The Department of Veterans Affairs screwed up. Veterans using their earned benefits under the GI Bill for education were shorted payments due for the housing allowance they were entitled to.
Apparently, the VA had a software issue that caused them to not properly calculate payments due to veterans attending school. The absence of the rightfully due benefit payments has caused student veterans to go deep in debt. Probably an amount of debt they won’t be able to dig out of.
It is reported the “problem currently stems from an IT problem caused by changes to the law when President Donald Trump signed the Forever GI Act last year. New standards for calculating housing stipends were to be implemented on Aug. 1, but it caused “severe critical errors” during testing that “resulted in incorrect payments,” VA spokesman Terrence Hayes said.”
This is no small problem. The VA estimates 360,000 veterans will have to be under-reimbursed at the 2017 rates because they can’t solve the computer problem.
Apparently, the fix for this problem is going to be the VA not making the payments right. According to NBC News, “the department told congressional staffers that it would not reimburse those veterans who were paid less than they were owed.”
“According to the aides, however, the VA said it could not make retroactive payments without auditing its previous education claims, which it said would delay future claims.” If true, that is the worst excuse possible for respecting and taking care of veterans utilizing their lawful benefits under the GI Bill.
This sure seems like a bigger disrespect than a few people kneeling at a football game. And the VA, that is supposed to take proper care of veterans, seems to be punting on a fix.
