Modernization. Good afternoon. The subcommittee will come to other. This is or second hearing on the va. Gov bugs and the struggles they have created f veterans to access their benefits. Id trying welcome o witnesses back to the discussion on these issues. The number of veterans affected now exceeds 120,000. To recap about 32,000 veterans submitted their disabout it compensation claims through the website. But the claims were never established in the system that processes them. This has been happening since 2018. In addition, roughly 81,000 veteran and family members request to add or remove dependents on va. Gov as the spread saysor system was not processed causing them to be overpaid under paid. This has been happening all the way back to 2011. On top of that, other veterans were unable to access the notice of disagreement form on va. Gov to appeal denials of their claims this. Went o for about five weeks before being discovered. I understand that o witnesses have an update on the number vetera that have encountered that problem. Mistakes are bound to happen. But it is unacceptable tt some of these here errors rsisted the forears or years before anyone discovered them in the last hearing, i urge urged our witnesses to be more proactive in contacting the veterans and offing them help. I would like an update on that. Many of these veterans and survivors depend on thei va nefitsor more or all of their income. They nd to hear from the v. Much more quickly. All need be confident that errors in the va. Gov and other systems will never aga be allowed to come pound undetect and impact so ma people. To that end, i will be introducing t va watchg over electronic benefitact. The v. A. Now has a watch tower to monit the website and this thislegislation will make sure it performs as intend. I would like to turn to another problem that our veterans are facing. In early november, the va informed the committee that it has been overpaying pensions to thats 900 veterans because of inaccurate data from the Social Security administration and a faulty system to self report their income. It may impact as much as 40,000 veterans appreciate our witnesses explaining the situation to the Committee Staff last week. But there are sll quite a few out standing questions. Wh did the v. A. Leaders fit realize that the data probls were creating pension overpayments . I understand theres a Debt Collection moratorium,ut how has that been communicated to all the veterans and how exactly does it work . When are the debts going to be erased . And why has the v. A. Still not determined the status of the other 30,000 veterans who may be affected . These tecical issues each affected Veterans Benefits in different ways. But in eh case, we expect the v. A. To put aside whats convenient for the bureaucracy and move faster. With that,ly yield to Ranking Member mccormick for her statements. Thank you so much to our witnesses for being here today and testifying. Its now been two months since we met to discussion issues with va. Gov. I look forward to hearing from witnesses how theyre fixing the problem through the e. T. Systems that allowed veterans to fall through the cracks. We learned that v. A. Shut down an online form that veterans used to file pensions claimsments iveeen told that the form had not been uated since 2018 and nlongeratched the paper fortunately useby v. A. Today. I have concerns that the form went so long without being updateand im curious what v. A. Is going to evaluate other electronic forms that may be out of date. I look forwa to the conversation today. Thank you. And i yield back. Turks Ranking Member cherfus mccormick. First, we have assistant secretary for information and Technology Kirk dell beny thank you for coming in. We have officer charles worthington. Again, thank you for coming in. From the Veterans Benefits administration we have mr. Ray tellez. Good to see you again executive director of the office of business integration. And joining him is mr. Paul shoot, the assist at that particular time deputy and secretary for theffice of benefits delivery. Thank you again. I asked the witnesses to please stand and raise your rite hands. Do you solemnly swear under penaltof perjury that the testony youre about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Let the record reflect that all witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Mr. Dell benny you are recognized for five minutes to deliver your openg statement on behalf of the panel. Good afternoon, chairman, rankinmember cherflus mccormick and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for this testimony. Im accompanied by mr. Paul shoot under secretary of autoted benefits divery v. B. A. D mr. Raymond tellez of v. B. A. And mr. Charles worthington office of Information Technology v. A. Is committed to providing the service theyve become to experien and they strive to be that digital front door. Each month users access v. A. Gov to manage their v. A. Benefits and healthcare. As an update, the department would like to share our progress in recent v. A. Gov issues. With respect to the submission errors as youll regard we previously identified 32,000 claims that were not established due to the technical herb shoe. Currently v. A. Has established 22,257 of those disability claims and sent outreach letters to impacted veterans. As of november, 89. 