Association of Veterans Education Certifying Officials

Education Service Update

20

th

Annual Conference July 14-17, 2014

Robert M. Worley II Director, Education Service

Veterans Benefits Administration

Overview

• FY 2011-FY 2013 Trainees/Dollars Paid • Long Term Solution (LTS) Updates • FY 2013/2014 Claims Processing Highlights • Executive Order 13607 and Public Law 112-249 Accomplishments • GI Bill Registered Trademark • VRAP Program Close Out • Grandfathered Tuition and Fee Rates • Web Enabled Approval Management System (WEAMS) • Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) • Transition Assistance Program (TAP) • Education Service Realignment • Chief Education Liaison Officer Realignment • Contact Us

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FY 2011 – FY 2013 Trainees/Dollars Paid

Benefit Education Program FY 2011 Trainees / Dollars Paid

185,220 / $1.4B

FY 2012 Trainees / Dollars Paid

118,549 / $932M Chapter 30 Chapter 32 Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB)-AD Veterans Educational Assistance Program (VEAP) 112 / $1.3M

76 / $682K *Chapter 33 Post-9/11 GI Bill Chapter 35 Chapter 1606 Chapter 1607 Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance Program (DEA) Montgomery GI Bill Selected Reserve (MGIB-SR) Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP) Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP)

Total

555,329 / $7.7B

90,657 / $463M 65,216 / $201M 27,302 / $95M N/A 646,302 / $8.5B

87,707 / $455M 60,393 / $157M 19,774 / $77M 12,251 / $6.1M

923,836 / $9.8B

945,052 / $10.1B

FY 2013 Trainees / Dollars Paid

99,755 / $775M 29 / $496K 754,229 / $10.2B

89,160 / $483M 62,656 / $156M 17, 297 / $70M 67,918 / $428M

1,091,044 / 12.1B

*As of July 11 th , 2014, VA issued $42 billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments to 1,207,482 individuals since program inception (August 2009)

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Long Term Solution (LTS) Supplemental Automation Summary

CHAPTER 33: LTS Automation Summary (June 2013-June 2014) • •

Automation Summary as of July 15 th

• • • Total Claims Received:

4,987,755

Total Claims Fully Automated: % Claims Fully Automated:

2,348,615 47.1%

*

Automation began 9/24/12 benefits.va.gov/gibill

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Long Term Solution (LTS) – Recent Releases

Completed Installations: • Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) rates and Tuition and Fees (T&F) caps installed in LTS - Installed May 2014 effective August 1, 2014 Upcoming Installations: • Remediation Release to address security vulnerabilities - July 14 – 25, 2014 • Centralization of all Ch33 letters including non-automated letters generated at the RPOs – End of Fiscal Year 2014 • UAT for tentative release 6.5 is scheduled between - September 8 – 26, 2014 • The functionality in release 6.5 will include: • Implement a second signature rule to claims with the 81 month check box • Update Debt Policy for Ch33 – VA will not pursue collection of debts of $5 or less • Add transfer of eligibility information to the entitlement banner • Fix minor production defects • Deployment of release 6.5 - Tentative: October 16 – 19, 2014

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FY 2013 Claims Processing Highlights

• • • •

Significant improvements in FY 2013 claims processing were achieved

4,513,286 Total Education Claims Processed (28% more than FY 2012) 561,139 Original Claims (14% more than FY 2012) 3,952,147 Supplemental Claims (31% more than FY 2012) Payment Processing Accuracy Rate at 98.7% – Exceeded the Target of 98% • 58% Reduction in Pending Claims Volume in FY 2013 – Pending Claims at the End of FY 2013 was 89,331 (FY 2012 was 213,590 Claims) • Exceeded Claims Processing Timeliness Goals (average days to complete) – Original Claims at 26.2 Days Compared to 30.5 in FY 2012 (14% Improvement) – Supplemental Claims at 9.7 Days Compared to 16.5 in FY 2012 (41% Improvement)

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FY 2014 Claims Processing Highlights

• • • •

Continued improvements in FY 2014

On track to process 4.3 million claims in FY 2014 Payment processing accuracy is currently 98.4% As of June 2014, pending claims were 34,393 (61% less than the end of FY 2013) Exceeding claims processing timeliness goals (average days to complete) • Original claims processed in 15.6 days compared to 26.2 at the end of FY 2013 (40% improvement) • Supplemental claims processed in 5.9 days compared to 9.7 days at the end of FY13 (39% improvement)

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Original Claims Processing Timeliness

Goal 28 Days

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Supplemental Claims Processing Timeliness

Goal 14 Days

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Executive Order 13607 and Public Law 112-249 Accomplishments

August 2013

• Launched CareerScope pilot

October 2013

• Published student outcome measure definitions on College Navigator

December 2013

• Received approval for Paperwork Reduction Act/OMB information collection

January 2014

• Launched Complaint System • Completed first iteration of complaint processing SOP

February 2014

• Launched Comparison Tool • Began identifying institutions for targeted risk based reviews

March 2014

• Finalized initial crosswalk • Published GI Bill  Trademark Terms of Use in Federal Register • Began uploading complaints to Consumer Sentinel

May 2014

• Conducted first Risk-based program review

July 2014

• Delivered 90/10 Analysis

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GI Bill



Registered Trademark

• GI Bill® is a Federally registered trademark owned by VA • As part of the Principles of Excellence, VA trademarked the term to stop deceptive and misleading promotional efforts targeting GI Bill educational benefits • Authorized to use the trademark: • Education/ training institutions eligible to receive GI Bill benefits • State Approving Agencies • Recognized Veterans Service Organizations • Must use the trademark symbol in the most prominent place and give attribution (wording on http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill along with full instructions on Terms of Use)

