labor chain each year and 

how many are served, and then how many enter employment. So, 

excuse me, we know how many enter the workforce system and 

how many enter employment. 

We know that information, but the information lags. Nationwide, 

we don’t know how many veterans are unemployed. 

Senator MURRAY. Can you tell me why there appears to be a 

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erans who are ages 20 to 24 and nonveterans who are 20 to 24? 

Is this a problem of the Jobs for Veterans Act, or does it mean that 

it doesn’t work for them? Do you know why that is such a huge difference? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. It is a huge problem. It is a problem that has 

been with us for many, many years. We have looked at it very, very 

carefully. We are looking at it now with the Department of Veterans Affairs in a joint study. We know some of the reasons why 

this is, but we also know it is a longstanding problem. We know 

what the demographic is of the 20- to 24-year-olds who come out 

of the service. 

Senator MURRAY. Do we need something more specifically to 

focus on 20- to 24-year-olds that is not in the Jobs for Veterans Act 

today? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Senator Murray, I think what we need to do. 

As I said, we know some of the reasons why they are not employed. 

Some choose not to be employed. Some are waiting for school. Some 

will take the unemployment insurance. 

There are first-time entrants into the workforce. So any group of 

people who are first-time entrants into the workforce, for example, 

the 18- to 19-year-olds, their unemployment rates are extremely 

high. But we don’t know all of the reasons. I believe we need to 

get to——

Senator MURRAY. But there is a huge difference between veterans and nonveterans numbers. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Yes. 

Senator MURRAY. So average 18- to 24-year-olds that aren’t veterans have a much lower unemployment rate than veterans do. So 

I am asking why is that? It is not like they are all waiting to go 

to school. They are all thinking about different things, too. It is a 

huge difference. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Well, clearly, the issue of transition and moving 

from the military, the adjustment, is a huge issue. 

Senator MURRAY. Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I would really like 

you to think about that and get an answer back to me because if 

there is something we should be doing to change that, I think we 

ought to be focused on that. 

Secretary PRINCIPI. Can I just quickly comment? I recall, back 

when the commission was in existence, a four-star Air Force general overseas told me, he said how difficult it is for him. He was 

getting ready to retire, and how difficult it was for him, a four-star 

general, to transition into the private sector. You can imagine how 

difficult it is for an E3 or an E4 who is stationed overseas to transition and get a job in the private sector. 

And it is also true in CONUS. If you are separated from Norfolk, 

Virginia, and you live in Des Moines, Iowa, it is pretty difficult to 

find a job. So there are a lot of those, you know, the——

Senator MURRAY. Well, I would like to hear from you some recommendations to focus on that, and I just have a minute left. And 

I raise the issue of Guard and Reserve, the high number of Guard 

and Reserve. And it just feels like these programs are not working 

because of the short timeframe that they have, the 2 to 3 days. 

They are not hearing about it, and it doesn’t feel like the resources are really being allocated to do that. Our One-Stop shops 

57

are telling us that ‘‘can we get the lists of these veterans so we can 

help them get employed?’’ Can you tell me what we can do to help 

these separating service members, to be more targeted on them? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Well, I can tell you what we are doing. Of 

course, you know better than anyone in Washington because you 

have had a lot of Guard and Reservists come back. You know that 

the requirements for them have changed with the longer mobilizations. They have not only had the adjustment problems, but they 

have the employment and the underemployment problems. I think 

the things that you are doing in Washington are a good model. 

The issue with returning Guard and Reservists is that when they 

come back, they demobilize, and there is a very rapid demobilization. In my opinion, it is too rapid. That is a time or within a very 

short period of time, certainly within 30 days, when many of the 

Guard and Reservists need to have some—if they have been on a 

deployment for 14 months—they need to have some transition assistance, and they need to know better how to contact the workforce system in the State, in addition to the other services that are 

available in the State. 

As it happens, in most cases after they demobilize, they are off 

for 90 days before they have a first drill. In that case, when they 

have their first drill, their training to go back over, we have contacted every one of the State AGs in writing. We follow up with 

them. We offer transition assistance programs through the workforce system, and our Federal staff are also qualified to give this 

assistance. So we are trying to press this. 

Senator MURRAY. I think that this is an area that we really need 

to focus on, and the TAP program is not working for Guard and 

Reserve in particular. And I want to know if you can—I am out of 

time, but if you can let this Committee know where we are in 

terms of making that transition program work for Guard and Reserve because of the high number. 

Second, just a really fast question. What can we do to get these 

One-Stops the lists of veterans who are returning home that are 

there, so that they can start working with them? It is disconcerting 

to me to sit at a meeting and have a Guard member tell me he has 

been out of work for 8 months, and then the guy who is supposed 

to be helping him say, ‘‘I didn’t know who you were.’’

Mr. CICCOLELLA. The discharge certificates that come out of the 

Department of Defense are, as I understand it, now made available 

to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and they are made available 

to the Department of Veterans Affairs in the States. And I am told 

that that is the case in Washington. 

If that is the case, then there would be no reason why that information could not be transmitted to the State workforce agency. 

Senator MURRAY. There are no privacy concerns or anything else 

that are keeping these lists from being distributed? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. I don’t know about the privacy concerns on 

something like that, but I do believe that, for example, in your 

State, that is exactly what is happening. 

Senator MURRAY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator, thank you for very good questions. 

Senator Burr? 

Senator BURR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

58

Mr. Ciccolella, let me first say we are asking a lot of process 

questions. I do not want you to lose perspective that this is all 

about outcome. At the end of the day, it is about how successful 

we are in this mission. 

I have noticed that we have a director of VETS, one for every 

State. Is that correct? 

MR. CICCOLELLA. That is correct. 

Senator BURR. Can you tell me how many of those directors are 

veterans? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Virtually all of them are veterans. 

Senator BURR. Virtually all of them? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Virtually all of them. And virtually all of the 

veteran employment staff that we fund at the State, 99 percent of 

those are also veterans. 

Senator BURR. I appreciate that answer, and I appreciate the fact 

that that is a focus because I think it is essential to a successful 

program that you have individuals involved that understand the 

other side that many in this country don’t. 

Let me get to some of Secretary Principi’s questions. Incentives, 

specifically. I noticed in the GAO report you reported that a third 

of the States have no incentive program for the reasons of State 

law, policies, or collective bargaining. 

I went through your chart as well of the number of States that 

had a balance, I think that is 1 percent of their grant, to be used 

for incentives. Twenty-seven States gave no incentives. Clearly, 

there is an additional number of States that have an incentive program, could have an incentive program, gave no incentive. Can 

anybody give me an answer as to why? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. I think 17 States didn’t use the incentive program at all, and it is because of the stipulations that you just mentioned. Some of them are regulatory. Some of them are by law. 

Some are decisions that the State made where an individual who 

assists a veteran into employment, they didn’t want for that individual to get an award, but someone else in the workforce system, 

you know, would not get one. So there was an equity issue. 

On the other hand, there are States like Illinois that have used 

the incentive systems very well, and the idea behind the incentive 

systems is sort of ‘‘pay for performance.’’ It is designed to give cash. 

Senator BURR. How about the 10 States that apparently have incentives—they can use them, the State law doesn’t prohibit them, 

collective bargaining doesn’t prohibit them—but they gave no incentive. Did they not hit the goals that were targeted? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. If the States had no prohibition and didn’t use 

the incentives, then that is a waste. 

Senator BURR. Well, let me just flag those 10 for Department of 

Labor to look at and work on. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Yes. Sure. And if I could just say, Senator, and 

I know your time is limited, we are looking at this very carefully 

because we are looking at it in conjunction with what the GAO 

found and in consultation with them because we don’t know whether we have the incentives thing right. And we don’t know whether 

that really works best at the State level or whether it works best 

at the national level. 

59

Senator BURR. Well, given that the State folks are the ones on 

the firing line, I would be willing to bet that that is the correct 

place to put the incentive. It probably is not on the State directors 

that are Federal employees, and I think we have got to find a way 

to make that connection. 

Are there sanctions for people who underperform? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. States that underperform. In the grant provisions, we require the States to provide their plans on how they are 

going to serve veterans. If they don’t come forward with a total 

plan or if they consistently underperform, we do have the authority, as does the Employment and Training Administration, to withhold the grant. As a general rule, we don’t do that. We have never 

done that. 

Senator BURR. Do we threaten? Have we threatened? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. What we do is not threaten, we work with that 

State as closely as we can to find out what the reasons are. We are 

solution focused. We do take their money. We will not allocate 

money. In other words, we will recapture some of the money. 

Senator BURR. Only four States used all of their incentive money. 

Let me ask you a simple way. Are sanctions and rewards successful? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. The incentives, in my view, are successful. The 

sanctions, I believe, you know, this is about getting veterans jobs. 

If you take the money from the State and they can’t fund the 

DVOP and LVER program, their situation is going to be a lot 

worse. 

Senator BURR. I agree with you totally. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. We would much rather work with that State 

and bring them into compliance. 

Senator BURR. I will end my questions the same way that Secretary Principi ended his testimony. If a State doesn’t perform, 

don’t we have an obligation to find another way to do it? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. I have no argument with that at all, Senator. 

Senator BURR. Thank you. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator Burr, thank you very much. 

Senator Salazar? 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I am continuing to be more and more troubled by this statistic 

that shows that 15 percent of our veterans, at the end of 2005, age 

20 to 24 are unemployed. Those statistics are near depression 

kinds of statistics that ought to be making us all extremely concerned. 

I want to just come back to the concept that Secretary Principi 

spoke about, and that is the notion of standards and accountability. 

We use them in other kinds of programs. I guess my question that 

I would ask Secretary Principi and perhaps Secretary Ciccolella to 

respond to is how would you define those standards and goals to 

create the accountability that we all want? 

I think these results are unacceptable. We are going to create 

standards and accountability to get better results so we can measure them. How would you define what they would be? 

Second of all, I am new to this U.S. Senate, relatively new with, 

I guess, a couple of my colleagues across the table here. But why 

is it that you threw out a notion kind of at the very end, Secretary 

60

Principi, that perhaps the veterans training employment program 

may be about to be moved out of the Department of Labor and put 

over in the VA. 

If you look at the health care program that we have in VA, it 

seems that it is one that is touted as a model for health care 

around the country. Why not take this program out of Labor and 

put it out in VA when we have these kinds of very unacceptable 

statistics? 

Secretary PRINCIPI. Sure. I agree, Senator. What those performance standards should be, certainly that recently separated service 

members do not have a higher unemployment rate than nonveterans in the same age group, and I think the Department of 

Labor can come up with those performance standards. They are 

certainly better suited to do that than I am. 

But I come back to the notion that—and maybe I am wrong. 

Maybe the JVA did provide some accountability. But there just 

doesn’t seem to be any accountability. I mean, the fact that the 

Secretary indicated that there has never been any sanctions, that 

there is no competition, I just think that provides a certain incentive to do a job well. And unless that is there, I think we are going 

to be back 2 or 3 years from now showing the same unemployment 

statistics. 

This Committee has held a lot of hearings on this subject since 

I was chairman of the transition commission and throughout the 

time that I was Secretary of Veterans Affairs. We are going back 

now 7 or 8 years. We come here in January, February of 2006, and 

we find that some of the same problems still persist. So I think 

more reform is necessary. 

One option to look at is to transfer the function to the VA, entrusted with the resources and the ability to hold program managers accountable. But just transferring it, VETS, from Department of Labor to the VA without the resources, without the ability 

to hold program managers accountable, I don’t think it will work. 

But VA only has one mission, and that is to serve veterans. 

There are no nonveteran constituencies competing for the resources 

of the VA. But I think that should be a last resort, and I think that 

improvements are being made. Hopefully, with some further reform, veterans will be well served. 

Senator SALAZAR. Assistant Secretary Ciccolella, if you would answer both questions as well on the performance standards and accountability as well as the notion of transferring the program from 

Labor to VA? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Sure. On the standards, the standards should 

be the same as they are for the negotiated performance rates with 

the State that our State director and the State come up with because that is a uniform standard. And the area of 20- to 24-yearolds, we need to look at that very carefully. It needs to be a special 

area of interest, and that needs to be conveyed to all of our State 

directors, which it is, and to the State workforce agencies because 

they have a great deal of sway with regard to paying special attention to young veterans. 

With regard to the move to the VA, we looked at this. It was a 

proposal the first year I was in the organization. We looked at it, 

61

and I worked with Secretary Principi’s folks to do the plan and 

whatnot for that. 

Secretary Principi is right. If you look at transferring something 

like this, you have to transfer it with the resources. But the other 

thing that I think is really important, you know, we have a $15 billion investment in the workforce system in this country every year. 

So if we transfer the VETS program to the VA, what I didn’t see 

in that transfer plan was that the veteran employment representatives and veterans who were going to be helped would have the advantage of all of the programs that are available through the workforce system. 

I think that is absolutely critical because I think if they don’t 

have that, then they would be at a great disadvantage. There is no 

point in having a $15 billion investment in our workforce system 

if we are not going to avail those resources to veterans. 

I guess I ought to look to see whether the OMB surveillance people are here. There is one argument that I guess I could make to 

support Secretary Principi’s contention, and that is, if I am not 

mistaken, I think the VA is exempted from this 1 percent rescission. I don’t think Labor or the VETS program is. 

So that would be one argument that I guess I could throw out 

there. One percent of a $224 million budget is pretty huge for us. 

Senator SALAZAR. If I may, Senator Craig, just one? I think it 

would be helpful for us as a committee to perhaps independently 

from both of you or perhaps from GAO, Dr. Nilsen, just to get a 

sense of what kinds of standards and accountability could be put 

into place that would measure results and that would have the 

kind of sanctions that would lead us to better results than we have 

here. 

I very much think that would be useful to us as a committee. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator Salazar, we are not through with this 

issue. Go ahead, Dr. Nilsen. 

Dr. NILSEN. Yes. I would like to just make a comment about your 

question about accountability, and it goes back to something that 

Senator Akaka had asked earlier. 

The performance measures that the Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service uses does not really target populations that are 

highest in need. They focus on a total entered employment rate. 

Well, that is not targeting on the 20- to 24-year-olds or recently 

separated veterans. 

Without measures that target the populations you are concerned 

with, that does not send a message down to the local level that 

these are the people we really want you to focus on and to provide 

services to. As we said, I think it was Secretary Principi said before, you get what you measure. If you are not measuring the outcomes for people 20 to 24 years old, you are not going to get the 

focus on that population. 

And so far, I know in past reports, when we looked at earlier 

strategic plans for VETS, they had discussions about who they 

cared about most, and they cared about all the various populations 

of veterans, which ended up saying we care about all veterans, 

which is fine. But then you don’t have any targeting within that. 

62

If you care about everybody at the same time, you are saying you 

care equally, and you are not necessarily focusing your resources 

on those who are most in need. Their performance measures also 

did not represent those most in need. It represented just all. 

So if you are not counting, if you don’t have the data, you are 

not going to have a focus on those that you really want to focus 

on. 

Chairman CRAIG. Senator, thank you. 

Senator Thune? John? 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very 

much, panel. 

Secretary Principi, it is nice to see you again. I don’t know 

whether to call you ‘‘Chairman’’ or ‘‘Secretary.’’ I spent much of 

2005 shadowing you around, and I hope you don’t have bad dreams 

about me. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator THUNE. But it is good to see you again, and thank you 

for all your service to our country. 

I guess I am interested in knowing in this particular graph if, 

in fact, is this broken down, do you have State by State on this 

somewhere? This is the one that shows I guess the disparity between veterans and nonveterans in that 20 to 24? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. It is not broken down. It is not broken down by 

State. The figures for the veteran unemployment rate, age 20 to 24, 

is a category that the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys every 

month. They survey the 60,000 folks. They ask certain questions. 

Senator THUNE. So it is that universe, and it is not broken down? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. It is that universe. Yes, it is a national universe. Yes, sir. 

Senator THUNE. Is it broken down at all demographically? I 

mean, if there is no geographic——

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Yes. They do collect some demographic information. They know that it is largely a Caucasian population, what the 

college education rate is, those things, yes. 

Senator THUNE. Just that data would seem to be important to 

me if we were talking about focusing on this particular universe of 

people, which is very troubling. I mean, this is a statistic that I 

think causes great concern. And I am glad, Mr. Chairman, that you 

have decided to focus on it. 