4 of the established disabilities claims were decided. The remaining identify claims be established in december of this year. With respect to the submission claims errors v. A. Identify 45,903 who filed a request to update their dependency status and di not have successfully fro saysed. Have a. Completed and sits and identified 81,000 vet looks filed and did not have their process. V. A. Established 70, 476 and has completed 45. 2 . The remaining 10, 575 depen done city claims will be established in december. The record high claims submission, the back end of v. A. Government system have increase in timeout errors va. Government was unable to process the file. And they contacted them. They its department identify 429 leading establishments and these were processed in set with the notice of disagreement issue, incept v. A. Identified a technical issue by noting a drop of about 900 appeals from the normal va. Government submission vome. They quickly deployed a fix. 3, 152 may not have been impacked by the inability to load the web page the notice of disagreement form. V. A. Will contact the impacted veterans to make sure they will successfully present their appeal without any i. Packet to their appeal date. To intify any potential issues, the office had a code yellow. It includes monitoring the health of the most important application and features of va. Gov and making these monitors accept national a single place. Additionally code yellow insures a Government Employee knows about the issue within 24 hours. So far 80 of va. Govs most important features were monitored and the va monitoring by the end of quarter one of fiscal year 2024. Finally unrelated to va. Gov issues i would like to address the va. Gov patient application interactive form being unavailae from november 223 to january 31 of 2024. The v. A. Is updating the forms so it matches the current paper version of the form. Veterans and their families a accredited representatives are still able to download the current Application Form and submit it on access va. Chairman rosendale, and member of f the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. As previously mentioned va. Gov is the front door for veterans. Veterans need to have confidence that their services are available, accurate and secure. I look forwardo working with the subcommittee to address the challenge that is we face in our digital transformation. This concludes my testimony and i look to any questions you may. Have thank you, mr. Dell benny. The written statement will be enter into tearing record. And we will now proceed with questioning. I recognize myself for five minutes. Ill begin with you mr. Tellez. I would like to return to the disability compensation claim submitted to va. Gov were not established in the is why are you only notifying the veterans . Why have we wait sod long to provide them with the one that is have not notified with the others with any information whatsoever . Thank you, congressman for your question. I believe we are note fight of the time of the claim of establishment because thatss the time that were taking action into claim. It explains why we are taking that action for them. So why wouldnt we give information to the veterans whos claims havent been recognized as all and thats let them know that tha that they havent been recognized . Theres a lot of veterans throughout that are completely oblivious, ok, to the fact that they havent even been recognized. Their claim hasnt been recognized yet. Why arent we sending some kind of noticefication for all of that. Ill take that back to see how we can u social media to continue to spread that message on that issue. Theyre walking through thinking theyve been theyve been brought recognize into the system. Do youee where my concn is . And they dont even know that theres a problem. I do. Thank you, congress match they have a question or concern, they can call the National Call center 18008271000 8 00 a. M. To 9 00 p. M. If they do have questions wheel we continue to socialize only of the challenges we have withhe v. A. Ignorance may be bliss as a saying but when you are trying to get a benefit, ok, and apply for it and youve applied for it and you dont know that it has not been recognized by the system, then these folks arent even aware that they have a problem. So as you give an 800 number out there to folks that arent even aware of the fact that theres a problem why would they even bother to call . How and when do you intend to notify the remaining veterans and process their claims . Thank you, congressman. We have a process for the remaining of veterans who have submitted the claims. We will notify those this month. And i will put thos claims under control in v. Vbms. How do you decide what claims its going to be in do we have a priority checklist from veterans that are either impacted by by income or is it by chronological date . What matrix are you using to make a dem nation about when you Contact People . Thank you, congress match ill ask mr. Shoot if he can respond to that, please. Very good. So we dont have a prioritized list in terms of incomer other demographic factors. What we did is we looked at the population of vet looks were impacted by the 526 application issue on va. Gov. applications with can work quickly and make them whole. Weve got about 7,000 veterans le to establish and process their claims. But there is no order of prioritization in terms of the factor that is you mentioned. Someone who has a more severe disability may be relng on that income suspect going to get some preferential treatment to someone who is literally subsidizing their claim. We continue to follow the protocol that is we have for