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GI Bill



Registered Trademark

•

Third-party users:

• Cannot use the term in company names, internet domain names, logos • Can only use the term to promote VA benefit programs • •

No one may:

• Use the GI Bill trademark to imply a relationship, affiliation, or association with VA that does not exist • Misrepresent VA services through use of the mark or by the use of confusingly similar wording •

Enforcement:

• Report suspected violations by email to [email protected]

Potential violations under investigation

• Use of trademark in internet domain name • VA filed a trademark dispute claim with a website owner • Implied affiliation with VA • VA sent cease and desist letter

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VRAP Program Close Out

• • • • • • P.L. 112-56, Section 211 Sunset/last payment date: March 31, 2014 – statutorily imposed (sec. 211(k)) Final VRAP stats: • 143,139 VRAP Applications Received • • • 126,615 Certificate of Eligibility Issued 76,494 Veterans trained or in Training $891M VRAP Benefits Paid Successfully completed lump-sum project: • VA made one-time payments to enable VRAP participants to complete training for their current enrollment period • The one-time payments covered training completed on or after April 1, 2014, through the end of the participant’s current enrollment or June 30, 2014, whichever comes first • Policy decision to issue lump-sum payments required swift action • Quickly developed process and procedures to facilitate lump-sum payments • Processed over 25,000 lump-sum payments for approximately $55M Continuing “Clean Up” Actions and Corrections VA/DOL Report to Congress Finalized

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Grandfathered Tuition & Fee Rates

• The Restoring GI Bill Fairness Act of 2011 allowed certain individuals attending a program of education at a private institution of higher learning (IHL) to receive tuition and fee payments capped at the greater of $17,500 per academic year, or the amount payable under the 2010-2011 tuition and fee in-state maximum amounts utilized prior to the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 • • To qualify, a beneficiary must: • Have been enrolled in the same program since January 4, 2011 • Be enrolled in an approved program at a private IHL in Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, or Texas This provision expires on July 31, 2014. The private school academic year tuition and fee cap will be applied to enrollments that begin after that date • Beginning August 1, 2014, the tuition and fee payment is capped at $20,235.02

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Web Enabled Approval Management System (WEAMS)

Web Enabled Approval Management System (WEAMS) – repository of information about approved schools including Yellow Ribbon status, names of school certifying officials, approved programs, semester or quarter hour status • Cleaning up WEAMS Database • Naming Convention- Standardizing the way school names appear in WEAMS, by adopting the Department of ED’s IPEDS naming conventions (e.g., no abbreviations, limited special characters) • ED / VA Crosswalk- Preserving a data crosswalk between VA and Department of ED that matches VA’s 38,000 approved programs with ED’s 7,700 approved schools • Benefits of cleaning up WEAMS- Easier for student veterans to find approved schools in the GI Bill Comparison Tool and allows for interagency data sharing and outcome analysis

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Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

• On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court held, in

United States v. Windsor

, that section 3 of DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment by discriminating against same-sex couples who are lawfully married under state law • On September 4, 2013, the United States Attorney General announced that the President had directed the Executive Branch to cease enforcement of 38 U.S.C. §§ 101(3) and 101(31), the statutory provisions governing the definitions of the terms “surviving spouse” and “spouse,” respectively, for Veterans’ benefits, to the extent they limit Veterans’ benefits to opposite-sex couples • On June 20, 2014, VBA released a comprehensive policy regarding the provision of VA benefits to individuals in same-sex marriages

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Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

In accordance with VBA’s June 20, 2014 comprehensive policy: • VBA will recognize a Veteran’s marriage for the purposes of paying benefits if the marriage was recognized under the law of the place where at least one of the parties resided: a) when they were married; or b) at the time when the claimant became eligible for benefits • VBA will generally accept a claimant’s statement that he or she is married • For the purpose of the Post 9/11 GI Bill Transfer of Benefits VA will recognize all DOD-approved Section 3319 transfers to dependents

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Transition Assistance Program (TAP) Components of Transition GPS

Pre-Separation Counseling MOC Crosswalk VA Benefits I Transition Overview Financial Planning Seminar Resilient Transitions VA Benefits II Individual Transition Plan Review DOL Employment Workshop Career Technical Training Track Education Track Entrepreneurship Track Capstone Event VA Develops & Delivers VA Assists With Development/Delivery Partners Develop and Deliver benefits.va.gov/gibill

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 

Education Service Realignment

VBA realigned management authority for education claims processing from the Office of Field Operations (OFO) to Education Service (EDU) on October 1, 2013 Key Operations Issues: • National workload management strategy • Fielding a system update in late FY 2014, which will allow education claims processing to be proportionally distributed to regional processing offices (RPOs) • Updated performance standards • Coordinating with RPO leadership and national unions to develop national performance standards • Organization structure • Developed draft organizational structure charts to standardize organizational structure as much as possible at each RPO for discussion with RPO leadership during a meeting in June.

• Reporting requirements • Developing a plan to standardize reporting across all RPOs and transitioning from legacy data systems to the more robust VETSNET Operations Reports (VOR) system

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Chief Education Liaison Officer (CELO) Realignment

• • The work of compliance and liaison activity was centralized to VACO effective June 1, 2014 • Impacts 4 CELOs and 118 Education Liaison Representatives (ELRs) and Education Compliance Survey Specialists (ECSS) The realignment rationale is: • Nature of work is different from claims processing • State claim processing jurisdictions have moved between RPOs • The workload of the 4 CELOs has become unbalanced • • There has been a redistribution of the states among the 4 CELOs This internal realignment activity is seamless to our beneficiaries

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Contact Us

WEBSITE: www.benefits.va.gov/gibill FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/gibillEducation TELEPHONE: 1-888-GIBILL-1 (1-888-442-4551)

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