Vice President Biden on Iraq and Our Veterans
Department of Veterans Affairs Appropriations:
The President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 budget provides critical resources as a down payment to transformation into a 21st Century VA. VA’s budget increases to $112.8 billion, up $15 billion, or 15 percent, from the 2009 enacted budget. This is the one-year percentage increase for the VA requested by a president in over 30 years.
Investing in the Future: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
As of June 30, VA has obligated $1.7 billion (93 percent) of its Recovery Act dollars. Small businesses, including veteran-owned and service disabled veteran-owned businesses, currently account for 75 percent of all VA Recovery Act-awarded contracts. The National Cemetery Administration has obligated nearly $46 million to improve our VA cemeteries as national shrines that memorialize and honor veterans. The Veterans Health Administration has invested nearly $957 million to improve the safety, security and effectiveness of over 141 facilities. Over 98 percent of all contracts were competed, and over $122 million has been obligated to state veterans’ homes. Recovery Act funds enabled VA to hire nearly 2,300 new claims processors, issue over $465 million in one-time payments to eligible veterans, and commit $400 million to energy and green initiatives, including projects to produce renewable energy through the installation of solar photovoltaic, wind, and geothermal projects, and a wide variety of energy conservation measures.. Every dollar spent was posted on the Internet. VA created over 2,100 jobs as a result of ARRA funding (through June 2010).
Access to Benefits for Vets
“We’re going to keep at this until we meet our commitment to cut those backlogs, slash those wait times, and deliver your benefits sooner.”
n President Barack Obama, August 2, 2010
“We are going to break the back of the backlog this year,”
Veterans Affairs Secretary Shinseki, April 6, 2010
“Breaking the Back of the Backlog” of Disability Claims: Leveraging Innovation and Technology
VA has launched an aggressive campaign to attack the claims backlog problem on multiple fronts, and has set an ambitious objective: By 2015, with a 98-percent accuracy decision rate in place, a veteran will not wait more than 125 days for a decision on a claim. To achieve these objectives, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) expanded its workforce by over 3,500 people, began accepting on-line applications for initial disability benefits, initiated an innovation competition, launched over 30 pilot programs and initiatives to identify best practices, and invested over $138 million in a paperless Veterans Benefits Management System that will be deployed in Fiscal Year 2012. Veterans are already directly benefitting from this effort, for example, through a pilot program establishing “express lanes” for simple claim actions and quick benefits payments done on a walk-in basis. Additionally, VBA has awarded a $9 million contract to “fast track” veterans’ claims for service-connected illnesses associated with Agent Orange herbicide exposure during the Vietnam War.