prioritizing claims for certain populations of veterans, termly ill, homeless, things of that nature. So i understand once the claim is established. The problem is going out and actually establishing the claims for the people who have tried to. Are you understanding the question im asking . Ok. They think that they are already process and they are not. Sand what im trying to do is determine exactly what criteria are you using to get ahold of thespeople . And if if theres not any sense of urgency or priority given to, which it sounds like what youre doing as a as a matter of fact quite the contrary in your words youre trying to utilize the easiest cases possible to process faster . We are working establish the claims that question decide as quickly as possible. Those are the claims that get established first, correct. Ok were going to have a couple of rounds here. Im goingo go ahead and recognize representative cherflus mccormick for five minutes of question. Under secretary dell beny, it seems like you have been left holdholding the bag. Many of these i. T. Issues have been uncovered for yearser through countless c. I. O. s. You happen to be the one in the seat when we have found them. And areeft to answer allhe hard questions. I thank you for the effort to get the i. T. System up tohe standa that we expect and that veterans deserve. I would like to spend my time geing some updates on the issues we discussed in september. At our last hearing on vad. Gov we discovered 45,000 ben fish areas who aempted to update their information. When did the issue first start and how did we identify it . Thank you for your question. Actually, i think i would pass that call that question to paul who can answer it more completely paul we first discovered the herb shoe in august 2021. That the time we found a defect between the interaction between our va. Gov and vbms systems. That theime, we had delivered a capability to generate a report. Any yme issue was encountered so that our office of Information Technology team could pass a report basically to v. B. A. So we could manually establish and work those claims. It wasnt until 2023 that we learned that they were getting an increased volume of veterans who had filednd did not receive a decision. That the point in time, we stood up an integrated project team to delve in and see if there were other herb shoes that we hadnt canted for. And thats what led to the population of 45,000 veterans that we reported at the last hearing. Has the number of veterans identified since o last hearing . And what is the status of those beneficiary status has changed . As part of our review weve identified an affect vet rap and weve identified 81,000 veterans who may have been impact bed this issue. Were cfident that not all 18,000 are impacd but we want to conduct a review of each and every one of those claims to make sure we make those veterans hole. When do you demand the updates will have been completeed . So to date, weve established 70,000 of that 81,000 veteran population and 45 of them have been completed so far were planning to establish the remaining 1 1,000 claims later is month. Thank you. Also during thahearing we discs that approximately 32,000 veterans who attempted file for disabilities compensation were not correctly established. When did this issue first start . And when did you identify it . We first identified this issue in november of 2022. That the tim it was impacti about 75,000 claims per week accoing to our projections. The issue dated back to 2018. The month ok. To clarify 75 cases per week what were anticipating the impact to be. That month, we deterned there were about 32,000 veterans impacted by this issue and we began work on a remediation plan. Has the number of veterans identified changed since our last hearing . And what is the status of those na that are in claim . The number has not changed. To date weve been able to establish 25,000 of those claims and 90 of them have been completed were planning to establish the remaining 7,000 later this month. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you, rankingember. Ly recognize my goofriend from texas mr. Self. Hank you, mr. Case a lot of process as normal we hear in your briefing packets, a lot of process. Who wants to answer this question . What is the Financial Impact potential Financial Impact on the wellbeing of individual veterans for the dability compensation claims and pensi payments errors . Who was toes that . Whats the potential impact on individual vet france in. Whwants to answer that . Whats the potential impact on the veg veterans in . Whats a reasonable guess ohow much they e . And thei want to know what you think the figure is v. A. Wide. So individl veterans and v. V. A. Wide . What is your liable . Thank you, congressman for you qstion. In terse to first part, the Financial Impact, i think its t. B. D. Because were reviewing those claims. One of the things that we are working on is no harm to the veteran. Where there may be a debt resulted, there are things tt we can mitigate through our normal process an weve got rules to handle that. And even with the pension overpayment congreman rosen dale spoke of earlier we have authority that is address that. Ill have to take your question two and three back because i dont know that we know enough information to be able to answer here. Let me give you just back of the envelope figures, ok . And there are some there are some variables here that if we use pension amount of 2,000, overpayment amount 5 , 10 and