I have just got a couple of observations and maybe questions or 

just that you could give a reaction to on that because it seems to 

me, at least, that is this a function of you have got young people 

coming back in that age category, and maybe who bypass college 

or tech ed, and are now moving back, transitioning into the workforce. Is it a function of training? Do they have the skill sets that 

are necessary for the workplace, and is that something that is 

skewing these statistics in a way that creates this disparity? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. In general, when a service member exits the 

service, whether it is like with me at 28 years or a service member 

that has served 2 or 3 years, they are making quite a transition 

in their first time coming into the workforce. So there are issues 

with regard to that transition. There are obviously stress and 

issues and things like that. 

63

With regard to skills, today’s military members—Guard, Reserve, 

active component—this is not like the 1960s, where people came in 

with very few skills. They fought in combat. They came back. They 

didn’t have much in the way of skills. These kids are really skilled 

today, and they learn more skills when they are in the military, 

even in the combat arms. That is a very high technology business. 

So they have very good skills that are translatable. More importantly, they have what employers are looking for. They have the 

ability to come to work on time and to take instructions and to be 

dependable and to help businesses grow their business. And that 

is what employers are looking for. At least that is what they tell 

us they are looking for, and we talk to them all the time. 

So we have a transition issue that we try to bridge with the transition employment workshop that we provide to all the service 

members and that we are trying to provide to the National Guard 

and Reserve. And I think the folks in South Dakota actually go to 

another State. I think they have them go to another State for that. 

To me, that is absolutely a critical component of their transition 

because it is, as Secretary Principi mentioned, it is a big step. 

There is no question that when you exit the service, in a sense, you 

are behind those who didn’t serve for a short period of time. Once 

our veterans get into the workforce, they are generally very, very 

successful. 

Senator THUNE. Right. That is why it would seem to me that 

they would have the character, qualities, the work ethic, all the 

things that people in the workforce would just welcome. That is 

why I was wondering if there was some in the skill set area that 

was lacking, and I am sure there are transitional issues as folks 

come back. 

But I really would think, Mr. Chairman, that to the degree that 

we can get as much detail and data on this problem and define it 

as much as we can so that we can figure out a solution for it. And 

I would just make one final comment and question, and that is 

maybe directed at the GAO. 

Was there anything in your study that suggested that we are 

doing things that are unique to rural areas? Are there things that 

we are doing well there? Are there unique challenges that we face 

in rural areas? Some of these unemployment numbers even, that 

is why I asked the question about if you had any geographic breakdowns, if there are things that are unique to the part of the country that I represent, States like South Dakota? 

Dr. NILSEN. There is nothing unique that we found in the course 

of doing our work to rural areas. But in general, a lot of my work 

focuses on labor issues in general, and rural areas do present different sets of issues and problems, as you know. Transportation is 

a biggie. Getting access to these services is huge. You don’t have 

a One-Stop down the street that you can go to. 

But techniques that people increasingly use are, you know, Internet access, particularly through libraries and things like that in 

local communities are increasingly helping people gain access to 

the information in the One-Stops. But beyond that, veterans face 

the same problems that other folks who are unemployed and looking for a job in rural areas face and those challenges that are difVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
64

ferent from if you are in a large metropolitan area with numerous 

employers and lots of options. 

Senator THUNE. All right. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CRAIG. Richard, you said you had a small question? 

Senator BURR. Just a quick question, a follow-up to John’s first 

question. 

Charles, does Labor know how many unemployed vets are in 

North Carolina? Or, for that fact, any State? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. In total, no. I don’t believe we do. 

Senator BURR. So, in total, we do, but per State we don’t. Is that 

an accurate statement? And I would just make the comment 

that——

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Yes. 

Senator BURR. —I think that is absolutely a vital piece of information to know. Because we have a State-based program that has 

no idea what the number is, which makes it almost impossible for 

them to know if they are making progress other than what we 

share with them. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. I really need to check that because the State 

workforce agency may have that information. But I will check that. 

Senator BURR. I would also say for the purposes of Secretary 

Principi, because he has a hotline to DOD that most of us don’t 

have, I think it is also a vital statistic that we know, as individuals 

are retiring from the military, leaving the armed forces, how many 

are employed on the way out the door? Because there is a function 

of this, as we know, that starts much earlier than the day that 

they are walking out. 

Just like our higher education today takes great pride in being 

able to say not just to its alumni, but to the Federal Government 

what their graduation rate is, now the hottest thing on the university campus is what the employment rate is of this year’s graduating class. I think that is an important thing for DOD to look 

at. 

Chairman CRAIG. Gentlemen, thank you all very much. You have 

all made some valuable statements. There have been some tough 

questions asked, and I must tell you some of the answers are 

sketchy at best. 

This Committee will be back to you and to you and to you again 

until we determine if you have got it right or if we are going to 

have to fix it so you can get it right. My next question was going 

to be ‘‘do we need reform?’’ I think Secretary Principi has asked 

that. 

But these numbers are startling to all of us, at the least, and we 

are very frustrated by it. We thank you for it, and Mr. Secretary, 

we are going to have you back again. You can’t measure without 

statistics. It is critical that we have them, that we are able to understand what the scope of the problem is beyond these broad 

measurements. 

This Committee and this Congress is intent upon this problem. 

We will stay with you until we either figure out how to get it right 

or change it in a way that it can be made right. 

Thank you all very much. 

65

Now I will ask our second panelists to come forward, please. If 

I could have the second panelists come forward now, we will get 

started with you. And I am going to ask my colleague, after introducing the panel, Senator Richard Burr to complete the chairing of 

this hearing, and I thank you, Richard, for your flexibility and 

time. 

Have we lost the panelists? Is Wes here? 

All right. We will get started. I think Mr. Poriotis will be with 

us soon. And of course, Wes Poriotis is the chairman of the Center 

for Military and Private Sector Initiatives. Joseph Sharpe, Jr., deputy director for the American Legion National Economic Commission. And Rick Weidman, director of government relations for Vietnam Veterans of America. 

Gentlemen, I apologize for having to step away. Our first panel 

went a little longer than we had anticipated, but your testimony 

for the record is critical. As I have said in my opening comments 

and in my response to the first panel as they exited, this is a rapidly growing concern amongst those of us here. 

As we know over the years, we have spent a lot of time with it, 

but it doesn’t quite seem like we are getting it right. A lot of reform 

and yet less response. That is simply unacceptable. 

It is the human factor. I could look at resources and a failure for 

those resources to yield what we would hope they would. But I 

think Senator Burr put it well. We are interested in outcomes. We 

are interested in these numbers changing here or knowing why 

they can’t change. 

So I will turn it over. Wes, I have already introduced you, and 

we thank you for being with us, and I will turn the hearing over 

to Senator Burr. Richard, thank you. 

Senator BURR [presiding]. At this time, Wes, if you are ready, we 

will recognize you for your opening statement.

STATEMENT OF WESLEY PORIOTIS, CHAIRMAN, THE CENTER 

FOR MILITARY AND PRIVATE SECTOR INITIATIVES 

Mr. PORIOTIS. Thank you. On a note of levity, Mr. Chairman, 

when you introduced me as ‘‘Wes,’’ and you paused, I chuckled because being this is the fourth time I have testified, I was introduced as ‘‘Mr. Psoriasis’’——

[Laughter.] 

Chairman CRAIG. I didn’t do that badly. 

Mr. PORIOTIS.—in front of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. 

Chairman CRAIG. I see. 

Mr. PORIOTIS. But is an honor to be here——

Chairman CRAIG. Thank you. 

Mr. PORIOTIS.—to share ways to improve and enhance employment for veterans. In 1994, at the request of the Joint Chiefs, I undertook a scientific study of the transition and post transition experiences of military veterans seeking to enter the private sector job 

market. 

My research found that there was a deselective bias, very analogous to that which it historically affected, women and people of 

color, entering into the job market. That deselective bias was about 

military service, not about veterans, because military service had 

66

lost its value, and its brand had been lowered in the minds of many 

American employers, especially those in the nondefense sector. 

I have examined this problem over the past decade, and I find 

that, despite all of the work that has been done by the Veterans’ 

Employment and Training Service, they do come up short. They are 

not equipped. They don’t have the corporate relationships. They 

don’t have the network. They are not tasked to place. 

They don’t have the hardened, tough, job acquisition experience 

that would transcend the hurdles and the challenges that all folks 

face when they try to access the quality jobs in the private sector. 

‘‘The quality jobs’’ being the hidden job market jobs. Those that are 

not publicized. Those that are not advertised. Those that don’t 

come across the screen on the Web sites, the career.coms, the other 

monster boards. 

Let me explain the problem this way. In the telecommunications 

industry, they divide the work of building network infrastructure 

into four general categories—the backbone, the middle mile, the 

last mile, and the last 100 feet. You can lay thousands of miles of 

fiber optic cable, but without that final connection to the home or 

the business, the last 100 feet, you don’t have a customer. 

That is what has been missing in Federal veterans employment 

programs, the placement services that connect veterans that last 

100 feet. Forgive my being out of breath. I think the DayQuil is 

getting to me from the cold. But I sometimes feel like Mark Twain, 

when looking at the VETS program these last 4 or 5 years and trying to bring them to performance standards to enhance their capability. His quip was, ‘‘Everybody talks about the weather, and very 

few people do anything about it.’’ And I think we do have to do 

something about it, including some ideas I have. 

There already exists a backbone analogous to the telecommunications industry in the VETS program. One-Stop centers and thousands of dedicated and often caring LVERs and DVOPs working 

that middle and last mile to help prepare veterans for employment. 

But these Federal employees, again, have neither the training, the 

time, the resources to make that final connection between the veteran job-seeker and the private sector employer. 

To make that final connection, the last 100 feet—and I have included that as attached to my testimony and would hope that it 

would be inserted in the record—the Center for Military and Private Sector Initiatives, which we established to bridge the gap between corporate America and the veteran community, we propose 

the creation of a Veterans Job Development Corps, which would be 

a public-private partnership dedicated to placing veterans in quality jobs. 

This outsourcing of the placement function would transform 

VETS. It would be the ‘‘hamburger helper’’ to the hamburger to sell 

the hamburger. Right now, the hamburger is not being sold. I call 

it a transformational outsourcing. 

In some cases, outsourcing has a negative connotation. But in 

this case, why try to change city hall? Why try to change an institution that is so embedded politically it is not going to change, and 

it is doing a good job in the context of what its training is? I say 

we transform it. We take the placement side. We outsource it. 

67

The corps would be composed of what we call—and I have to tell 

you that a group of volunteers spent hundreds and hundreds of 

hours over the summer and the early fall looking at this. The corps 

would be composed of what we call career navigators, employment 

market openers, and job developers. All trained and experienced in 

the private sector. All with demonstrated track records of placing 

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. 

There are people who make a market and make a living doing 

this. We are not reaching out to them to imbue their talents into 

this whole placement debacle. The Veterans Job Development 

Corps would tap into a network of hundreds of thousands of job 

search, placement, and human resources professionals through organizations like the Society for Human Resources Management, 

which I find has 200,000 human resources, talent acquisition, and 

staffing persons who have never been influenced to influence the 

influencers, their own corporate executives and hiring managers, to 

embrace this asset called military service, this wonderful asset. 

The Veterans Job Development Corps would locate, nurture, 

mine, and exploit the hidden job market. We haven’t today talked 

about the hidden job market where the quality jobs are. It would 

market veterans to employers. It would connect veterans and 

champion them directly to persons with hiring authority, and it 

would, most importantly, secure interviews for them. Without an 

interview, you don’t get a job offer. 

Most importantly, work that final few parts of the process to 

close and negotiate compensation and implicitly sustain their career mobility through retention programs. 

The corps would have—and I think this is very important—the 

corps would have a mobile ‘‘delta force.’’ We thought about this at 

length. This delta force would be teams of individuals for the marketing, for the placement, to the championing, to the counseling, 

who would actually go into the homes, especially for the disabled 

and wounded service persons. 

We held a conference and brought 138 of the most wounded and 

severely disabled veterans free of charge in a ‘‘road to recovery’’ 

program, and most of them told us if there was such a thing as a 

delta force that could come into the home, give them counsel and 

help, and work the local employers and, most especially, help the 

spouse. 

In many cases, the spouse is much more appropriate in a disabled veteran’s home for immediate employment, and this delta 

force could do that. But I do think we need a delta force to go into 

these troubled employment areas and work that as one would a 

firefight in troubled times. 

The Veterans Job Development Corps would have strict metrics 

for determining success, and those metrics would be how many veterans get jobs? Funding for the corps could be tied directly to results in the form of successful job placements, and part of the cost 

could be recovered from the companies who hire veterans. 

We have analyzed this, and we think that for less than 5 percent 

of the budgets and the funding that are being spent for the LVER 

and DVOP and workforce programs, you could actualize a corps, including the delta force, throughout the Nation to enhance opportunities and bring veterans that last 100 feet. 

68

Finally, let me again urge this Committee to strongly consider 

authorizing a new marketing campaign to change the image and 

perception of military veterans in the private sector, utilizing classic consumer packaged goods techniques to rebrand military service 

as having value to the private sector. 

What has not been talked about amongst those within the Beltway who talk to one another is the need to create the pull. Most 

of the Federal programs are pushing veterans into the workforce 

as opposed to creating demand and a pull through using the classic 

marketing and branding techniques. 

Two weeks ago, we convened Coca-Cola, IBM, Motorola, 

MasterCard, Colgate Palmolive and a series of senior marketing executives, and we gave them the product called ‘‘veteran’’ and military service. We said if you were relaunching this product to your 

own companies and to the consuming public, how would you do it? 

I can share those results with you at a later date. There is a 

branding paper I have included with my testimony. But Mr. Chairman, we need to increase the demand for veterans among private 

sector employers, focusing on that final connection, the last 100 

feet. 

I would say to you that we need to work together to traverse that 

last 100 feet, and I would like to close and conclude my testimony 

by quoting that famous American philosopher Yogi Berra, who 

said, ‘‘If you don’t know where you are going, chances are you will 

end up somewhere else.’’

That is where we have ended up today, and I think we should 

change it. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Poriotis follows with attachments:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WESLEY PORIOTIS, CHAIRMAN, THE CENTER FOR MILITARY

AND PRIVATE SECTOR INITIATIVES

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, I want to thank you 

for the honor of appearing before you today to discuss how we might work together 

to improve the transition of servicemen and women from the military into private 

sector jobs. Having spent almost my entire career helping connect people with jobs, 

I am grateful for the opportunity to share some perspectives of the private sector 

as you consider what to do with Federal veterans’ employment programs. 

Over the past 4 years, I have been called upon to testify three times on this very 

subject by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, offering them advice on how to 

fix, strengthen, or perhaps even replace the Veterans Employment and Training 

Service. As I am sure you are aware, despite continuing improvements, the VETS 

program does not have a strong record of successfully placing veterans into jobs. 

Looking at DOL’s annual performance report, they set the bar of success at just 60 

percent—so if 60 percent of the veterans who contact them find employment within 

6 months, the VETS performance goal has been met. But what about the other 40 

percent—hundreds of thousands veterans—most of whom have come into the OneStop Career Centers because they lost their jobs or couldn’t find one in the first 

place? 

Mr. Chairman, I have been working on how to connect corporate America with 

this untapped and underutilized quality resource called military service since the 

early 1990s while performing executive and management searches for Fortune 500 

companies. As we were able to achieve pre-eminent status in corporate America in 

terms of diversity, I became acutely aware that the difficulties military veterans encountered were the same that had been earlier experienced by women and people 

of color. 

In 1994, at the request of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I undertook a scientific study 

of the transition and post-transition experiences of military veterans seeking to 

enter the private sector job market. My research found that there was indeed a 

‘‘deselective’’ bias against people with military experience that often kept them from 

69

even being considered for private sector jobs even when they were well qualified for 

that position. 

In my report I recommended that military transition assistance and veterans employment programs be restructured to meet the challenges of placement in the modern private sector market. Four years later, the Congressional Commission on 

Servicemembers and Veterans Transition Assistance, headed by the Honorable Anthony Principi who testified earlier, came to a very similar conclusion. The Commission recommended replacing the existing LVER and DVOP programs with new and 

different programs: one of which would be focused in part on job development and 

the other on marketing veterans to local employers. These recommendations were 

not implemented. So despite some modest refinements made by the Jobs for Veterans Act in 2003, the VETS program today is substantially the same program, with 

the same methodology and personnel that existed a decade ago. 

Let me explain the problem this way: in the telecommunications industry, they 

divide the work of building our network infrastructure into four general categories: 

the backbone, the middle mile, the last mile and the last 100 feet. You can lay thousands of miles of fiber optic cable, but without that final connection to the home 

or business—the last 100 feet—you don’t have a customer. And that’s what has been 

missing in Federal programs to help veterans find quality employment—the last 100 

feet. 

