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U.S. Representative Mike Bost (IL-12) issued the following announcement on May 6.
U.S. Representative Mike Bost (R-Ill.), the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight & Reform penned a letter to the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, regarding the delays veterans and their families are encountering while requesting their records from the National Personnel Records Center (NRPC).
“Veterans need answers,” said Bost. “The NPRC serves a vital function. Congress has provided the resources the NPRC needs to safely resume normal operations. It is unacceptable that we continue to receive mixed messages about when veterans will have timely access to their records. I hope Archivist Ferriero will fix this as soon as possible,”
Republicans demand briefing on veterans’ records backlog that could take 2 years to clear
Updated 10:52 PM;
WASHINGTON A group of House Republicans on Thursday demanded a briefing from National Archives chief David Ferriero on how he intends to eliminate a bureaucratic backlog born out of the coronavirus pandemic that could force some veterans to wait up to two years for certain benefits.
The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, where many of these paper records are stored, shut down in March 2020, along with many other government buildings. The building has sat empty, with employees working remotely.
Meanwhile, records requests, most of which require someone to physically search for documents within the building, piled up. The backlog has grown to more than 499,000 requests, a spokesperson for the National Archives told Roll Call in April, and will take 18 to 24 months to clear once the center is staffed at full capacity.
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Nearly a half-million veterans’ record requests are pending before the National Archives, leaving families without benefits, the ability to pursue jobs, or the right to have military burials.
Republican members of two House committees co-authored a letter on Thursday to U.S. Archivist David Ferriero asking for a plan to remedy the problem and conduct a briefing before May 13. The letter was signed by 29 members of the Oversight and Reform and Veterans Affairs committees, calling the situation unacceptable.
Some of the requests are more than a year old, the Oversight and Reform Committee said.
The letter comes a month after an almost identical letter was sent by the Veterans Affairs Committee to President Joe Biden and Ferriero. The Trump administration had given the archives $15 million to clean up the backlog.