you work with those figures. You talking about depending on whether youre talk about the 10,000 veterans or youre talking about the 40,000 veterans and ive got it potentially hundreds of millions of dlars that veterans owe the v. A. Is that reasonable . Congressman, im not prepared to address that. We were not prepared to answer the questions on payment. T were happy to take that question back for you and get you a response or a briefing for you and your staff. I suspect thayou need to know that answer because this is a direct liability that the vetera have to the v. A. And when youre addressing how youre going to handle it my second question is i still see that you havent contacted some of the veterans depending on the issue here. Th is Serious Business for the individual vet vans and i want veterans and i want to know why you havent contacted every single veteran. This is, i think youre using code yellow. Why is t this not code red because this directly impacts our vet france in do you verans . Do you have a code red . If a system is down thats probably the closest thing to a code red and our goal is to get that system back up as soon as possible. I triage with the rest of our team every single issue that happens ithe entire v. A. Infrastructure every day at 8 00 a. M. And we we actually measure our time to recovery on our systems each and every month. We do it a monthly operations review to make sure that anything that you consider a code red gets considered super quickly. Im not interested in code red. Im more interested in the individual veterans being coacted that they have a problem. So let me ill pass it to paul and to ray in a moment. But i think the one thing that is the guiding principal is the 911 we once we establish for a group thats similar in an issue like this that there is a claim that appears be valid. We establish those as quickly as we can. And once weve established them we communicate to that veteran. This whole notion that a vet rap would go not knowing whether they have a claim out standing or not, i dont think thats usually the case. The moment that we know that theres a class of folks that we should communicate to, we always strive toommunicate to them as quickly as we c. We use the teras quickly as possible. At is the standard for quickly as possie . I think its probably situation dependent. But let me pass to ray or to paul . Do you have any thoughts there . Because i beuse i have a standard in my office. When somebody contacts us, i have a standard by which we answ. Sure. What are is your standard once youve identified because i assume youre identifying newer reports all the time. What is your standard for contacting the veteran . I dont want to talk process. I want to talk how youre treating our veterans . At is the standard for quickly as possible . Theres got to be a standard here, folks theres got to be a function. I think the standard that were all working towards now is immediate notification of not only the affected veterans when destakeholders in the v. S. O. Community. I would like what the objective is. I yield back. Hank you very much and quite frankly, we had just heard om you. And two contradictory statements mr. Dell benny that youll want to have immediate notification as soon as you find that theres a problem that you want to make sure that the veterans are notified. And wenow and, you know, for a years time now where they have not had their information recognized because of failures within the Software Programs and you have not notified them. So how in the world are you going to sit there and say that immediate notification when you have thousands of veterans who have applied for benefits and and have not been notified that their form, that their application has not even been recognized by the v. A. Yet . Thats not immediate in anybodys book. Mr. Worthington, lets talk about the notice of disagreement issue and not the one that i have with you right now. We have heard several different veterans impacted whoa may or may not have been able to appeal denials of their claims. Now, youre telli us it was 1, 352. Do you know if they were able to file notice of disagreement usg a difrent method . Thank you for the question. The notice of disagreement impacted the ability of we believe 31,000 orb 3100 vet trans load the form. D we dont know for sure if the veteran would have tended to submit the form or no. This would have appeared to them as just an error loading the web page. We do have a record however of who those individual veterans. I believe the board is planning to reach out to those veterans to make sure they have been able to applyor an appeal ifn fact, that was their intention and if so to be able to maintain the Effective Date of the appeal didding back to that. When did you discover the oblem . I believehis was discovered in august of this year. And so we still have still tryi to notify these veterans . Ishat in august they found out . Would you call that immedia notification of those verans . He it is december the the 4th . Thats not immediate in my back bock, ok . When are you goingo contact the vet looks havent filed a notice of disagreement you identify and tried to . Vial to get back to you on the specific plans. I believe i. T. Are working on that for early next year. Mr. Dell bny, i would like to turn to the 56,000 dependent changes the were not process. Understand this number has risen now to 81,000. How many of these have you processed now and how many of these veterans have passed away before the request