There already exists a backbone of One-Stop Centers and thousands of often dedicated and caring LVERs and DVOPs working that middle and last mile, counseling 

and helping prepare veterans for employment. But these Federal employees have 

neither the training, resources, nor time to make that final connection between the 

veteran job-seeker and the private sector person with hiring authority. They simply 

don’t have the necessary private sector experience or contacts. 

This is exactly what our Vice President for Employment Programs found as he 

visited with numerous LVERs and DVOPs over the past year. They told him that 

their biggest problem is a lack of quality job opportunities, and that they did not 

have enough time to market veterans directly to local employers. So despite their 

hard work, the best they can do is to get veterans prepared for job searches, and 

then direct them to data bases or websites where employers are being encouraged 

to post job openings. 

However, in the private sector, most good jobs are either not publicly advertised, 

or by the time they are advertised, they have already been filled or wired for a specific candidate. Mr. Chairman, if you want to find jobs in the private sector, you 

need to engage persons with private sector experience to find those jobs, and then 

connect veterans to those jobs. To be truly successful, you need to bring in private 

sector expertise to connect that last 100 feet between veterans and jobs. 

That’s why The Center proposed the Veterans Job Development Corps, a publicprivate partnership to place veterans in quality jobs. This Corps would be composed 

of what we call career navigators, employment market openers and job developers, 

all trained and experienced in the private sector. The Veterans Job Development 

Corps also taps into the network of hundreds of thousands of job search, placement, 

and human resource professionals through organizations like the Society for Human 

Resource Managers, or SHRM. 

The Veterans Job Development Corps can locate the hidden jobs, market veterans 

to employers, connect them directly to persons with hiring authority, get them interviews and job offers, and support them as they begin their new jobs. The Corps 

would also have mobile ‘‘Delta Force’’ teams that would be sent to help veterans 

with significant barriers to employment by going directly into their homes and their 

local job markets. They would be responsible for ensuring that the veteran makes 

it that last 100 feet. 

The Veterans Job Development Corps would have strict metrics for determining 

success: how many veterans get jobs. Funding for the Veterans Job Development 

Corps could be tied directly to results in the form of successful job placements. Part 

of the cost could even be recovered from the companies who hire veterans through 

placement fees. In addition, getting veterans off unemployment rolls and into quality jobs will increase revenue increases from income taxes paid by newly and more 

fully employed veterans. 

Mr. Chairman, for about 5 percent of amount of funding currently spent on the 

LVER and DVOP programs, you could implement this plan and increase the number 

of positive outcomes for veteran job-seekers very significantly. Or you could reallocate 5 percent of existing program funding to enable the Job Development Corps, 

giving you much greater bang for your buck. 

Let me take this opportunity to also strongly recommend that the Committee consider authorizing a new marketing campaign to change the image and perception 

of military veterans in the private sector using classic ‘‘re-branding’’ techniques. In 

70

addition to improving how we connect veterans to employers, we need to increase 

the demand for veterans by private sector employers. This was one of the dozen recommendations I made to the Joint Chiefs and the President back in 1995, and it 

was also echoed by Secretary Principi and the Transition Commission in 1999 when 

they called for a national campaign to raise awareness of the many advantages of 

hiring veterans. 

Although this idea was incorporated into the Jobs For Veterans Act in the form 

of the President’s National Hire Veterans Committee, in the course of passing and 

enacting legislation, promulgating regulations, and implementing programs, the 

original goals and purposes were lost in translation. This ’Hire Veterans’ Committee 

directed their time and resources in the wrong direction. Rather than marketing 

veterans to employers to increase the demand or what I call the ‘‘pull’’ from the private sector, they focused upon trying to ‘‘push’’ the private sector into using the public sector workforce system. This resulted in a flawed implementation of a sound 

idea. 

In fact, The Center is currently engaged in a feasibility study on marketing veterans to the private sector that was authorized by the Veterans Benefits Improvements Act of 2004 (Public Law 108–454) and is being directed by the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Just a couple of 

weeks ago, we convened a summit of corporate branding and marketing experts in 

New York City to apply proven consumer marketing techniques to re-brand veterans 

as a valuable business asset. Whether such a campaign should or would be funded 

by DOL, VA or DOD remains to be seen, but there is no question about the need 

to change corporate perceptions about the value of military veterans to private sector employers. 

Mr. Chairman, we can think of veteran job-seekers as a product that we are trying to sell to private sector employers, who are the customers. Like any consumer 

product, we need to create strong demand and build a distribution system to get 

the product to the customers when and where they are ready to make a purchase. 

To create demand, we need to re-brand military veterans as a competitive business 

asset and market them directly to the persons involved in the hiring process. To 

strengthen our distribution system, we need to develop a new program of completing 

that last 100 feet, by locating the hidden jobs and connecting veterans directly to 

the persons with hiring authority. The end result will not only be higher employment rates for veterans, but as important, a big improvement in the quality of career opportunities for veterans. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my testimony. I have attached a copy of the Veterans Job Development Corps proposal and a ‘‘white paper’’ on Branding the Veteran, and I would ask that they both be made a part of the record. I thank you 

for your attention and would be happy to answer any questions you or other members of the Committee may have. 

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WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. LARRY E. CRAIG TO WESLEY PORIOTIS

Question 1a. It appears to me that some of the functions that would be performed 

by the Veterans Job Development Corps would overlap with functions that already 

should be performed by Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists 

and Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives (LVERs), such as job search and 

interview training. So, could it be redundant to fund those programs as well as the 

Corps you proposed? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 1b. If so, would the Veterans Job Development Corps be prepared to 

compete for a portion of the funding now allocated to the DVOP and LVER programs? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 2. In your testimony, you expressed concern about the roughly 40 percent of veteran participants who do NOT enter employment after receiving services 

from the One Stop Career Centers. I share your concern. Do you think: more should 

be done to track these veterans—to find out who they are and why the One-Stop 

services did not help them to find employment? Could that information be useful 

in figuring out what more could be done to help these veterans find jobs? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 3. One on-going concern about the structure of the DVOP and LVER programs is that it does not encourage service to those most in need—those veterans 

who may require the most time-consuming assistance. How would you ensure that 

the Veterans Job Development Corps would provide all necessary services to those 

veterans? Would performance measures be weighted in some fashion? 

Answer. No response. 

WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. BARACK OBAMA TO WESLEY PORIOTIS

I want to thank the panel. Mr. Poriotis, your Veterans Job Development Corps 

is a promising idea. Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Weidman provided detailed and valuable 

critiques of the VETS program and the GAO report. 

Question 1. Monitoring and accountability seem to be the Achilles heel of the 

VETS program. What steps would you recommend to improve the Labor Department’s performance in this area? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 2. One of major barriers to employment is homelessness. Do you think 

the Department of Labor is doing enough to reach out and provide services to our 

homeless veterans? What steps could VETS take to improve its outreach? 

Answer. No response.

Senator BURR. Thank you. Thank you for that testimony. I assure you I will cover some questions related to your testimony and 

would make all aware that all of the information that you have to 

supply us will be made a part of the record. 

Mr. Sharpe? 

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH C. SHARPE, JR., DEPUTY DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL ECONOMIC COMMISSION, THE AMERICAN LEGION 

Mr. SHARPE. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, we 

appreciate this opportunity to share the views of the American Legion on the performance of Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment Training Service, its resource needs, and the State grant 

program, which funds Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program specialists and Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives. 

Every year, 250,000 service members are discharged from the 

armed services. These former service personnel are actively seeking 

their employment or the continuation of formal or vocational education. The VETS program offers transitioning veterans the assistance they need to obtain employment. 

President Bush’s fiscal year 2006 budget request for VETS was $224 million. This marks a modest $3 million increase from the 

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final funding allocated in the fiscal year 2005 Omnibus Appropriations bill. The American Legion remains steadfast supportive of the 

VETS within Department of Labor, as administered by the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans’ Employment and Training and 

the critical role each program continues to have in the lives of 

America’s veterans and their families. 

The American Legion recommended $339 million for the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service in fiscal year 2006 and is 

recommending $345.8 million for fiscal year 2007. This would provide funding for the State grants for the LVERs and DVOPs, the 

National Veterans Training Institute, the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, and the Veterans Workforce Investment Program. 

Additionally, the American Legion supports stronger oversight 

over funding for DVOP and LVER to ensure that the State grants 

are, indeed, earmarked for veteran-specific employment services. It 

is important that States be held accountable for the funds they received under the DVOP and LVER grant program. 

The American Legion is also concerned that the rate of job placement of veterans, training programs, and other vital services has 

decreased. Under the previous performance data reporting system, 

veterans seeking employment and those entering employment can 

only be counted after a mediated service was provided. 

Under the current system, individuals only have to register and 

enter the employment system to be counted as assisted veterans, 

thereby giving the false impression that the One-Stop career centers are actually doing a better job of finding employment and 

training opportunities for veterans. 

The American Legion is concerned with not only how employment services are delivered by the One-Stop, but also with veterans 

seeking priority of service, as outlined by the 2002 Jobs for Veterans Act. The American Legion is pleased to hear from the Department of Labor officials that veterans are actually receiving priority of service. However, VETS has not published any data for determining how effective its priority of veterans services are, nor 

have they reported to Congress on progress made in implementation of some key aspects of the 2002 Jobs for Veterans Act. 

The American Legion strongly recommends a revision of existing 

VETS reporting requirements for measuring performance standards and for determining compliance with requirements for providing employment services to veterans. The rolling quarter reporting system should be administered in a timely manner to better 

project the employment services being sought by veterans and to 

more accurately reflect the efforts of the DVOPs and LVERs. 

The LVERs and DVOPs are the heart and soul of VETS. However, underfunding and understaffing has limited the success of 

these programs. The American Legion strongly believes the funding 

levels for DVOPs and LVERs should match Federal staffing level 

formulas established before enactment of the Jobs for Veterans Act 

to ensure services are available to achieve the goals and aspirations of VETS. A veteran in California should expect the same 

quality services available to a veteran in Maine. 

With the dramatic increase in the number of veterans from the 

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being discharged and the increasing 

85

importance of One-Stop centers assisting all transitioning veterans, 

the American Legion strongly recommends that VETS continue frequent monitoring, visits to the centers, and provide strict oversight 

of these programs. 

The Department of Labor must ensure that veterans receive priority in all department-level programs and services created especially for their unique needs. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I appreciate the opportunity to present the views of the American Legion, and I would 

be happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sharpe follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOSEPH C. SHARPE, JR., DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL

ECONOMIC COMMISSION, THE AMERICAN LEGION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

The American Legion appreciates this opportunity to share its views on the performance of Department of Labor’s (DOL) Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) and its resource needs, and to review the state grant program which 

funds Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program Specialists (DVOP) and Local Veterans’ 

Employment Representatives (LVER). 

The mission of VETS is to promote the physical, emotional and economic security 

of America’s veterans. Its vision is to create a seamless transition back to civilian 

life for veterans. The American Legion views VETS as one of the Federal Government’s best-kept secrets. It is composed of many dedicated professional veterans 

who struggle to maintain a quality, veteran-oriented program. However, VETS is 

presently lacking in: 

• Staffing; 

• Funding; 

• Proper oversight by VETS; 

• Reliable performance data; and 

• A comprehensive mandatory transitional assistance program for returning reservists. 

With regards to staffing, currently, VETS is one of the smallest divisions of the 

Department of Labor. This severely limits the number of staff available to assist 

veterans with employment issues. In addition, the current system of management 

within VETS includes Regional Offices, which continue to increase their number of 

staff that do not provide direct services to veterans, conduct investigations or provide any identifiable services or products that directly benefit veterans. Thus the 

continued growth of staff in the Regional Offices has had a negative and adverse 

impact on the delivery of services to veterans seeking and needing employment assistances. The President’s Management Agenda calls for elimination of the middle 

level management of the Federal Government. The American Legion seeks and supports legislation that will eliminate the Regional Offices and use that funding to increase the numbers of DVOPs and LVERs. 

President Bush’s fiscal year 2006 budget request for VETS was $224 million. This 

marks a modest $3 million increase from the final funding allocated in the fiscal 

year 2005 Omnibus Appropriations bill, especially since every year 250,000 service 

members are discharged from the Armed Services. These former service personnel 

are actively seeking either employment or the continuation of formal or vocational 

education. This is available through VETS, which offers: 

• Creative outreach designed to improve employment and training opportunities 

for veterans; 

• Information in identifying military occupations requiring licenses, certificates or 

other credentials at the local, state, or national levels; and seeks to 

• Eliminate barriers faced by former service personnel transitioning from military 

service to the civilian labor market. 

The American Legion remains steadfastly supportive of VETS within DOL as administered by the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans’ Employment and 

Training (ASVET). The American Legion recognizes the positive impact each program continues to have in the lives of America’s veterans and their families. The 

American Legion recommended $339 million for VETS in Fiscal Year 2006 and is 

recommending $345.8 million for fiscal year 2007. This would provide funding for 

State Grants for LVERs and DVOPs, the National Veterans Training Institute 

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(NVTI), the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program (HVRP), and the Veterans 

Workforce Investment Program (VWIP). 

With the enactment of Public Law 107–288, the Jobs for Veterans Act, The American Legion remains skeptical as to whether VETS can truly improve employment 

and training services to meet the needs of today’s local veterans’ community. Especially since VETS has not reported its progress to Congress as mandated by the implementation of Public Law 107–288. The American Legion has some serious concerns with the implementation of the new approach to local staffing levels and job 

performance standards. 

The American Legion is concerned that the rate of job placement of veterans, 

training programs and other vital services has decreased. Under the previous performance data reporting system, veterans seeking employment and those entering 

employment could only be counted after a mediated service was provided. Under the 

current system, individuals only have to register and enter the employment system 

to be counted as an ‘‘assisted veteran,’’ thereby giving the false impression that the 

One Stop Career Centers are doing a better job of finding employment and training 

opportunities for veterans. 

A General Accounting Office (GAO) report of October 30, 2001, noted, ‘‘VETS 

needs the legislative authority to grant each state more flexibility to design how 

staff will fit into the one-stop center system.’’ However, The American Legion has 

found some DVOPs and LVERs are unofficially reporting that they spend 90 percent 

of their time assisting non-veterans, while only spending 10 percent of their time 

assisting veterans seeking employment. In some states, several part-time LVERs 

and/or DVOPs are assigned to the same office in a metro area. In some cases, converting current full time LVERs and DVOPs to part-time employees has drastically 

limited the effectiveness of the program. In other cases, specialists or representatives are so over-tasked with clerical duties and office administration that they have 

little time to provide much-needed outreach to job-seeking veterans. Stronger oversight needs to be provided to ensure that DVOPs and LVERs are given the resources needed to provide the services for which they are responsible. 

The American Legion is concerned not only about how employment services are 

delivered by the One Stops, but also with the priority of service as outlined by the 

2002 Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA). The American Legion is pleased to hear from 

DOL officials that veterans are receiving priority of service. However, according to 

the recent GAO report of December 2005, ‘‘Labor has only partially implemented the 

JVA requirement to give priority service to veterans in its many employment training programs.’’

VETS has not published any data for determining the effectiveness of its veterans 

priority services. VETS is only now, in 2006, reporting to Congress on their progress 

in the implementation of JVA’s key aspects. The current reporting timeframe reflects a 6-month delay. The American Legion strongly recommends a revision of existing VETS reporting requirements for measuring performance standards and for 

determining compliance with requirements for providing employment services to 

veterans. The rolling quarter reporting system should be administered in a timely 

manner to better project the employment services being sought by veterans and to 

more accurately reflect the efforts of DVOPs and LVERs. According to VETS representatives surveyed by The American Legion, it currently takes 18 months to receive data on how well a program is functioning. Most report to The American Legion that they cannot make changes or improvements after 18 months; in many 

cases, the contractor or person responsible is no longer available. 

THE FRONT LINE WARRIORS

The LVERs and DVOPs are the heart and soul of VETS. The unique roles of these 

two programs are outlined in Title 38, Chapter 41, United States Code. However, 

annual underfunding and understaffing have limited the success of these programs. 

