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The American Legion takes strong stand against outsourcing administration of new GI Bill benefits VA can do the job itself, says National Commander WASHINGTON, DC (Sept. 11, 2008) – The National Commander of The American Legion says his organization strongly opposes a plan to hand over the administration of new GI Bill educational benefits to private contractors. “We cheered loudly when the Post-9/11 GI Bill was passed earlier this summer,” said David K. Rehbein, who recently took office as the head of the country’s largest veterans advocacy organization. “The new GI Bill brings the benefits package earned by America’s young warriors up to date – and that’s a good thing. Naturally, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) now wants to bring the processing of benefits up to date, too. That’s also a good thing – but the way they want to do it is not.” VA is moving quickly to hire an outside contractor to design, build, implement and operate, on a continuing basis, a computerized system to handle benefit claims requests and processing. In a recent interview, Dr. James Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs since late 2007, said, “You talk to young people. What they do is text message. That’s how they communicate. I’m anxious to see if an industry comes back and says, ‘Yeah, as soon as we get a claim, here’s your text message, here’s our response, here’s where you are. We’re not talking about inherently governmental functions here.’” “That’s all well and good,” Commander Rehbein said. “We, too, want our veterans’ applications to be processed as quickly as possible and communications to be efficient and timely in their delivery. We have no quarrel with the idea, but we believe strongly that VA currently possesses the talents, skills, expertise and resources to implement such modernization. VA was created to fulfill obligations like this, not to hire someone else to do it.” Commander Rehbein says The American Legion’s opposition to VA’s plan is based on practicality. “The VA employs nearly a quarter of a million people. Those employees have intimate knowledge of veterans’ often unique needs and how best to serve them. If outsiders were to build a system of automation, they would have to know just where a computer should stop in the process and where a human should intervene. That would not be something easily learned. We believe that VA’s own information technology team is extremely capable and perfectly equipped to develop, launch and administer all the provisions of the new GI Bill. If help is needed, a great opportunity is present to hire young veterans with IT abilities to help VA develop this automated process internally.” The American Legion’s National Executive Committee passed a resolution during the organization’s 90th National Convention in Phoenix, Arizona last month opposing efforts by VA to hire outside contractors to fulfill the requirements of the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act. Commander Rehbein is in Washington this week to present The American Legion’s legislative priorities to a joint session of congressional Veterans’ Affairs Committees. —————- MilitaryConnection.com thanks you for your patronage. This web site is a portal of all things military, and we are quickly becoming the “go to” web site for all things military. We are constantly adding resources, content and features to benefit our audience. Our web site and all of the resources are free to users, and there is something for everyone. Additionally, we feature GI Bill articles like this to keep you informed. If you belong to a group or organization, we will post your press releases, special events, newsletters, professional conferences and seminars, reunions, job fairs, and videos to help spread the word. One of the areas of our focus is connecting candidates from the military community with outstanding government and civilian employers. We know that candidates from the military community across the board have a work ethic second to none. They make highly valued employees. MilitaryConnection.com has a multitude of employment resources including a Directory of over 30,000 employers, Job Tips, Columns, our new and improved Job Board, Virtual Job Fair and much more. We understand the importance of education. Please check out our new Education section, featuring the most up to date information on the new GI Bill, Education Articles, Education Benefits, and the Scholarship Directory featuring thousands of scholarships. When the next tour is back home, it’s on MilitaryConnection.com.
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