(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Nearly 400,000 veterans are getting shortchanged on their benefits, and it’s unclear how and when the VA will fix it.
Veterans going to college on the GI Bill get a housing allowance. Congress voted last year to increase that allowance starting in August. But the VA says it ran into software glitches when it changed the numbers, so it kept paying at the old rate.
VA Secretary Robert Wilkie says the agency will make retroactive payments, but it’ll be a full year before it can issue them, making the increase 16 months late. And Indiana Republican Todd Young is among 12 senators from both parties complaining the VA still needs to make clear which rate it intends to use. The senators have asked the VA’s inspector general to investigate.
Young says the problems with antiquated computer systems at the VA are real, but says the agency needed to bring those problems to Congress and seek money for the needed upgrades.
(Photo: Eric Berman/WIBC)