The role of VETS is to augment local employment service offices and handle the 

hard-to-place veterans, not just any veteran that walks in the door, whether the veteran is job ready or not. Clearly, an LVER is required to effectively perform many 

different roles. The American Legion believes that all LVERs should be expected, 

at a minimum to: 

• Ensure veterans are receiving quality services from local employment services 

employees; 

• Maintain regular contact with community leaders, employers, labor unions, 

training programs, and veterans’ service organizations; 

• Provide directly or facilitate labor exchange services to eligible veterans; 

• Job development with employers and labor unions—to include on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs; 

87

• Promote and monitor the participation of veterans in federally funded employment and training programs; • Monitor the listing of jobs and subsequent referrals to Federal contractors; • Work closely with VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation Program; • Refer veterans to training, supportive services, and educational opportunities; • Assist in securing and maintaining current information on employment and 

training opportunities; • Assist in identifying and acquiring prosthetic and sensory aids and devices 

needed to enhance employability of disabled veterans; and • Facilitate guidance and counseling service to certain veterans. 

The LVER has no counterpart in a local employment service office. The only supervisory control the LVER has is over any assigned DVOP. As taxed as the LVER 

may be, the DVOPs job is just as demanding. The American Legion believes all 

DVOPs should, at a minimum: • Develop job leads and job training opportunities through contacts with employers; • Promote and develop apprenticeship and on-the-job training opportunities with 

employers; • Carry out outreach activities to locate veterans in need of job assistance; • Provide assistance to employers in securing job training opportunities for eligible veterans; • Assist local employment services office employees with their responsibilities for 

serving veterans; • Promote and assist in the development of entry-level and career job opportunities; • Develop outreach programs with VA Vocational Rehabilitation (VOC Rehab) 

Program participants; and • Provide case management. 

Like the LVER, DVOPs have no counterpart in the local employment service office. 

The American Legion believes these two Federal programs were designed to support local employment service office personnel, not supplant nor integrate. VETS 

must retain complete autonomy in order to be successful. Through the creation of 

these positions, Congress sought to assure: • All veterans received priority of service; • Certain veterans received extensive case management; • Employers hire veterans; • Outreach activities recruited and assisted chronically unemployed or underemployed veterans; • Close contact was established and sustained with the veterans’ community; • Effective marketing of Federal and state vocational training opportunities; 

• Monitoring of veterans’ hiring practices by Federal contractors; and 

• The presence of veterans’ employment advocates throughout the local community. The American Legion strongly believes the funding levels for DVOPs and 

LVERs should match Federal staffing level formula established before enactment of 

JVA to assure services are available to achieve the goals and aspirations of VETS. 

A veteran in California should expect the same quality services available as a veteran in Maine. 

VETS was created to work with the local employment service office, not to be incorporated into those offices. Prior to the creation of VETS, the local employment 

service offices were failing to meet the employment and training needs of veterans, 

especially disabled and minority veterans. Many veterans were faced with significant barriers to employment and needed more focused case management and personal assistance because there was no appropriated funding for veterans. In the beginning, VETS had the necessary funding and staff to deal effectively with the employment problems throughout the veteran population. 

With the dramatic increase in the number of veterans from the wars in Iraq and 

Afghanistan being discharged and the increasing importance of the One Stop Centers in assisting all transitioning veterans, the American Legion strongly recommends that VETS continue frequent monitoring visits to the centers and provide 

strict oversight of these programs. DOL must ensure that veterans receive priority 

in all DQL programs and services created specifically for their unique needs. 

Title 38 USC, 4103A required that all DVOP specialists shall be qualified veterans and that preference be given to qualified disabled veterans in selecting and 

filling DVOP specialist positions. This provision was changed by P.L. 107–288, 

which allows the appointment of non-veterans to these positions for up to 6 months 

without any justification. For over 20 years, these positions have been filled with 

veterans and this has proved to be a winning combination. The American Legion 

88

opposed non-veteran appointments and urges Congress to rescind this change. The 

American Legion believes that military experience is essential to understanding the 

unique needs of the veteran and that all LVERs, as well as all DVOPs, should be 

veterans. In addition, The American Legion is in strong opposition to part time 

DVOP and LVERs because that may lead to limited services to veterans. Properly 

monitoring and ensuring that the half time DVOP or LVER serves veterans adequately is overly dependent on management within the career centers, and nearly 

impossible. In our opinion, the use of part time positions has led to examples of less 

than adequate services creating managerial challenges and should only be allowed 

with the concurrence of the DVET in the state. 

The American Legion is also concerned with the reported numbers of National 

Guard and Reserve troops that have returned from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan 

only to encounter difficulties with finding suitable employment. The Department of 

Labor transitional assistance program (TAP) was designed to help prepare separating service members and their families in making a successful transition back 

into the civilian workforce. DOL estimates that 70 percent of all separating active 

duty service members attend the employment TAP seminars and only 30 percent 

of all separating National Guard and Reservists attend a portion of TAP. The American Legion believes this low attendance number is a disservice to all transitioning 

service members. Many service members and most National Guard and Reservists 

are unaware of the assistance and resources offered by TAP. Without this program 

service members who have served their country bravely return to the civilian workforce less equipped than their counterparts who took advantage of the information 

provided by TAP. The American Legion reaffirms its strong support of TAP/DTAP 

program and also encourages the Departments of Labor and Defense to work together in mandating that all separating, active-duty service members, which includes the Reserves and the National Guard, be given an opportunity to participate 

in TAP/DTAP. 

The American Legion recommends adequate funding for the National Veterans 

Training Institute (NVTI) budget. The NVTI provides standardized training for all 

veterans employment advocates in an array of employment and training functions. 

This excellent program helps to prepare employment service personnel to professionally address the vocational needs of veterans, especially those with barriers to 

employment. 

Over the past 6 years, VETS has endeavored to reinvent itself within the confines 

of continued funding constraints, while faced with major changes made under the 

Workforce Investment Act. VETS makes up about 15 percent of the system operated 

in the states by the Employment and Training Administration. 

Approximately 56.2 percent of all unemployed veterans are over the age of 45; 

therefore, many of these veterans are victims of corporate restructuring, technology 

changes, or age discrimination. These veterans need training to remain in their previous professions or to begin new careers. Section 168 of the Workforce Investment 

Act (formerly JTPA N–C) is that portion of the statute, which provides for this type 

of training for veterans. 

For the past 3 years, the $7.5 million annual funding for the Veteran Workforce 

Improvement Program has allowed the program to continue to operate in only 11 

states. This is absolutely unacceptable. There are thousands of veterans available 

for work in this new economy, but they may lack marketable technological skills. 

The problem is clearly a lack of funding. The only participants in this specific program are military veterans. The baseline funding for it needs to be at least increased to allow VETS to begin training in all fifty states. Therefore, The American 

Legion would recommend $17.34 million for Veteran Workforce Improvement Program in fiscal year 2007. 

Although P.L. 107–288 requires that veterans receive priority in all DOL programs, the American Legion urges the reinstatement of the Service Members Occupational Conversion and Training Act (SMOCTA). SMOCTA was developed as a 

transitional tool designed to provide job training and employment to eligible veterans discharged after August 1, 1990 and provides an incentive for employers to 

hire veterans. Veterans eligible for assistance under SMOCTA were those with a 

primary or secondary military occupational specialty that DOD has determined is 

not readily transferable to the civilian workforce; or those veterans with a service 

connected disability rating of 30 percent or greater. 

Eligible veterans received valuable job training and employment services through 

civilian employers that built upon the knowledge and job skills the veterans acquired while serving in the military. This program not only improved employment 

opportunities for transitioning service members, but also enabled the Federal dollars invested in education and training for active duty service members to be reinVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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vested in the national job market by facilitating the transfer of skills from military 

service to the civilian workforce. 

The American Legion continues to encourage Congress to reauthorize and adequately fund SMOCTA. Many LVERs and DVOP publicly praised the effectiveness 

of SMOCTA in successfully returning veterans into the civilian workforce. The 

American Legion recommends $45.9 million for SMOCTA funding in fiscal year 

2007. Should SMOCTA not be reauthorized, these training dollars should be added 

to Veteran Workforce Improvement Program (VWIP) job training opportunities. 

SUMMARY

Messrs. Chairmen and members of the Committee, in this statement, I have laid 

out the priorities for The American Legion regarding the many programs and services made available to the veterans of this nation and to their dependents and survivors. 

The American Legion has outlined many central issues in this testimony today 

regarding VETS. If there is an attempt to take the DVOP/LVER grants and fully 

integrate them into WIA/ETA, there will no longer be any veteran identity to these 

services. To allow the individual state Governor to decide where the national program for Veterans Employment and Training will reside within the respective state 

means it is no longer a national program, but rather a state program. The American 

Legion official position is that this should be a national program with Federal oversight and accountability. And finally, The American Legion strongly opposes any attempt to move VETS to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). 

The Department of Labor (DOL) is the nation’s leading agency in the area of job 

placement, vocational training, job development, and vocational counseling. Due to 

the significant barriers to employment experienced by many veterans, VETS was established to provide eligible veterans with the services already being provided to job 

ready Americans. Working with the local employment services offices, VETS gave 

eligible veteran the personalized assistance needed to assist in the transition into 

the civilian workforce. VA has very limited experience in the critical areas of job 

placement, vocational training, job development, and vocational counseling through 

its Vocational Rehabilitation Program. 

We realize in a time of war there are many other important issues before the Congress of the United States. However, The American Legion believes that Congress 

must focus on finding effective solutions to veterans’ concerns. The veterans of this 

nation have always answered when their country called. Medals, awards, and citations recognize the remarkable achievements of citizen soldiers, sailors, airmen and 

Marines, but the true gratitude paid to American’s veterans comes in the form of 

meeting their post-military needs, especially those with any service-connected disabilities. The American Legion believes it is time to make a meaningful commitment 

to the programs and services that are an earned recognition for our veterans from 

a truly grateful nation. 

Thank you for granting me the opportunity to appear before you today. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. LARRY E. CRAIG TO

JOSEPH C. SHARPE, JR. 

Question 1. You stressed in your testimony the need to provide additional resources for the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) and Local Veterans’ 

Employment Representative (LVER) program. However, you also acknowledged that 

you are ‘‘skeptical as to whether [the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment 

and Training Service (VETS)] can truly improve employment and training services 

to meet the needs of today’s local veterans’ community.’’ Should we infuse more 

funds into a system that may not be able to succeed? Or should we first determine 

how to structure the system so that it will be able to succeed? 

Answer. The VETS program is composed of many dedicated professionals. 

It is crucial to re-structure the system so it can be successful and maximizes the 

benefits of every dollar spent. The objective of any veteran program must be to ensure that the veteran is clearly served, with built in performance data that can 

measure results. The workforce structure needs to be understood by all interested 

parties whereby the DVOP and LVER programs are merely a part of the structure. 

Another important point to take into consideration is that DVOPs and LVERs were 

originally instituted by Congress to serve veterans. They were mandated to serve 

only veterans and not to replace existing workforce staff directed to focus on veterans and their needs. This requirement is still valid and needed more today than 

ever before due to the nation’s greater reliance on Reserve and Guard units to help 

fight the war on terror. 

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Any successful job placement program requires two components: meaningful jobs 

and qualified workers. 

Either placing qualified workers in meaningless jobs or placing unqualified workers in meaningful jobs is a formula for vocational disaster—unhappy employees and 

employers. Repeated good job matches are the true measures of success. VETS 

should be the job placement office of first-choice rather than last resort with meaningful job openings and providing highly qualified employees to fill those job openings. Satisfied customers mean both employers and employees. 

DVOPs and LVERs need to spend as much time in job development efforts (finding those employers with meaningful job openings) as matching up quality candidates to fill those positions. That means repeated marketing the benefits of hiring 

former military service members to potential employers. 

Currently, there are no incentives in place to motivate employers to seek out 

former military personnel for employment—such as tax credits, government contracts, or vocational training subsidies to help cover training costs earmarked specific for employment of veterans. 

Equally important is identifying those hard-to-place candidates and helping them 

to become job ready—through vocational training (on-the-job training, apprenticeship, or technical training) or vocational counseling (job-finding workshops). Both require funding to achieve. 

The former Service Members Occupational Conversion and Training Act 

(SMOCTA) was a highly successful vocational training and job placement tool effectively used by DVOPs and LVERs, with measurable results, that is no longer authorized by Congress. By all accounts from by DVOPs, LVERs, participating employers, and participating employees, it was money well spent. 

Question 2. In support of the President’s ‘‘WIA Plus’’ proposal, the Department of 

Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has stressed that ‘‘the current 

system of Federal job training programs is too complex’’ and that ‘‘states and local 

communities have been hindered by archaic rules that make it difficult to train 

workers and respond quickly to economic downturns, natural disasters and shifts 

in industry skill needs.’’ Despite those criticisms, you have strongly opposed removing veterans employment programs from the Labor system. If this ‘‘archaic’’ system 

is not capable of quickly responding to veterans’ needs, don’t we owe it to veterans 

to explore whether other means of providing employment services would be more 

effective? 

Answer. The American Legion is well aware of the statements by the DOL Employment and Training Administration regarding the needs to reinvent the workforce system. The American Legion has come to the conclusion that ETA prefers to 

shift the veterans’ program into the mainstream where they are no longer seen as 

veterans’ programs rather than make them accountable, effective or efficient. A case 

in point is the Jobs for Veterans Act of 2002, which tasked DOL to ensure priority 

of services to veterans in all DOL funded programs. However, 3 years later, there 

is absolutely no evidence that this has been implemented or if implemented how it 

has improved opportunities for veterans. Legionnaires at the local level report that 

the State Workforce Agencies and Local Boards have not instituted any priority for 

veterans and there is no indication that DOL, has taken any actions to enforce the 

law. 

The Jobs for Veterans Act of 2002 (JVA) gave the states much more flexibility 

with the DVOP/LVER programs and made sweeping changes in the prescriptive nature of the previous law. In exchange for such changes it was mandated that veterans would be afforded, by law, priority for services in all DOL funded programs. 

The DOL, State Agencies and Local Boards have readily accepted those specific 

items of the JVA that they supported but have failed to implement all of the requirements. 

Presently, DOL, including ETA and VETS have not fully instituted the JVA, basically ignoring Congress, and they are not enforcing veterans priority for service as 

prescribed by existing law. The states claim the system is too complex. To us this 

is a credibility issue. At a time when veterans’ issues should be important DOL 

seems to be paying lip service to veterans. 

The American Legion believes that the Federal job-training program is complex. 

We concur in some instances with ETA’s premise that the Federal job-training program is complex. However, we do not believe the non-training services such as Employment Services (ES), Public Labor Exchange, and the DVOP/LVER programs are 

overly complex. It appears that the current belief system is, that training and employment service type programs are basically the same. That is not a true statement. The differences between WIA training programs and the services offered by 

the Public Labor Exchange ES and DVOP/LVER are miles apart. 

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For example the training programs serve less than 10 percent of the total population in the workforce, while ES and DVOP/LVER serve over 80 percent. The cost 

per individual in a training program is at least ten times the cost for those being 

served by ES and DVOP/LVER. The success of a training program is dramatically 

higher than that of ES and DVOP/LVER; of course we should remember that we 

just spent thousands of dollars in training an individual in a skill needed in his 

community so the success rate will be higher. 

Moreover, with the loosening of restrictions on the DVOP/LVER programs there 

has been a steady increase in DVOP/LVER staff providing service to non-veterans. 

When DVOPs and LVERs should be contacting employers about potential job openings, they are busy meeting the needs of non-veterans. in some situations the 

DVOP/LVER staff is being used in place of other paid staff in the centers. This is 

a contradiction of the basic premise of the DVOP/LVER program. The Local Board 

and center managers are calling upon these dedicated veterans’ employment specialists to serve non-veterans; therefore the resultant lower service level to veterans 

should not be a surprise. 

The DVOP/LVER program is not performing up to desired expectations, but then 

neither is the ES, WIA or entire workforce system. The State Workforce Agencies, 

DOL, and Local Boards have had 3 years under JVA to operate with fewer restrictions, less accountability and no enforcement and yet there is no marked improvement in services to veterans. 

The American Legion believes that DOL has had its chance to show that more 

flexibility and less restriction would be good for the overall system but the results 

are the exact opposite. The American Legion strongly believes that DOL should increase accountability, ensure accurate reporting and enforce the laws enacted to 

serve veterans. 

Until DOL, the State Workforce Agencies and Local Boards fully enact JVA and 

respect the requirements inherent in the DVOP/LVER programs, moving the DVOP/

LVER programs to any other entity is a moot point. 

Question 3a. As you know, the Commission on Service members and Veterans 

Transition Assistance concluded that employment services to veterans could be improved by awarding grant funds competitively on a state-by-state basis. If a nonState provider can demonstrate that it has the ability to more effectively and efficiently provide employment services to veterans, would you support allowing that 

provider to compete for some or all of the grant funding that is now awarded on 

a non-competitive basis? 