were even processed . If i may i think mr. Shoots is probably the best to answer that question. Its in miss his domain. Of the 70,0, completed 45 of tho. In terms of the result of the claims decision we dont have that Information Available today. What im trying to discover is obviously when the claimant has pass add passedway not only did they not get the benefit but it complicates any benefit that theyre going to serve adds well. So the long and short of this is wheres my calculator . So weve got 31, 500 of the 81,000 that have been processed. Thats about what ive got. Youve got 70,000 of the 81,000 and youve got 40 45 of the of the 70,000. So 31,500 have been processed. So we still have a lot of people again throughout that have not been processed notified. Mr. Worthington, i have some questions about the va. Gov watch tower. It focused on monitoring transaction volumes to detect anomaly. Spes volume or valleys in the volume. Why not fus on detecting the processing errorshemselves . Great question. It does include both volumes and error rates and other key facto that would indicate the help of kefeatures so the intention would be to summarize what youre describing. Everyone continues to speak about the anomalies and the peaks and valleys of inactivity and thats what youre using as the as the flag, if you will, to identify that maybe something has gone wrong. Does the software are you telling me the software does have a the ability to identify that there is a problem of the information thats being received or delivered . Yes,ere additionally looking at error rates i the transaction. So control yule uld be one indicator. And lay tansy, how long did the request take are other factor that is are going into the watch tower. Ok. Im going yield the Ranking Member surplus mccormick. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Myext question is for mr. Delbene. We saw an artie for a flori man who received a notication that he s in debt for the v. A. For more than 1,000 related to the herb shoe with the income verificati. That create add lot of anxiety with our veterans wondering if they too owe money and if they would be in that situation. I wanted to talk to some of the assurance that ise may provide to some of our vets. Related to the pensn program issu i understand that the v. A. Intends to use all the authorities available to forgive nidates occurred by veterans is that correct . Let me pass that one to mr. Shoot who is is the domain expert there . That is correct. We are looking to exercise the authorities available to us other under the cleland old act prevent from acuring. While were working codify into regulation. We have some policies that are being reviewed by the secretary. And those decisions will be coming out sn could you explain for peoe who might be watching because a lot the veterans became anxious. I want to make sure and make clear that we have it. It prohibits v. A. For creating a debt for veterans wh its an action thats due on part of the v. A. And delay in the processing time thats the authority that were using in this situation. To not only put those debt on hold while we put thainterim policy in place, but to insure that no future debt are a rult of isss ke this. Very there a population of veterans that you dont have authority to forgive . Not that im aware of. However due to the complexities to some of the policy components i would like to work with you and your staff to make sure we bring some policy experts to speak about this more intelligentlyhan i would. How have the veterans acquired sucharge debts debt . So i thinko start, its help to feel understand the program that were talking aut here. So the veteran Pension Program ovide monthly benefits to veterans based on factors like age and disabilities and also income and net worth. Veterans asked to selfreport as part of their application process d as part of the annual validation. We had computer matching agementsith the Social Security administration to be able to validate the selfreported income was correct. And the computer matching that was in place in 2011 was sending data thawe couldnt effeively rely on thatwhen we moved ay from using that computer match and relied exclusively on the serepord data. Thosessues have now been resolved with the come pirate matching progr. Buteterans who have selfreporting income didnt than the come pirate match 2011 until the present time a debt could ve occurred in those instances. So the issue first started in 2011, is that correct . Thats correct. So as a v if a vet received a debt letter, how should they follow up . Right now, we put all the notification an Debt Collections on hold while we work to exercise the authorities availability available to us under the act. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Ranking Member mccormick. I now recognize Ranking Member excuse me representative se from texas. Rep. Self thank you, mr. Chairman do you think that watch tower is Quality Control . Jers i would say that we are designing it so we have more confidence in the specific help of any given feature at any other time. We have so many products with so many aspects that that wou give us a way more proactive if theres an issue impacting one of tse features. Now, i disagree with you because what you sd is youre monitoring theealth of you functions. Thats what i disagree with becae everything we hear again is process here. I hear very little about the veterans. Im talking about the quality of control that should be exercised in the determination. And weve had other befings about theoard appeals board and all of that. This is this is my problem. I nt i disagree that wat tower is q. C. On the issue that is were addressing today. Why can were talk about access v. A. Here whcan the live forms not keep up with the paper forms. It looks to me liket would be harder to get a new per form approved than it would be to reco a live form on v. A. Gov as opposed to access v. A. Why can they not keep up . Why do you have to take that function down and have people use access v. A. . Can anyone answer that . The first thing i would like to address. I think the difference between what mr. Worthington where his head was at and your point around q. C. Is its a portion of q. C. Its a process from ingestion all the wayo the procession of those apiece. I think watch tower is q. C. On that front end. The other thing that wasnt mentioned is weve changed the Error Handling so that everything that doesnt get processed by the actl Software Goes into the inbound mail for people to process manually. I think thats that Quality Control to make sure everything gets processed. Then theres a separate question about whetherhe handling of the application oe its actuly been submit is equal control and we can have a discussion about that too. I wantedo make a distinction there. In terms to forms, every time theres a form thats changed, the computer version gets prioritized by us an by the v. B. A. To decide what features will be implemented and what order . Thats a very back and forth process. Lots of debate of hands more important adding more capable to va. Gov so that more people can apply on lean versus channg the particular form. V. B. A. Had found a way around it so they can actually process these forms by reaching out to the veteran and that weighs into that kind of prioritization scream. K. I wont i won pursue that. But lets talk about your authorities. When you talk about pensions, typically these are low income and elderly veterans, correct . So as i read the authority to delay crection, when iead the authori, the secondtory has the can delay for likely if it it is likely to cause repayment of sucoverpayment makeit mordiffict for the invidual. Likely to cause an unpaid debt to be referred to the Treasury Offset Program are not in the best interest of the individual. I think that could cover almost every one in this program because werealking about low income and and eldly veterans. Is that a fair statemen and e followup question ll give you before you answer, do you simply delay or do you do any expungement . Let me pass that. Im only able to speak to e technical components of that. Some of our policy expert who is understand the nuances of that law. I would like to take some of those questions back and make sure you get a thorough response. Ok do yodo expungement . Im not aware any policies related to expungement. Weve got potentially hundredsf millions of dollars that the veterans of this nation owe the v. A. Many of them dont know it. You can delay it but not expunge it. Thats something we probay ought to make clear to our veterans if youve gotten one of these letters, i think we need to make that clear to our veterans. That, i yield back. Thank you very much mr. Worthington, im going to get back to the watch tower process. Do you think it woulde unasonable expectation to prevent the errors and the situation that is weve been discussing . I think that is exactly our goal is to reduce the chance of errorsike this happening and certainly for not as long as they happened in this case. We view that as unacceptable and this program will give us more confidence that its not occurring as we try to get all of the featuresonitored. If watch tower covers 80 what, are the other features that are not covered . Well, were working our way down the list as mr. Debani mentioned. Were,ing to do that by the end of december. Weant to get all of the features similarly monitored. I think that will be a work in ogress as we continue through the year. How can we be sure that the veteran submission are not being lost or delayed . I think we want to look exactly into that question now that we have the pattern of these official errors. Weaver going go be looking at all of the different types to insure that we if we see some more issues we can fix them as well. So again, how can we be sure now mr. Davain that that information isnt beg lost or delayed . If its not being watched by watch tower. The Error Handling if something cut the get caught is changed. It always goes into the inbox for someone that is humanly processed. Two, we have a fail safe at goes for manual processing. O is that happening now . We are putting that Error Handling in place, yes. And have for thats 80 of the case. So it is happening now. You say youre puttin it in place . It is part of this proprocess and get the airconditioning air hadding do you intend to wrap up your code yelw process in the next two weeks . I believe that is our goal is to complete our code yellow in thnext two weeks to be before we would exit the code yellow we would have had to achieve the goal of getting 100 of those features fully monitor. We will only exit the code yellow if thats true but or plan is to do so. Do you believe that tha is dash is dash is possible. Physically possible because were gointo be coming back again and bringing these questions up . I currently belief question finish our stated goal of the code yellow for the tier one features. I think its important if i may quickly, the importance