Answer. The American Legion strongly feels that the DVOP/LVER program 

should be a state program, period. The current WIA system relies on private providers to deliver services. What we have heard from Legionnaires at the local and 

state level is that these providers change quite often. This constant change of service delivery contractor results in a lower level of performance, more time to train 

staff and slower response times to serve the communities. It is difficult to hold people responsible or accountable when the structure and or management scheme constantly changes. We have seen first hand that privatizing service delivery looks good 

on paper but does little to enhance or improve the actual service to the client. We 

need only to look at WIA to see these results. For DVOP/LVER programs we believe 

management and staff stability is a key component toward success in meeting the 

needs of the entire veterans’ population, to include those facing significant employment barriers. This can only be garnered via a state program. 

Question 3b. On the flip side, if a state or locality has demonstrated an inability 

to effectively provide employment services to veterans, would you support allowing 

other entities to compete for the funds that have been provided to that state or locality? 

Answer. The above response is incorporated by reference. The American Legion 

feels that the Federal agencies which are responsible for funding MUST also hold 

those entities to which funding is given accountable for performance and that is not 

being done now. If DOL does not hold the States accountable, or the States do not 

hold the Local Boards accountable, who can say that DOL would hold any other entity accountable. 

On the other side, if DOL indicates that other service providers could do better 

or will be held to a higher standard, then one only has to ask why those same measures or steps are not being applied to the States and Local Boards now. To us the 

problem lies squarely in the lack of accountability by DOL over the States and Local 

Boards. 

Question 4a. In your testimony you were critical of the Jobs for Veterans Act. 

That Act implemented many of the recommendations of the Transition Commission 

report which was replete with criticisms of the law that sustained the DVOP and 

LVER programs as being outmoded, inflexible, process-oriented, and overly prescripVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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tive. Did The American Legion not agree with the Transition Commission’s conclusions? 

Question 4b. When, in your opinion, were the DVOP and LVER programs most 

effective and what evidence was there of that effectiveness? 

Answer. The American Legion feels the DVOP/LVER programs were most effective when DOL-VETS had an active hand in monitoring the States and local centers 

and when corrective sanctions were applied for non-performance or fiscal abuse. 

When the State Workforce Agencies operated and administered the DVOP/LVER 

programs as a state operation they did not abrogate their responsibility by giving 

the programs to the Local Boards. There were performance standards that: 

(1) Measure the services to veterans as compared to non-veterans; 

(2) Are timely, at least monthly; 

(3) Do not have a time lag of nine to 12 months; and 

(4) Measure what is being done not just who went to work. 

To get a better understanding of this, we recommend that you examine current 

performance measurements used by DOL for WIA, ES and veterans. The measurements are Entered Employment, Entered Employment with Staff assisted services, 

job retention and in some cases wage gain. 

The way DOL measures success now is that any individual who registers with the 

system in one quarter and goes to work within two quarters thereafter is considered 

a success. The data processing system and tax records track this automatically. 

Note that nowhere in the formula does it require that the individual be provided 

any assistance in securing employment! So in essence we are merely measuring the 

ability of individuals to find their own jobs. Since the formula works by quarters 

the number of individuals considered as the base registrants is smaller and allows 

a higher success percentage than previous methods of measurement. 

For job retention, the measurement is done on those individuals who entered employment in a quarter where they are still receiving wages two quarters after entering the job. The data processing system and tax records track this automatically as 

well. It is significant to note that the individual does not have to be in the same 

job with the same employer as when hired but merely that they have earned wages 

in both quarters. We are concerned that this is not a proper way to measure employment. One would expect that spending time in training and providing employment 

services to an individual would help match the individual’s needs to the needs of 

an employer. The match would allow an employer to select and hire that individual. 

If the individual does not stay with that one employer for 6 months does that not 

call into question the system’s ability to train, serve and screen people for employment? 

The American Legion believes that in the rush to prove the success of training 

and employment programs, lax measures were employed to give the false impression 

of success. 

In private business it is called performance inflation and those corporations who 

did just that, have failed. 

WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. BARACK OBAMA TO

JOSEPH C. SHARPE, JR. 

Question 1. Monitoring and accountably seem to be the Achilles heel of the VETS 

program. What steps would you recommend to improve the Labor Department’s performance in this area? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 2. One of the major barriers to employment is homelessness. Do you 

think the Department of Labor is doing enough to reach out and provide services 

to our homeless veterans? What steps could VETS take to improve its outreach? 

Answer. No response.

Senator BURR. Mr. Sharpe, thank you very much. 

Mr. Weidman? 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD F. WEIDMAN, DIRECTOR OF 

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA 

Mr. WEIDMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On behalf of John Patrick Rowan, the national president of Vietnam Veterans of America, and all of us, thank you—Chairman 

Craig, Senator Akaka, and you, sir, and your distinguished colleagues—for the opportunity to present here today. 

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We have, since the inception of Vietnam Veterans of America in 

1978, held that employment is finally, in the end, the key. That is 

the best veterans benefit. It doesn’t matter whether you are in a 

wheelchair, whether you have PTSD, whatever. 

Helping people get to the point where they can obtain and sustain meaningful employment should be the goal of all veterans programs. It is the nexus. If, in fact, we are successful with the other 

programs, then people will be at the point where they can obtain 

and sustain a decent job that leads somewhere. 

The history of the job service goes back to 1933, and priority of 

service to veterans was written into that, largely because in 1931, 

as you know, we had the spectacle of American troops firing on 

American veterans on the Mall. And people were still sensitive to 

that. 

It was not working well by the time we got to 1944, in the middle 

of World War II, and therefore, as part of the laws that were created that became known as the G.I. Bill, the LVERs, or Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives, were created. Later on in the 

1950s, we created the Veterans Employment Service and put a 

DVET in each State to help monitor what was going on. 

In 1976–1977, in this room, Senator Cranston held a set of hearings where the workforce development agencies came in and said 

they weren’t placing any Vietnam or disabled vets because they 

couldn’t find them. And therefore, the DVOP program was created 

by Executive Order by President Carter for a variety of reasons, 

not the least of which is he had a political pressing need at that 

time. 

But Mr. Ron Drach, who is currently in the room, was one of the 

two authors of that program, along with Dennis Rhoades. They 

came up with it within 24 hours. Later on, it was locked in the 

Title 38, Chapter 41. 

From 1977 on—and I am as guilty of this and VVA is, as every 

other veterans organization—we have tinkered with Chapter 41 of 

Title 38, adding more and more proscriptive and prescriptive measures to try and get the local office manager to let the DVOP and 

LVERs do their job. That is basically what it comes down to. And 

it didn’t work. 

Beginning in the late 1990s, we moved toward a more outcomedriven system. Now at the same time, since the 1980s, GAO has 

pushed the idea of the One-Stops, and let us take all the fetters 

off of all the systems, and therefore all boats will rise. That was 

never true of veterans. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a 

DVOP and LVER program, and there wouldn’t have been the 

strong system of monitoring. 

At the same time, they switched over from counting placements 

to entered employment rates. The entered employment rates, as my 

colleague Mr. Sharpe just pointed out, is absolutely meaningless. It 

is a classic example of the ‘‘post hoc, ergo prompter hoc’’ fallacy, 

where you walk in and you are technically registered at the job 

service or at the One-Stop, and you get a job later on, and you have 

never been back there. In fact, they made you so mad you wouldn’t 

go back. They are taking a positive termination because you went 

out and got your own dog-gone job. 

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In that system, the bad news is that we have no measure. The 

good news for Senator Obama is the stats that he is looking at are 

absolutely meaningless in terms of how well they are doing in their 

State versus other States. 

The question then is what do we need to do now? The first thing, 

as you point out rightly, we need decent stats. I don’t know if you 

are familiar with this, sir, but this is a special survey of veterans. 

It is done every 2 years. This latest one was released in July 2004, 

but it was actually done in 2003. 

There is another one that is already due, and it needs to be broken out by combat versus noncombat, theater of operation. Then 

you get an idea of who is coming back from OIF, OEF, who has 

a problem, number one. And number two, they used to break this 

out with a table that was percentage of disability. 

Those who were 60 percent or more service-connected disabled, 

virtually all of them were out of the labor force, and those that 

were in, their unemployment rate was also in the 20 percent range. 

They stopped doing that and masked it with those who were doing 

better, who were the 10 and 30 percent service-connected disabled. 

We need to go back to getting stats to getting back at the crux of 

the issue. 

The keys that drive this are two things. You have no sanctions 

now. You only have what we call the ‘‘nuclear option,’’ which is 

take all the money away. It has only ever happened once, in the 

State of Maine, and it happened in the 1970s. And they contracted 

with the State American Legion for 1 year. They cleaned up their 

act with the State workforce development agency, and they gave 

them the grant right back. 

Most Governors will go crazy. They don’t have the political clout 

to take all of the money away. So you have no sanctions. You have 

no flexible option. In terms of what you have is either incentive 

grants or non-incentive grants. By not getting incentive grants, 

then it essentially becomes a sanction. And we believe that that is 

what we need for DVOPs, LVERs. That is believed what we need 

on other grants from Labor. It works. 

Seven percent of the money, of the WIA money that goes into 

every State is kept by the Governor as an incentive grant. And 

they give that out to the local service, to the local WIB, based on 

whether or not they meet the State’s priorities, and those priorities 

never include veterans. They are usually people on welfare, dislocated homemakers, and youth. It never says veterans. 

When they first come in, 51 percent of that WIB by law must be 

business people. They look at the proposal. They open it to the 

back. They look at the budget, and they say, ‘‘What is this 7 percent?’’ And they say, ‘‘Well, that is the incentive grant.’’ ‘‘Well, you 

mean that is like a bonus?’’ ‘‘Yes.’’ ‘‘What do we have to do to get 

the bonus?’’ And they direct 93 percent of their activities and their 

funding toward getting that 7 percent. 

We have repeatedly suggested to the Secretary of Labor, three 

succeeding Secretaries now, that out of the Secretary’s incentive 

grant that they set aside some for veterans and disabled veterans. 

We would urge that that now be locked in the statute, that it has 

to be there. People will study to the test if there is cash, American, 

involved. That is that. 

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HVRP, Homeless Veterans Re-Integration Program, I didn’t talk 

about. But it is important to talk about here because, in fact, it is 

the only part of Labor where there is true accountability, where 

they track for 180 days what happens to that person after they get 

a job, and it has the best cost per placement of any of the programs 

administered by Department of Labor. Not veterans programs, of 

any program. 

It is administered through the community-based organizations. 

Many of them are the same ones who were created in the 1970s 

because the job service was not responding to returning veterans 

then to deliver employment services and deal with supportive services and barriers to employment. 

There is a great deal that needs to be addressed here. Most importantly, we need a national strategy. We believe that the only 

way you can get there is essentially a convocation. There is no national strategy now, despite some people saying that there is or it 

is the Hire Vet Committee. 

We would encourage this Committee to get together with your 

colleagues on the other side of the aisle—you, sir, and Senator 

Craig and Senator Akaka—as well as with the folks on the other 

side of the Hill and invite in industry, invite in the administration, 

invite in all the players, including the veterans service organizations, and say we are going to take 2 days and come up with something that makes sense. 

This kind of colloquia was done on the House side a number of 

years ago, and we thought we had a deal. And the workforce development agencies kicked holes in it. It said that most JVA provisions have been carried out, but not without some challenges. 

In fact, that is not true. The only parts of JVA that were implemented were the parts that the workforce development agencies 

wanted, that the States wanted, that gave them ‘‘more flexibility.’’ 

All the ones having to do with accountability, they haven’t even 

begun to make a plan to make a plan to implement. 

We believe that that begins with regulations, begins with FCJL 

regulations—Federal contract job listings regulations—and last, 

but not least on that, if you have a question on FCJL, I have more 

to say. 

I thank your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, for giving me a little bit 

of time into the red light. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weidman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD F. WEIDMAN, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT

RELATIONS, VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of our National President, John P. 

Rowan, Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) thanks you for the opportunity to appear here today to express our views on this vital veterans’ issue of how well the 

Local Veteran Employment Representative (LVER) program and the Disabled Veteran Outreach Program (DVOP) is working, particularly for disabled veterans, recently separated service members, and those veterans most at risk of becoming 

homeless. My name is Rick Weidman, and I serve as Director of Government Relations for VVA. 

HISTORY AND BACKGROUND

The Employment Service was created as a non-statutory entity in 1915, under 

President Wilson. The United States Employment Service was created as a statutorily mandated entity in 1933 as part of the Social Security Act, along with the 

legislation that established unemployment insurance. The Wagner-Peyser Act, as it 

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is commonly known, established ‘‘priority of service’’ for veterans who sought assistance in finding employment. Employers made the argument to Congress that if 

business was going to pay taxes to pay for unemployment checks to former workers, 

there needed to be a strong effort to get them back to work, thereby reducing the 

UI tax rate for the employer. 

From the outset of the reconstituted Employment Service, veterans were legally 

accorded ‘‘priority of service.’’ Veteran’s organizations made the argument that veterans should be first in line for any such assistance. As this was a mere 2 years 

following the World War I veterans’ march on Washington, and the spectacle of 

American troops firing on American veterans on the national Mall, Congress and 

the President agreed and saw fit to ensure that veterans, who had sacrificed the 

most, received priority in referral to job openings and for other services. 

CREATION OF THE LVER PROGRAM

Unfortunately, a mere decade later (and in the middle of World War II), ‘‘veterans 

priority of service’’ was not working very well at the local level in many instances. 

Essentially Congress found that there was no meaningful quality assurance system 

to ensure that veterans received their rights to priority. Therefore, in 1944, as part 

of the set of laws known as the GI Bill, ‘‘priority of service was reiterated, and the 

Local Veterans Employment Representative (LVER) program grants to the states 

created, in order to help ensure that priority of service actually happened in each 

and every office. The theory was that all local employment service office managers 

were intent on obeying the law, and that where veterans did not receive ‘‘priority 

of service’’ the LVER would monitor all activity, make the office manager aware of 

any problems caused by a few ‘‘bad apples,’’ and the problem would be corrected. 

That is why the LVER, by law, was supposed to report directly to the local office 

manager. While this ‘‘fix’’ helped in many instances, it was still problematic and uneven in how well it functioned. 

Also beginning in 1944 and 1945, many cities began to emulate the model first 

promulgated in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to establish veterans multi-service centers, 

with VA benefits counselors and other VA services providers, employment service 

representatives, unemployment claims examiners, and any other available public 

and private resources all existing under a single roof, in order to coordinate the response of the entire community to welcome home the returning veterans. Most of 

these had governing boards that were like a model Rotary club, with representatives 

of the various aspects of the business community, the clergy, political leaders, veterans’ organizations, civic organizations such as the Elks, labor unions, and other 

key elements of that particular community. In this way it really was a total response of each community to the returning veterans, and therefore an evolving 

strategy in each community. 

Similarly, the GI Bill provided for farm training, vocational training, and other 

skills training as well as attending college (which for many was training that led 

to better jobs than they could have ever dreamed of before their service in the war). 

In fact, more than 51 percent of the GI Bill usage was for training other than accredited 4-year colleges. Many veterans were able to attend college because of the 

educational benefits and the ‘‘52–50’’ club, which allowed them to have $50 unemployment payments (what we today call UCX) for a full year to get themselves settled and to find a college to attend or a program to pursue. 

SELF EMPLOYMENT AND SMALL BUSINESS AS A MEANS TO EMPLOYMENT

For many, the VA also administered a program to help veterans establish small 

business concerns that included direct loans to start their business. This resulted 

in countless very small businesses, as well as many firms that grew into medium 

and large companies, all because it was part of a true nation strategy to assist returning veterans to develop a way to earn a living, either by working for someone 

else, or by starting their own small businesses. Among many other symbols of this 

highly successful program was the ubiquitous ‘‘Veteran’s Taxi’’ found in cities and 

towns all across America. 

In response to continuing problems, a system of ‘‘Director, Veterans Employment 

Services’’ was created with a Director in each state who was a Federal employee. 

One of the problems from the outset was that there was inexact control at the state 

and local level as to the actual performance of staff because all of the employees 

were state workers who were funded by Federal dollars, and therefore not subject 

to direct Federal control or means of accountability. Some of these Directors were 

very good, but others were not as responsible or energetic. While they were all ostensibly civil servants, the selection process was (and still largely is) highly political. 

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In many states the employment service was not responsive to the needs of Vietnam 

veterans. 

VETERAN COMMUNITY-BASED PROGRAMS

The League of Cities/Conference of Mayors created a network of community-based 

organizations (CBO) to attempt to deal with this problem in medium sized ties. 

Some of those, such as the Veterans Outreach Center in Rochester, New York, and 

the Rhode Island Veterans Assistance Center in Providence, Rhode Island still exist. 

Other CBOs came into being because the need was great and Vietnam veterans 

stepped forward to organize and find funding sources to meet the need. Many of the 

CBOs who are providers of multiple services to homeless veterans and other very 

low-income veterans came into existence this way. These include Swords to Plowshares in San Francisco, Vietnam Veterans of California (formerly Flower of the 

Dragon), and others. In fact, the community-based model works to deal with the 

multiple barriers that many veterans face and must surmount in their quest to obtain and sustain meaningful employment at a living wage. 

There were several other efforts to help returning Vietnam veterans, including the 

National Alliance of Business (NAB) initiative for veterans using a good deal of Federal money, which had mixed results at best in terms of actually placing veterans, 

particularly disabled veterans and veterans with barriers to employment, into permanent jobs. 

CREATION OF THE DASVE POSITION AT LABOR

In 1976, legislation was enacted that created the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans Employment, in an effort to try and bring some cohesion and accountability to an employment service system that was clearly not working for veterans. Similarly, the Comprehensive Employment & Training Act (CETA) 

was problematic in regard to any of the funds going to programs to assist veterans. 

CETA had succeeded the Manpower Development Training Act (MDTA), which in 

turn had succeeded the Office of Employment Opportunity (OEO). 

These entities were created to make available cognitive and skill training funds, 

as well as funds for paying participants while they were being trained in public 

service jobs. An additional goal of these programs was to circumvent what was perceived as sexist and racist bias in some of the state employment service agencies. 

However, these entities in many states were often not any more open to meeting 

the needs of Vietnam veterans than the employment service agencies were. In response, the Congress created what was known as Title II–D of CETA that could only 

be used for Vietnam veterans. Sadly, many states and sub-state entities returned 

these funds unused rather than let them be utilized for the intended use of assisting 

younger veterans with problems to surmount their difficulties and secure decent 

jobs with a future. 

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) replaced the CETA system itself in 

1982. Despite efforts by the veterans’ service organizations the Act included no special provision for veterans. 

CREATION OF THE DVOP PROGRAM

As the problems remained with the employment service agencies themselves, the 

Disabled Veteran Outreach Program (DVOP) was created in 1977, and enacted into 

law in 1979 in response to the state unemployment services testifying to Senator 

Cranston’s Committee that they were not placing many Vietnam or disabled veterans because they ‘‘could not find them.’’

As the Employment & Training Administration (ETA) at the Department of Labor 

was still ignoring the problems of veterans in securing proper services in many 

states, despite there now being a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor who was supposed to be able to focus attention of ETA and the U.S. Employment Service on the 

needs of veterans. Therefore, Senator Strom Thurmond, with the close cooperation 

of the Honorable G.V. ‘‘Sonny’’ Montgomery, took steps to secure an additional modification in the law that created the post of Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans 

Employment & Training. It also established the Veterans Employment & Training 

Service (VETS) as an entity separate from the Employment & Training Administration (ETA). Theoretically, the Assistant Secretary for VETS and the Assistant Secretary for ETA are equals. The reality, particularly in the wake of WIA which wiped 

out the legal requirement on the states for ‘‘priority of service’’ to veterans, the fact 

that ETA has many billions in comparison to the millions that VETS is allocated, 

and the dismantling of many of the accountability mechanisms that had existed 

prior to WIA and the advent of the One Stops, the positions can no longer be realistically considered equal by anyone. 

98

Enhancements and additional provisions were added to Chapter 41 of Title 38, 

United States Code almost every year during the 1980s and 1990s to try and get 

the state employment services to consistently, in each state, accord proper treatment and services to veterans, particularly disabled veterans. 

NVTI

The most important of these enhancements was the creation and funding of the 

National Veterans Employment & Training Institute (NVTI), currently operated by 

the University of Colorado at Denver. The VSOs had been pushing hard for this 

move, as there was little or no substantive training for DVOPs, LVERs, and others 

within the system, and no place to get such quality training that would improve performance. Creation of NVTI and its utilization had more positive impact than any 

other step taken during this period. NVTI training remains first rate, and for those 

who use it, the NVTI Resource Center is just extraordinary. 

PASSAGE OF WIA

In 1998 Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) that replaced the 

JTPA as well as most of the Wagner-Peyser Act. WIA was designed to promote, if 

indeed not force, the creation of the ‘‘One Stop Centers’’ at the service delivery level 

where all of the workforce development funds and programs, both public and some 

private, could be found at one central location. Much of the thought and philosophy 

that drove the various provisions of WIA came directly form GAO reports that were 

principally the work of Sigurd R. Nilsen, who was also the leader of the team that 

performed the work in the recently completed report, GAO–06–176, ‘‘Veterans’ Employment and Training Service: Labor Actions Needed to Improve Accountability 

and Help States Implement Reforms to Veterans’ Employment Services.’’ (December 

30, 2005) 

The primary idea behind the One Stop centers that Mr. Nilsen has been promoting for almost 20 years is that if we just eliminate all of the fetters on ‘‘special 

programs’’ we will eliminate duplicative services, and be able to have more than 

enough resources to provide better services to all sub-sets of the population. 

VVA doubts that this is the case in general, and it certainly is not true for veterans, particularly disabled veterans and other veterans with who require significant assistance. VVA notes that despite the best efforts of the late Senator Strom 

Thurmond, the amendment he attempted to insert into the WIA bill that would 

have preserved ‘‘priority of service’’ for veterans, and which contained at least some 

provisions that would promote accountability, was brushed aside in the rush to 

eliminate all fetters. With Senator Thurmond’s help, we were able to fend off efforts 

to lift all restrictions in how LVERs and DVOPs could be used by the states. 

By 1998 it was clear that ‘‘prescriptive’’ and ‘‘proscriptive’’ solutions would simply 

not work, for all of the reasons noted above. An extraordinary series of roundtables 

and semi-formal sessions were held on the other side of the Hill, but with at least 

some staff participation from this Committee, with all stake holders to try and 

achieve a results based model that would focus on outcomes, and not on activities 

that may or may net help a veteran get or keep a job. That legislation, which would 

have rewarded real performance with additional funds, was ultimately stymied in 

September 2000 by the (in the view of VVA) inappropriate lobbying activities of the 

then Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans Employment and Training. 

JOBS FOR VETERANS ACT

The Jobs for Veterans Act was passed in response to problems with properly serving returning service members, and in response to the call of VSOs to take steps 

to restore ‘‘priority of service,’’ but to do so to ALL programs funded by or through 

the Department of Labor, reflecting a much changed reality from the situation in 

1933. To some degree, the model was the ‘‘Veterans Bill of Rights for Employment 

Services,’’ which was propagated as an Executive Order in 1988 in New York, and 

subsequently codified as Chapter 554 of New York State law. The problem with both 

the JVA and the New York law is that there are no sanctions for ignoring the law. 

Frankly, money needs to go to those doing a good job, and less to those who do not 

do a good job. 

Please let me note that I cannot emphasize too much that nothing in this statement should be taken as a criticism of DVOPs and LVERs. Some of the finest and 

most dedicated veterans’ advocates (and finest people, period) I have ever had the 

pleasure and honor of knowing are DVOPs or LVERs. These folks are eclectic, as 

any large group would be, and some are more skilled and effective than others. 

However, as a group, these fine Americans who often do great work, no matter what 

they have to do to accomplish the mission, always impress me and no matter how 

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much they may be punished for trying to do their job correctly, and despite how 

poorly they are paid in some states. 

Just as there are many individual veteran staff doing a great job, there are some 

states, like South Carolina, North Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota, and others that have always done a great job for veterans because it is ingrained in their 

corporate culture by consistently having fine leadership that is committed to veterans over a long period of time. There are also individual office managers who fully 

support services to veterans, and who go out of their way to support the DVOPs 

and LVERs in their area, as well as using other resources to help get the job done. 

GAO Report 06–176 has some severe methodological faults, and therefore draws 

conclusions based on suspect information. VVA points out that GAO sent out questionnaires to the DVETS and to the Administrators of each of the Workforce Development Agencies, after verifying the instrument. However, the report stated that 

they made little or no effort to attempt to verify any of the information provided. 

Therefore, their conclusion that the JVA has generally improved services to veterans 

is based on nothing that could be considered rational, substantiated data. This is 

just silliness. 

Similarly, the report notes that veterans can receive services from a non-DVOP 

or non-LVER if they are considered job ready. VVA agrees that this should be the 

case, given that ‘‘priority of service’’ has been re-established as the law. However, 

there are so few what is called ‘‘Wagner-Peyser’’ staff left out there; in many instances all veterans are sent to the veteran’s staff. 

The system is every bit as ‘‘broke’’ today as it was before the passage of the Jobs 

for Veterans Act, with even more financial and operational problems. It is still not 

performance and results oriented in any meaningful way. The current measure of 

‘‘placements’’ is intellectually dishonest, and a preposterous example of the ‘‘post 

hoc, ergo proper hoc’’ logical fallacy. 

The Secretary of Labor put the Assistant Secretary of Labor for ETA in charge 

of implementing the Jobs for Veterans Act. Given the history of ETA, it should come 

as no surprise that they are refusing to promulgate regulations implementing the 

various aspects of the law. Because the local entities under the WIA set up are primarily controlled by former JTPA entities, who never had any ‘‘priority of service’’ 

in their programs before, it is the view of VVA that without regulations there is not 

even a chance of proper and accountable implementation. 

CHALLENGES? ACCOUNTABILITY PROVISIONS ARE NOT IMPLEMENTED

Similarly, the report notes in very large type, ‘‘Most JVA Provisions Have Been 

Carried Out, but not without some Challenges.’’ In fact, ETA and USDoL only implemented the aspects of JVA that reduce oversight and provide greater ‘‘flexibility’’ 

(e.g., only one onsite inspection every 5 years, new and more general job duties for 

veterans staff), while NONE of the provisions that accord veterans ‘‘priority of service,’’ improve states accountability for increasing veterans’ employment in their 

state, or even having a plan to make a plan as to how to gather data to monitor 

what is happening to veterans in a given state. The report does note that 21 states 

did not have ANY data available more than 3 years after enactment of JVA, but 

considers that fact one of the ‘‘some challenges’’ remaining. 

The Department of labor has moved to implement all of the provisions that the 

Workforce Development Agencies wanted, and none of those that those entities did 

not want in the JVA (but that the VSOs argued hard to include). This should perhaps not be surprising, as there was extensive contact between the Assistant Secretary for ETA and the representatives of those agencies and virtually no contact 

with the veterans’ service organizations. 

WHAT IS NEEDED NOW

First and foremost, we need a true national strategy to deal properly with the returning service members. The Employer’s Committee, which was touted as the 

President’s plan, was simply inadequate in concept. It is time for a National Veterans Employment Conference to assemble the key players and produce a plan that 

is funded and backed by the Administration as well as this body. 

Further, what is needed today is a system that focuses on placement of the highest priority veterans, who are special disabled veterans (especially catastrophically 

disabled veterans), recently separated veterans and recently d-mobilized members 

of the National Guard and Reserve, and on veterans who are homeless or ‘‘at risk.’’ 

We must move to a system that has additional monetary rewards for placements 

and strong measurable results for veterans, particularly disabled veterans, as opposed to just putting out the same amount of funds whether a state does a good 

100

job or a poor job. The entire system must be placed on a system of monetary rewards that follow good or outstanding performance. 

We must also get away from the notion that this is a ‘‘cheap’’ process, and focus 

on quality placements for those most in need. The veterans’ staff members need to 

be unleashed from the yoke of the local office managers who in some cases hold 

them back. As with their agency, they too must be held accountable for measurable 

performance. The state work force development agencies at the state and local levels 

should have first bid on the funds available, but if the performance is not there, 

then state directors for USDoL, VETS should be free to contract with other public 

or private entities who will get the job done. 

Further, there must be all-out resistance and rejection of the ill-conceived and 

cynical ‘‘WIA-Plus’’ effort to use veteran program dollars for other purposes that was 

proposed last year. If the states were going to pay attention to the special needs 

of veterans without monitoring and veteran specific grants, they would have already 

done it. Additionally, we need additional employer incentives similar to the veterans 

job training act of the early 1980s that worked so well, as well as further latitude 

in the Montgomery GI Bill that will allow more focus on vocational and apprentice 

training. 

A NATIONAL STRATEGY AND PLAN IS IMPERATIVE

There simply must be a national strategy to deal with the returning service members from the Global War on Terrorism. More than one million service members 

have already rotated through Iraq alone. If the administration will not move to fashion such a results-oriented plan, then we call on you, Mr. Chairman, and Chairman 

Buyer, as well as your colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reach out and 

call a convocation of public and private entities to put together a real action plan 

to make a difference, as was done after World War II. 

I have here two books that describe what was done at the local level in the majority of American cities that fashioned such results focused efforts after that war, and 

made a positive difference in the lives of the majority of veterans returning home. 

Perhaps it is time to look to the successes after World War II to learn what is the 

best course of action today. 

We must think anew, in order not to fail the brave young men and women defending us in military service today. 

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of all of us at VVA, I thank you for the opportunity to 

present our views here today. We would be pleased to answer any questions. 

WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. BARACK OBAMA TO RICHARD F. WEIDMAN

Question 1. Monitoring and accountably seem to be the Achilles heel of the VETS 

program. What steps would you recommend to improve the Labor Department’s performance in this area? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 2. One of the major barriers to employment is homelessness. Do you 

think the Department of Labor is doing enough to reach out and provide services 

to our homeless veterans? What steps could VETS take to improve its outreach? 

Answer. No response. 

WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. LARRY E. CRAIG TO RICHARD F. WEIDMAN

Question 1a. It appears to me that some of the functions that would be performed 

by the Veterans Job Development Corps would overlap with functions that already 

should be performed by Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists 

and Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives (LVERs), such as job search and 

interview training. So, could it be redundant to fund those programs as well as the 

Corps you proposed? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 1b. If so, would the Veterans Job Development Corps be prepared to 

compete for a portion of the funding now allocated to the DVOP and LVER programs? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 2. In your testimony, you expressed concern about the roughly 40 percent of veteran participants who do NOT enter employment after receiving services 

from the One Stop Career Centers. I share your concern. Do you think: more should 

be done to track these veterans—to find out who they are and why the One-Stop 

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services did not help them to find employment? Could that information be useful 

in figuring out what more could be done to help these veterans find jobs? 

Answer. No response. 

Question 3. One on-going concern about the structure of the DVOP and LVER programs is that it does not encourage service to those most in need—those veterans 

who may require the most time-consuming assistance. How would you ensure that 

the Veterans Job Development Corps would provide all necessary services to those 

veterans? Would performance measures be weighted in some fashion? 

Answer. No response.

Senator BURR. We certainly thank you for your testimony, as I 

do all of you. 

I know that the Committee and the Chairman may have some 

questions. Rather than try to wade through his, I am going to suggest that you may get them writing, where it is appropriate if, in 

fact, his questions haven’t already been answered. 

Which allows me to go to some areas that really come directly 

from your testimony, and I will be very candid on some of the questions that I ask. Some of them will be leading to try to figure out 

areas that you might have stimulated some thought where we can 

achieve the outcome, maybe not exactly like we are doing it today. 

Clearly, Richard, I heard you say incentives, incentives, incentives. I am pleased at the fact that the Department of Labor stayed 

in the room for your testimony. That doesn’t always happen, and 

I commend them for doing that. 

I think it would be very interesting for them to look at the States 

that say that they can’t offer incentives because of regulations, policies, collective bargaining to see if, in fact, they do incentives on 

other programs in their States, and they just use this as a convenience to say ‘‘we can’t do it in this case.’’ I think I have probably 

said enough to get them to look at that. 

Clearly, I think it is difficult to believe that you can truly assess 

the success of a program if, in fact, there is no downside, meaning 

there is no threat that without performance, you don’t lose something. And I understand that to take it away and do nothing is no 

value. I agree. 

But you went into an interesting area because in this country, 

we have an industry that flourishes with job placement. You were 

on a specific area, but we have a much broader area. And you 

know, I would ask you to comment. If we took all the money that 

we are trying to put into veterans employment today and we took 

it over into the private placement world and say, ‘‘For everyone you 

place, here is what you get,’’ what would happen? 