of code yell slow we dont exit the code yellow until the exi criteria are met. Which means well be in the state im more concerned about the work about the work being done than what color you call it, ok . Fair enough. I just want the work the be done. And i want you to be truthful when youre here before us that this is realistically how long its going to take us t establish that i would rather have a little bit of bad news right now knowing that its going to take a little bit longer and how to be accurate than have you blowing smoke up the rear end of a horse, ok, right now telling us bad information. Understood. Thats basically what im getting at. I do want to be clearhat were focusing on the most used features. As we expand the watch tower to include all the features, we may find other things. That would be the hope that we do find them so we can fix them. Mr. Delbene i want to turn to the Application Form that was disabled on va. Gov. How long did it go to reflect the changes to the paper form . I believe the current version of the paper form was implemented in 2018 for thats a year there after the there would have been a policy to allow the old form as well. So for thats past that so you can say around 2019 it would still have been accepted. But from that point forward it would have when an agent received it and started the process it yet, say that they would have reached out to the veteran to receive that information. Its important to stress that thats half of the time when an agent receives one of these mention forms they actually have to go back to the vet troop get more information. And that became one of those case. I dont want to speak for the vba folks day do that as well. They became adept at having the exact information they need t continue the pcessing. I guess really thehings that im getting at is why is it thatere putting a different Application Form online, ok, electronically and possibly issuing paper form that does not reflect the same request. And if someone has if a veteran has in their posssion old form thats one thin but we absolutely should not have a paper form reflective of different than the electronic form through the agency i agree. I think this was the case as i tried to explain that the prioritization was such that it didnt rise to the to the top of the list. When we saw it the summer, we said this is causing more difficulty f veterans. We should fix it now. Thats why we chosto pull it down and impact the funding which were appreciative of to be able to revamp the form. Cocil member mccormick. Any implementation of the it. T. Solution is that u can prevent any problems which usually happens after you recognize an mitigate it and freezing insofar the mitigation attempt but also correcting it correcting the issue i wanted to make our veterans leave some of that anxiety. You end kateed that they froze all the Debt Collection for the vets who already received a letter. How can they contact the v. A. About the status of their debt . All veterans can reach out to us through the National Call center. The Call Center Agents are equipped with talking points and Additional Guidance that can help them navigate any questions related to debt. Thank you. I guess our last comment in question that we want from you is a reassurance. We try to be on this committee be bipartisan because our concern are the veterans. We have to make sure that our veterans are not sfering a negative income pact due to mistakes implementing our i. T. Systemhat were treeing to drawhat. You will do everything in your power that they will not be negatively impacted . Would guys assurus of that . Wre going to make sure that not dont we make every acceptine vet rap whole is affected by thisssue but nidates that is were created as a result of an of these issues will not be incurred for any of tho veterans. Thank you so much. I yield back. Recognize rivet self . Rep. Self thank you, mr. Chairman. I think i know the answers to this. But i want to make clear to any veterans who might be watching this. I think i had this right. Prior to june 2022, 90yearold veteran who collect as v. A. Pension this is for your mr. Tellez spohn responsible for updating the v. A. On his soci security. And if the Social Security payment wept up and he did not report it, he would automatically have a debt with the v. A. Now, first question first of all, is that correct . Hank you for your question im going to take that back to policy folks. I dont want to misspeak on that issue. And my followup question is does the annual cola make up additional income . Is that what youre counting as additional income . Not not a different addicated Social Security claim. Simply the clearly cola. Congressman i will have to take that back up to policy folks and provide you an answer which were happy to do. I would love to see that answer because this goes to the nuts and bolts of what were discussing here. What exactly is a cola i crease . Is it increase . Is it the yearly cola or a change in the claim for some reason . Its vitally porn. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you very much, representative. Mr. Shoot, we we talk about the veterans pension and exactly what is going to happen and the process therein. What exactly was wrong with the Social Security agreement and what can you intify that today . From my understanding is information provided as part of that computer tch wasnt providing accurate income data from the Social Security administration. The team has been working on that that has since been corrected but that is the herb shoe. Just for clarification, you made reference to the the selfreporting requirements of the veterans and how that was working. I think it should be made pretty clear her very clear here that the problem wasnt with the selfreporting of the veterans. The problem was with the reporting that the Social Security administration was doing with v. A. Thenly part we would like to identify is when we identified the discrepancies we stopped using it entirely. Once those issues were correct and we could rely on the data thats when the comparison of the self reported data to the come pirate match was effectuated which did result in those debts. It wasnt until we could accurately rely upon that informion that that match occurred. I understand that. But i want to make sure that were clear here that this was not a defficiency by the veterans themselves. It was a problem with the software or the the the reporting that the Social Security administration was was doing with the Veterans Administration . I agree. We take full responsibility for the issues with that computer match. And thats why were taking the action that is were taking right now ok. I just want to clarify that because as the conversation was taking place it sounded like a lot of the weight of this was being blamed upon the veterans themselves f some kind of inaccuracies and selfreporting and i wanted make sure that was not. Exactly what needs to happen in order for the secretary mcdonagh to erase these debts . So the act provided with some authority that were working codify into regation. As were working to do that, we want to develop this interim poll that will allow us to take action before. Those authorities are codified into regation in terms of the specific parameters of how we apply that policy, i would like to be able to work with your staff and you in particular to provide some more details information as we can speak the technological components but the no the policy details. Would like to get a statement out there so that the veterans who reive their their the pension payment that is we can remove this cloud of anxietyhat may be hanging above them ere they may or may not know if they are obligated. That is a very, very bad position to place them in and and i would like to have language out there that clarify that is. Mr. Delbene we just receivedls than an hour ago ona response to the acce 6 letter requesting explanations of the va. Gov problems. It took two committees to shake this response loose. And that is absolutely unacceptable. It says that the va Information Officer brought nona new Senior Executive who directly reports to you and will report to mishandled can claims and veterans unable to access application are rapidly fixed. Aetter mes direct response to that, ok . Who is the new Senior Executive . Is he or she here today . And if not why . Thank you for the question. I actually hold myself responsible for making sure that we make any fixes. Im not sure ill have to go back tthe reference of the actual executive were speaking of ive got a quote here right from the letter from secretary mcdonald. And it says recently v. A. Chief Information Officer c. I. O brought in a new senr executive who directly report to him and will insure issues toer veterans claims and application pages problems are going to be fixed. Ill let me get ba to this. We will look for that by the end of day today. Ok . Not by next week if you have a Senior Executive that the veterans secretary Veterans Affairs is saying is responsible for something and that you hired them, we need to know about that. Fair enough. You certainly should know about that. Well get back to you today on that. I defehr t Ranking Member mccormick. I yield apply time. I yield my time. Do you have any Closing Remarks . I do. Thank you so much, chairman rosen dale. I appreciate the testimony and answers from all of our witness this is amp i recognize that no i. T. Solution is perfect and theyre concentrate evolving and changing. And thaelusion introduces risks. V. A. Has a lot of o work to do and to make sure the fallouis managed for the veterans impact specifically that they do not suffer any flying tv impactsful we will continue to monitor the situation until it is resolved. Mr. Chairman, i yield ba. Tha you very much, rivet mccormick. Want to thank the witness first returning to update us on these issue at is are so important for verans and their livelyhoods all around the country. Please remember, these hears are not just for the people in this room. Tens of thousas of people are watching on the internet and on cspan. Veterans expect that whenever they give them a piece of technology to use, its gong work. Sit supposed t improve their lis. And when it doesnt work, veterans and their family members should be confident that the v. A. Will take responsibility for consequences. I appreciate witnesses explaining to make these benefits right. But i still question why no action was taken for five years, for 10 years or even 12 years afterhe tecical glitches began. I hopno more slui drop and there will be no more need for another hearing. But as i said in september, regaless of what happens, our focus on making the veterans whole will continue. They cant be left waiting and wondering until the v. A. Gets around to helping them. With that, i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative ds to revise and extend theiremarks and include extraneous material. Without objection, so ordered. The hearing is adjourned