Mr. PORIOTIS. Rick used the term ‘‘incent by cash.’’ There are 

38,000 retained executive search firms with siloed functional and 

professional areas. They make a living doing this. They make a living accessing and championing and finding those hidden jobs and 

putting people in it. Often, their candidates are turned down two, 

three, four times, and they will go back a variety of ways to push 

the edge of the envelope to get them across the threshold. 

Senator BURR. And most of these are in a profession where they 

get zero unless they have a successful job. 

Mr. PORIOTIS. You asked the question before. How many LVERs 

and DVOPs were veterans? But you didn’t ask the corresponding 

question. How many of them have ever placed anyone? How many 

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of them have ever worked in the corporate human resources or talent acquisition or staffing area? 

Because if you coupled that criteria together with the DVOP and 

LVER, you have circled the loop. But I don’t think that is going to 

happen. I think what they do is very, very fine in terms of the nurturing and the care for the veteran. What they can’t do is and what 

they haven’t been doing is corralling and influencing the 

influencers who do the hiring at all of the small and mid and large 

size businesses by corralling this industry. 

This industry of careerists who make a living in doing what we 

want the VETS to do have never been approached to find the hot 

buttons, be it cash or kudos. In all these hearings I have been at, 

no one has ever brought in these senior search and recruitment entities to ask them to work with VETS. So it is an interesting proposition you make. 

Senator BURR. I don’t want anybody in the room to believe that 

I am suggesting that we chart a new course today. But I believe 

that highlighting some of the options that exist might be a stimulus for us to look a little deeper at the programs that we currently 

have and figure out how to make them work because now there are 

some alternatives that come into play. 

I am particularly touched by the chart that was up earlier with 

the 20- to 24- year old veteran and the disparity, as John Thune 

alluded to it. You know, from my background in business, it would 

tend to make me look at that and ask one obvious question. 

Is this age group of vets actually a group that never went 

through the interview process for a job because they entered the 

military at 18 or 19 years old, they are now kicking out of the military, and for the first time, they are going into an interview process 

with many people who are seasoned at it? 

Mr. PORIOTIS. We brought on Evan Gattis, a general, to run our 

center, who had run all of Army recruitment, and he often quipped 

that most of these programs at the Federal level, including TAP 

and VETS, teach you how to write a resume, dress for success, and 

develop charm school. He said, ‘‘We don’t need that. We need a network.’’

I believe that the higher unemployment for that group is because 

they don’t have a navigational guide to connect with the local employer. I have talked to hundreds of persons in that category who 

are surrounded by local employers for whom the people trying to 

help them have never met. 

So we can’t entrust the VETS folks to meet those local employers 

and sustain relationships with them because they don’t have the 

time or the resources or the training. But I do think that lack of 

a navigational connection, and I think none of this will work and 

will take many more years unless you can create what I call the 

‘‘rebranding’’ of military service among America’s employers. 

While a Bob Nardelli is doing this within the framework of Home 

Depot, what I would do from a marketing perspective is bring 

Nardelli to the conventions of retailers and home builders and 

building supply folks and have him articulate this to develop corporate envy. 

Senator BURR. Let me stop you, if I can, because I want to get 

the comments of our other two panelists relative to the branding 

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concern that was raised. That military service is no longer perceived by an employer as a benefit to that individual, but it could 

be perceived as a negative. Is that accurate? 

Mr. PORIOTIS. I am just saying that when you look at these brilliant marketing and branding people, and they look at the equity 

in the brand, military service has a brand, but the equity has been 

diluted over the last 30 years of all-volunteer service because of the 

distancing of the American employer and the staffing people and 

the gatekeepers from this asset. 

Senator BURR. Agreement, disagreement? Comment? 

Mr. WEIDMAN. ‘‘Vetism,’’ as we call it, is very much for real. Unfortunately, sexism and racism in this country are very much alive, 

but so is vetism. And what makes it even more insidious, sir, is 

that people won’t admit to it. 

There was a study done in 1985 by a gentleman by the name of 

James Bordieri. He headed up a team at Depauw University that 

looked into Fortune 500 companies. And they used dummy resumes 

that where the only major difference was you were a veteran, clearly a veteran, but not in Vietnam; clearly a veteran that served in 

theater, a combat vet in Vietnam; or you were clearly a nonvet. 

And they found, as you went up the chain, significant prejudice 

by these employers against veterans in general, but particularly 

against those who served in a combat theater of operation. And 

these were human resources types. And when asked why that was 

true, they said, ‘‘We don’t want any problems.’’

So it was all the negative stuff. It was all the things the Assistant Secretary here said a minute ago that when we went in 1960s, 

that we didn’t have a lot of skill sets. That is just not true. The 

Vietnam army was the best army ever fielded in terms of education, and these young people far outstrip us. Personally, I was a 

college graduate and one of 13 George Cobb fellows at Colgate University. So I resent to say that I didn’t have any skill sets whatsoever. 

So vetism is for real. How do you change that perception? It 

takes a number of things, and frankly, we should bring back Veterans Job Training Act to do the incentives with the small business 

because it worked. 

Senator BURR. I want to apologize because I have got a place I 

have got to be at 1 p.m., and I think we are going to go into votes. 

And I want to get a couple of other questions in, if I could. 

Should we have incentives for companies that hire vets? 

Mr. PORIOTIS. No. 

Senator BURR. No? 

Mr. PORIOTIS. No. It is sort of radical. It is counterintuitive. I 

think the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, by the very 

fact that it is positioning these people free of charge, no good deed 

goes unpunished. No good deed goes unpunished. The value to the 

employer is when they pay for something in terms of the placement 

side. 

The other side is we went around and visited 200 senior executive corps from 1997 to 2001, and we began to call it ‘‘operation 

forehead slap.’’ Because when we would articulate the value of this 

asset, many of the senior people developing the strategy for staffing 

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in their major corporations would actually literally slap their forehead. 

But I don’t think incentives are going to—it will work with some 

companies, but I think the overall creation of a demand that this 

asset brings dollars and P&L to a company. Because we have asked 

the brilliant person who developed the Volvo campaign, and he 

said, as he did a study for us, well, answer this question. ‘‘I would 

buy a Volvo because?’’ ‘‘It is safe.’’

We have asked American employers, ‘‘I want to hire a military 

person because?’’ You can’t get the answer. 

Senator BURR. Mr. Sharpe? 

Mr. SHARPE. I just think many of the service members aren’t 

ready for the job market, and I can use my own unit as an example. We deployed to Iraq in 2003, returned 2004. I was really 

shocked at the number of lower enlisted who became unemployed. 

Many of them left the military because they just weren’t ready for 

the job market. 

Many of them that were in school, it was turning out was taking 

them 5 to 7 years to graduate because of these constant deployments. And as you know, if you don’t have your degree, it is going 

to be difficult to find a decent job. 

And there were many others who were under employed. Out of 

those individuals, many of them just gave up. Others who worked 

for the Federal Government returned to a hostile work environment and also started looking for other jobs. I thought this was 

just a symptom of my own unit, since I spent 14 years on active 

duty and then went to the Reserves. 

But a few months later, I was involved in the training program 

where we were training 1,100 soldiers to take our place in Iraq. 

Those of us that were doing the training were ones that had already been to Iraq, and I was really shocked to find out a lot of 

those individuals were unemployed, or they were either fired from 

their jobs, or they returned homeless. 

And again, many of those, the younger ones that were in school, 

had put off their education and were trying to find part-time jobs 

just to make ends meet. It would seem more appropriate if these 

individuals had some sort of TAP program to go to. 

We can talk about Department of Labor and the One-Stops, but 

it is really interesting that a lot of these individuals don’t even 

know the One-Stops exist. Those on active duty, it seems like in 

some cases we have visited various TAP programs around the 

country. We visited Aberdeen Proving Grounds a few months ago. 

They actually have DVOPs and LVERs as part of the TAP program. And those individuals made an effort to have job fairs on 

that particular post, and they seemed to have quite a bit of success 

getting people employed prior to their departure. 

They even had a program for the Reserves and National Guard, 

and it didn’t depend on if they were coming from another State or 

not. They were still assisted. They were still able to find individuals who were interested in what they did have. I think that is an 

important factor too. 

The other thing was the licensing and certification. The military 

really does a good job as far as training individuals, but it always 

doesn’t transfer over to the private sector. I think there should be 

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a closer relationship between those private entities that would be 

interested in the training that these individuals receive, and that 

would also help transfer them into decent employment once they 

leave. 

Senator BURR. You raise some very important points, and I think 

the one thing that I walk away from this hearing truly believing 

is there is no silver bullet. There is not one thing that, all of a sudden, over night makes the employment of vets an automatic thing. 

That it does take a level of cooperation that we have yet to finetune to the degree that we have. 

Let me make two statements, if I can. For me personally, the 

thing that concerns me the most right now is that we have this incredible blueprint, which is the current activation, to tell us in 

some numbers of years exactly what the pressure on this program 

is going to be. I think for any of us to ignore the fact that we are 

going to have an influx of people, in addition to what we have seen 

in the past, that have this need is to hide our head in the sand. 

So I hope we realize that it is going to begin to ramp up the need. 

The second thing is that as we talk about employers, I am not 

sure that I yet know whether it is a reluctance by employers to 

hire vets or whether it is a problem in our placement process to 

get vets placed? And it may be a combination of the both of them. 

Mr. PORIOTIS. Senator, the President’s National Hire Veterans 

Committee was engaged to educate America’s employers, but never 

did a baseline to do a corporate perception analysis to actually answer your question. What do the employers perceive, and how do 

they perceive, and how do you quantify that perception? How can 

you market and place if you don’t have a base from which to come? 

Senator BURR. That is why it makes it difficult for me to look at 

Labor and downstream from Labor and be overly critical. It makes 

it impossible for me to meet with anybody other than the CEO of 

Home Depot or a participating company and scold them because it 

all has to come together. 

And I think on behalf of the Chairman and the Ranking Member 

and the Committee, I want to thank you for your willingness to 

come in to share your insight with us, your commitment to continue to work with this program to see that the outcome changes. 

I assure you that this is an issue of high interest to all the members. So expect some questions, and please give us your honest and 

candid views as to how we move forward with this in a true partnership. 

At some point in the future, if we have got all the answers to 

the questions and we still haven’t succeeded with the outcome, 

then maybe the discussion will be exactly what we do next to make 

sure that that outcome changes. 

Again, I thank you for your testimony today. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROGER B. MADSEN, DIRECTOR OF THE IDAHO DEPARTMENT

OF COMMERCE AND LABOR

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the ‘‘Jobs for Veterans Act’’. As the 

Director of the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor and former Chair of the 

Veterans’ Affairs Committee of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies 

(NASWA), I appreciate the Committee’s dedication to enhancing employment and 

training opportunities for our job-seeking veterans and your commitment to helping 

us bring skilled veterans together with our businesses. 

The ‘‘Jobs for Veterans Act’’ that modified Title 38, Chapter 41 in 2002 was a significant improvement over previous legislation in that it now allows for flexibility 

in how we serve both veterans and employers. Overall it has been a resounding success and a giant leap forward in several areas. We believe the following are areas 

of significant improvement: 

• Integration of Local Veterans Employment Representatives (LVERs) and Disabled Veterans Outreach Program (DVOP) personnel into One-Stop operations at 

the local office level in a carefully crafted state plan—much like a business plan. 

We believe the law helps ensure that veterans who need help getting back to work 

have ready access to information, trained personnel, specially trained veterans representatives and other resources that will help them integrate into the local workforce. 

• The change in the roles and responsibilities outlined in the Jobs for Veterans 

Act gives us specific guidance about the roles and responsibilities, but allows us the 

flexibility to decide on duties and assignments within the prescribed roles. While we 

would like even more flexibility (to allow veteran representative to help with Unemployment Claims for veterans, for example), the Jobs for Veterans Act is a significant step in the right direction that allows us to put our efforts toward current and 

emerging challenges with Idaho’s veteran population. 

• The option to have part-time DVOPs in some of our offices has increased our 

flexibility. Because of cutbacks in recent years, we have funded veterans’ representatives in only eleven of our 24 offices, a decrease of 50 percent from 10 years ago 

when we had VETS-funded representatives in 22 of our offices. Now that we have 

the option of using both LVERs and DVOPs in a part-time role, we can focus our 

limited resources on where they are most needed. Although we still don’t have the 

option of having an LVER or DVOP funded partially from both programs, the Jobs 

for Veterans Act did give us significantly increased flexibility. 

The Jobs for Veterans Act has had a very positive impact on services to veterans 

and we laud the congressional efforts to give us the tools necessary to serve our veteran population the best way possible. However, there have been a couple of provisions in the law that impacted us negatively. 

The revised state funding formula has an unfavorable impact on Idaho’s Veterans 

Representative staffing. The current formula ties our funding to Idaho’s veteran 

population and Idaho’s unemployment rate—averaged over a 3-year period. These 

two factors (population and unemployment) are the only two factors considered in 

allocating resources to Idaho, and unfortunately, they don’t take into account Idaho’s rural & geographical issues, labor market conditions, seasonal fluctuations, 

underemployment and historical use of funds. 

In rural states like Idaho, we try to be all things to all people, at least in our 

smaller, more rural areas. In these rural areas, our employment service is sometimes the principal resource for information to meet a variety of needs such as 

homelessness, health care, education and employment. While employment eventually resolves many of these issues, some of the best work, the life-changing work 

that attracts people to the social services we provide, does not result in immediate 

employment. 

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We have about 89,928 working aged veterans in Idaho. A 2005 GAO report mentions that nationally, 9.4 percent of veterans participate in a One-stop System. In 

Idaho, about 16.5 percent—nearly double the national average—of employment aged 

veterans (18–65 years of age) received service from our Idaho One-Stops each year 

and over a 3-year period, we have worked with 42 percent of the state’s veterans. 

For all of these reasons we would recommend that a revised funding formula be 

devised to put more emphasis on rewarding the processes that lead to positive 

changes in the lives of our customers as much as the eventual act of helping them 

obtain employment—and not just unemployment rates. 

Additionally, we are one of 26 states that did not participate in the Incentive 

Award Program established by the Jobs for Veterans Act in fiscal year 2004. While 

there is no state law that forbids participation, perspectives from three different 

working groups in the past 2 years have come to the same conclusions... that 

the potential negative effects of any awards outweigh the benefits. We believe the 

Governor should be given the option of using the money as he or she sees fit in support of the state’s veteran population. 

Finally, please consider asking enforcement agencies to put some ‘‘teeth’’ in the 

Federal Contractor requirements that mandate those companies that contract with 

the government to list job openings with their local employment service office. This 

very good requirement has been on the books for a long time, but because of limited 

enforcement, both Federal Contractors and Federal Contracting offices have failed 

to follow the rules all of the time. We think that the veteran citizens of Idaho should 

have easy access to these higher paying jobs and we recommend that these regulations be more strictly enforced and responsibility for the program be unified in a 

single agency in the U.S. Department of Labor. 

I commend the establishment of the ‘‘President’s business customer ultimately determines who is to provide quality service to that customer. It is National Hire Veterans Committee.’’ We know that the hired and we welcome support in our on-going 

efforts the mission of our agency to assist business in solving employment and training related challenges. The added influence of our Federal partner in marketing the 

skills and experience of our veterans is most welcome. 

We applaud and support the key aspects of the Jobs for Veterans Act and believe 

it has helped to enhance the employment and training services provided to veterans 

in Idaho. However, I believe with some minor modifications in fiscal policy and allocation and enforcement procedures, we will have a law that will provide exceptional, 

priority service to the veterans that is worthy of the sacrifice they made to defend 

our country and our way of life. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on this Act. As I stated previously, we at Idaho Commerce and Labor respect the dedication and skills of our 

veterans and desire only to help build an employment and training service that 

meets their needs with a minimum of bureaucracy and a maximum of responsiveness and efficiency. Anything less would not be worthy of their service. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANDY M. MILLER, CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF READYMINDS

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to submit a statement for the record 

regarding ‘‘The Jobs for Veterans Act Three Years Later: Are VETS Employment 

Programs Working for Veterans?’’ Considering the unacceptably high and steadily 

increasing rate of unemployment that veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom 

(OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF) are experiencing this hearing is both timely and important. 

I am President and CEO of ReadyMinds—the nation’s leading distance career 

counseling organization. The services provided by ReadyMinds Counselors enhance 

the way individuals select, prepare for and manage their careers. The ReadyMinds 

solution incorporates comprehensive on-line content and customized development 

tools with personalized guidance and counseling provided by degreed certified professional counselors who have met the rigorous standards established by the National Board for Certified Counselors. Additionally, ReadyMinds has been chosen to 

be the exclusive national training provider for those counselors who wish to become 

knowledgeable in and receive national credentials related to the best practices in 

distance counseling. 

ReadyMinds has provided distance career counseling services to students and 

alumni representing colleges and universities across the country and to thousands 

of displaced workers transitioning from one career to another. A portion of this displaced worker population that ReadyMinds has provided services to include those 

individuals who were adversely affected by the events of 9/11/01. ReadyMinds is also 

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engaged with the Department of Defense (DOD) providing distance career counseling to military spouses. 

DEFINING THE PROBLEM

The Department of Labor (DOL), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 

the 2005 average monthly unemployment rate for 20–24 year old veterans was 15.6 

percent compared to 8.7 percent for 20–24 year old non-veterans, and 4.0 percent 

for all veterans. This disparity in the rate of unemployment for young, recently separated veterans is not new. The Congressional Commission on Servicemembers and 

Veterans Transition Assistance (Commission) reported in 1999 that 20-24 year old 

veterans’ unemployment was 10.6 percent compared to 3.4 percent for all veterans. 

Why is the unemployment rate for recently separated veterans so much higher 

than their non-veteran peers and veterans in general? Some will suggest that these 

young veterans are unemployed by choice. Others will suggest that we don’t know 

why and that the issue needs to be studied. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the high 

unemployment of recently separated veterans is so unacceptable as to compel immediate action and that solutions can be found if we focus on what we do know and 

apply proven remedies. 

Regarding the suggestion that young veterans choose to be unemployed doesn’t 

hold up if one understands BLS’s definition of unemployed persons. ‘‘All persons 

who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except 

for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime 

during the 4-week period ending with the reference week.’’ (emphasis added) To suggest that the BLS data does not represent the true employment status of young veterans is to suggest that veterans, or members of their household, deliberately misled 

Census Bureau surveyors. 

Unfortunately, the realities of unemployment are only too real for the 34,000 

monthly average unemployed 20-24 year old veterans in 2005. 

Regarding the suggestion that we don’t know enough about recently separated 

veterans and that the issue should be studied, I believe we can draw on the earlier 

work done by the Commission. It reported that of the veterans who used the DOL 

funded state labor exchange system (One-Stops): 

• ‘‘Fewer than 25 percent were separated from the military for less than 5 years’’ 

suggesting that older veterans are their primary client users. 

• ‘‘That 68 percent reported that they did not receive career counseling. Of this 

group, 60 percent said they would like to have received such counseling.’’

• ‘‘Seventy percent of the veterans did not receive information on career preparation, and of those veterans, 70 percent would like to have received such information.’’

The conclusion that I draw from the Commission’s earlier work is that young recently separated veterans generally do not avail themselves to the DOL funded OneStop labor exchange services and, if they did, one of the most important services 

essential for making informed career choices—personalized career assessment and 

career counseling by professionally trained counselors—is generally not available. 

I respectfully emphasize the above as it is this young veteran group that is a population most in need of career assessment and counseling. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF 21ST CENTURY RECENTLY SEPARATED VETERANS

What are the characteristics that reflect today’s separating service members? 

• According to the Defense Manpower and Data Center (DMDC) of the 212,000 

service men and women who separated from active duty in fiscal year 2005: 

• 96,000 (45 percent) were 20-24 years old. 

• 94,000 (44 percent) were OIF/OEF veterans. 

• 102,000 (48 percent) were married. 

• The Washington Post reported on November 4, 2005, that 44 percent of military 

recruits come from rural areas. 

• The majority of the veterans entered the military right out of school and have 

no prior experience in searching for jobs in the private sector labor market. 

• Today’s veterans are more computer literate than any prior generation. Many 

carried their laptops, their handhelds and GPS locators into battle. 

• Almost all of the separating service members make both a career transition as 

well as a geographic transition, relocating to someplace other than their last duty 

station. 

• More than 1.2 million service members have been deployed to the ongoing conflicts OW and OEF. An increasing number of separating service members are combat veterans—the first in a generation to be engaged in sustained hostilities. 

110

• For many, their combat experiences may make their transition to civilian careers more difficult. • Of the veterans who do not return to school, the majority eventually may find 

suitable jobs/careers but it is through time-consuming trial and error. 

What services can be helpful to a veteran’s career search? 

Our extensive experience at ReadyMinds shows that people in career transition 

have several basic ‘‘needs’’. The earlier these needs can be addressed the greater the 

likelihood of a successful career transition. Informing individuals that such services 

exist should always be the initial step. 

Basic career search needs include: 

• An assessment of individual interests, skills and strengths—a solid picture of 

where the service member stands and what types of careers would be a good fit. • Career related information—education/training/experience prerequisites; job 

availability; career path opportunities. • Translation of the service member’s military skills, training and experience into 

a civilian resume and into college credit recommendations. • Assistance with self-marketing—the networking and interviewing process. • Regular professional feedback during career/job search—a reality check. • Ongoing relationship, via online interaction, with a dedicated, professional career counselor throughout the career planning and employment process. • Easy and convenient access to employers who want to hire veterans—a virtual 

marketplace for veterans. 

Does distance career counseling make a difference? Let me share with you three 

ReadyMinds participants’ answers in their own words. 

‘‘What was most helpful and effective about my session with my counselor was 

the clarity and surety I felt afterwards about my career path. She was able to take 

all the diverse strands of my search—which often feel quite tangled to me and 

showed me where they’re leading me. It was good to have another voice from outside 

my usual support network comment on the direction I’m going in my career change.’’

‘‘The counselor was able to offer specific/personalized suggestions and provide advice and suggestions that I had not even considered before, thus potentially opening 

many more doors.’’

‘‘My counselor was on the same ‘page’ as I. There was a definite synchronicity in 

the session. She was courteous, was not intimidating and offered direct information. 

My counselor provided possibilities and timely concrete suggestions that would have 

passed me. I feel as if my world has opened up again.’’

CHALLENGES

Veterans’ employment and career transitional services are complex issues and will 

not be solved with a silver bullet. I believe there are two broad subject areas that 

must be addressed to ensure that veterans, and particularly recently separated veterans, make a timely and satisfying career transition from serving their country to 

a civilian career. 

One is mission systemic—how, where, by whom and under what authority are 

labor market services offered to veterans. This is not my area of expertise so I will 

leave it to others to offer suggestions for improvement. We should note, however, 

looking back at one of the Commission findings, if few recently separated veterans 

avail themselves to the One-Stop menu of services that by design are passive in nature and delivered at a fixed location during set hours, then improving the delivery 

of these services may have little impact on the unemployment plight of the young 

recently separated veteran. Active outreach may be required either prior to separation at DOD transition centers or after separation through DOL’s unemployment insurance system. 

The second core issue is what services do the recently separated veterans need/

want and how can these services best be delivered. Bearing in mind that this cohort 

of veterans is highly trained, disciplined, motivated and often well educated I believe one of the most important services that can be provided is timely, accurate and 

personalized career information so that the individual veteran can make a more informed career choice and conduct an efficient job search. Simply engaging a young 

veteran, who is entering the civilian job market for the first time as a professional, 

in job-placement activity such as providing access to massive and often generic job 

posting boards that identify jobs that happen to open today, prior to the veteran 

making an informed career choice, will frequently be premature, time consuming 

and counter-productive for the individual veterans. 

The earlier professional career services become available, preferably well in advance of separation, the more likely the veterans will have greater opportunity to 

make informed decisions. This is particularly true if the veteran is willing to ‘‘reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00114 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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turn’’ to someplace other than his/her home of record if it leads to the most fulfilling 

career. There is a distinct advantage to the recipient if there is continuity in the 

service provider e.g. he/she works with the same provider regardless of where they 

are separating from or where they are returning to. Services should be convenient 

to the veteran. 

The solution ReadyMinds has successfully pioneered is distance counseling. Distance counseling is cost efficient—doesn’t need unnecessarily large infrastructure; 

convenient—24/7; scalable and portable—same counselor can serve the veteran from 

beginning to end regardless of where they live, the region in which they are searching for a job or the location they are relocating to. One of the key components of 

the ReadyMinds Program is the proper matching of the needs of each participant 

with the expertise and experience of their specifically assigned counselor, regardless 

of geographic location. Additionally, technology has been developed and is in place 

allowing for monitoring, reporting and integration between career services provided 

and organizations or departments associated with the overall service provided to 

each veteran. This results in a sophisticated reporting platform identifying those individuals that do (and do not) participate in the services provided and track eventual employment related outcomes. This can ultimately aid in preventing individuals from ‘‘falling through the cracks.’’

There are scores, if not thousands, of electronic job boards and resume services 

available. A number of them even focus exclusively on veterans. Sometimes too 

much of a good thing isn’t necessarily good. An individual veteran could easily be 

overwhelmed with so many places to look for a job. One can assume that some career/job opportunities will be missed or overlooked simply because of the sheer number of different sites to explore. While job boards and resume services are not the 

business of ReadyMinds, it does seem reasonable to conclude that if there was one 

portal, one site that gathered the jobs into a single place, noting those that come 

from self-described veteran-friendly firms and allowed a single registration to have 

the veteran’s resume posted on multiple sites, the probability of successful outcomes 

would be greatly enhanced. 

While I stated earlier that I would refrain from discussing systemic related issues, 

I can’t help but note that DOL is charged with the mission of employment and 

training services for veterans. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) on the 

other hand is mandated under 38 U.S.C. 3697A to provide educational and vocational counseling—a service that ReadyMinds believes would go a long way to assisting separating veterans make more informed career decisions. How is this career 

counseling service provided? How do service members/veterans find out about the 

service? How accessible is the service to the majority of separating veterans? It 

would be helpful to know the answers to these questions in order to ensure that 

veterans aren’t inadvertently denied every opportunity for a successful transition to 

civilian careers. 

SOLUTION OPTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS

As I stated above, I don’t believe there is a silver bullet that can solve all the 

issues relating to improving delivery of employment related services to veterans. 

Following are some specific options and suggested constructive solutions that I urge 

the Committee to consider. 

(1) Fund a pilot to evaluate the value added of offering personalized distance career assessment, counseling and self-marketing strategies. Because of the unique 

nature of transitioning service members/veterans being geographically dispersed 

prior to separation and even further dispersed post separation this pilot could focus 

on service members separating from particular sites and/or returning to specific regions e.g. north-western states. 

In this pilot the effectiveness of offering distance counseling to veterans who return to rural communities (approximately 44 percent) and are not easily accessible 

to traditional employment related services provided in One-Stop centers should also 

be evaluated. The outcomes of this new pilot could then result in the establishment 

of new, overall performance standards regarding the servicing of the entire veteran 

population. 

(2) Train VA counselors who currently provide educational and vocational counseling in best practices of ‘‘distance counseling’’ techniques so that their services are 

consistent, convenient and user-friendly for the veterans and so that an individual 

counselor can provide continuity of service to veterans as they relocate at and after 

separation. 

(3) Establish an ‘‘identify and refer’’ protocol at VA medical centers, VET Centers 

and regional offices to identify recently separated veterans who come to these faciliVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:16 Nov 17, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00115 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\27354.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
112

ties for other services and inform them of the career transition and distance/online 

career counseling services that are available. 

DOL could identify and fund an entity to create a dedicated portal through which 

veterans could easily access a substantial portion of job listings from both public e.g. 

America’s Job Bank (AJB), and large private job boards. Such a site could also be 

used by national trade associations to inform veterans about careers in their industry sector. In the same way, create a single resume site for separating veterans 

making it easier for employers to find the veterans. 

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on an issue 

that is so critical to both our country and the individual veterans who have served 

us so well. Having paid close attention to the transitional needs of separating veterans and their spouses and having interacted with DOL, VA and DOD over the 

last four and one-half years, I know you agree with me that America owes her 

young veterans a successful transition into civilian careers. It’s good for the veterans, good for business and good for America’s future. 

ReadyMinds stands ready to work with committee staff and representatives from 

DOL, VA and DOD to design and implement specific strategies that address the 

unique needs of the young separating veterans of the 21st Century. 

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Fiscal Year 2005 DVOP and LVER Actual FTE Utilization 

State 

DVOP FTE

(Includes 

Non-Vet) 

DVOP NonVeteran FTE 

LVER FTE

(Includes 

Non-Vet) 

LVER NonVeteran FTE 

Total FTE

(Includes 

Non-Vet) 

Total NonVeteran FTE 

Boston Region: 

CT ................................................................... 8 0 8 0 16 0

ME .................................................................. 5.5 0 4 1 9.5 1

MA .................................................................. 21 0 17 1 38 1

NH .................................................................. 5 0 5 0 10 0

RI .................................................................... 2.5 0 3 0 5.5 0

NJ ................................................................... 33.5 0 16.5 0 50 0

NY ................................................................... 52.5 0 48 0.5 100.5 0.5

PR ................................................................... 5 0 6 1 11 1

VT ................................................................... 2 0 3.5 0 5.5 0

VI .................................................................... 0 0 1 0 1 0

Total ........................................................... 135 0 112 3.5 247 3.5

Philadelphia Region: 

DE ................................................................... 5 0 3 0 8 0

DC .................................................................. 3 0 2 0 5 0

MD .................................................................. 23 0 18 0 41 0

PA ................................................................... 37.5 0 44 0 81.5 0

VA ................................................................... 32 0 32 0.5 64 0.5

WV .................................................................. 11 0 6 0 17 0

Total ........................................................... 111.5 0 105 0.5 216.5 0.5

Atlanta Region: 

AL ................................................................... 16.5 0 21 2.5 37.5 2.5

FL ................................................................... 81.5 0 57 0 138.5 0

GA ................................................................... 43 0 31 0 74 0

KY ................................................................... 21 0 13 0.5 34 0.5

MS .................................................................. 13 0 19 0 32 0

NC .................................................................. 24 0 69 0 93 0

SC ................................................................... 22 0 25.5 0.5 47.5 0.5

TN ................................................................... 30 0 32 0 62 0

Total ........................................................... 251 0 267.5 3.5 518.5 3.5

Chicago Region: 

IL .................................................................... 37.5 0 34.5 0 72 0

IN .................................................................... 31 0 34 0 65 0

IA .................................................................... 15 0 3 0 18 0

KS ................................................................... 18.5 0 12 0 30.5 0

MI ................................................................... 29 0 36 2 65 2

MN .................................................................. 21 0 14 0 35 0

MO .................................................................. 22 0 31.5 0 53.5 0

NE ................................................................... 5 0 10.5 0 15.5 0

OH .................................................................. 64 0 24.5 0 88.5 0

WI ................................................................... 20.5 0 17 1 37.5 1

Total ........................................................... 263.5 0 217 3 480.5 3

Dallas Region: 

AR ................................................................... 11 0 14 0 25 0

CO .................................................................. 22 0 14 1 36 1

LA ................................................................... 20 0 20 0 40 0

MT .................................................................. 8.5 0 1 0 9.5 0

NM .................................................................. 8 0 11 0 19 0

ND .................................................................. 2 0 6 0 8 0

OK ................................................................... 17 0 25.5 0 42.5 0

SD ................................................................... 7 0 1.5 0 8.5 0

174

Fiscal Year 2005 DVOP and LVER Actual FTE Utilization—Continued

State 

DVOP FTE

(Includes 

Non-Vet) 

DVOP NonVeteran FTE 

LVER FTE

(Includes 

Non-Vet) 

LVER NonVeteran FTE 

Total FTE

(Includes 

Non-Vet) 

Total NonVeteran FTE 

TX ................................................................... 100 0 103.5 0 203.5 0

UT ................................................................... 9 0 9.5 0 18.5 0

WY .................................................................. 5 0 1.5 0 6.5 0

Total ........................................................... 209.5 0 207.5 1 417 1

San Francisco Region: 

AK ................................................................... 4.5 0 3.5 0 8 0

AZ ................................................................... 3.9 0 19 0 58 0

CA ................................................................... 142.5 6.5 67.5 3 210 9.5

HI .................................................................... 5 0 6 0 11 0

ID .................................................................... 5.5 0 10 0 15.5 0

NV ................................................................... 8 0 7.5 0 15.5 0

OR .................................................................. 19 0 18.5 0 37.5 0

WA .................................................................. 36 0 24 0 60 0

Total ........................................................... 259.5 6.5 156 3 415.5 9.5

National Total ............................................ 1230 6.5 1065 14.5 2295 21

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