VBA Stakeholder Meeting

Questions For Today’s VBA Stakeholder Meeting, 2 PM EST (Sign Up!)

The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is holding a stakeholder meeting on January 31 at 2:00 pm EST that all veterans should sign up to attend.

Today, VBA is holding its quarterly stakeholder meeting. Those interested can register for the event. I encourage all readers not only to sign up but to ask questions if allowed.

Should VBA open it up, I have a list of questions below that I hope some of you ask. If not, we at least hope the presentation will address at least some of these questions.

According to VBA:

The Under Secretary for Benefits, Paul R. Lawrence, Ph.D., will hold a live webcast on January 31st about the general health of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) for the first quarter in Fiscal Year 2019, including its performance and financial metrics, accomplishments, challenges, and collaborations. This will be the second in a series of quarterly events in which we will share VBA’s progress, challenges, and way forward for the administration.

Learn More: https://www.benefits.va.gov/benefits/stakeholder.asp

VBA Stakeholder Meeting Questions

Here is our list of questions we hope to get answered:

1) Why was the Office of Economic Opportunity disbanded and now programs reporting directly to an executive front office? By disbanding the office, did it serve to dilute the expertise in the economic empowerment programs like the GI Bill and VA Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment?

2) Are you going to actively and competitively recruit an experienced executive to oversee the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on the GI Bill? Will that be an executive with actual education expertise?

3) Will you provide a by-program-crosswalk of all Forever GI Bill elements and the status of implementation? By date? Risks if any? In addition to briefing slides currently given to VSOs?

4) How many veterans who lost their GI Bill benefits due to school closures have applied to have benefits reinstated? What is being done to reach out to them since they may be at significant risk for economic distress?

5) How much funding has been diverted from Education for other VBA programs in the last 3 years? Is budget more or less now under Trump Administration?

6) As a seasoned management consultant, USB Paul Lawrence, why are you perpetually hiring from within the status quo and not bringing in those with subject matter experts from outside the VBA? Do you think VBA has training pathways into the economic development discipline? Do the staff require any formal experience or training in that discipline? Aren’t most of your employees coming from a claims background?

7) Did Robert Worley pay back his presidential rank award ~$40k  (based on his leadership in implementing the Forever GI Bill?) after the series of failures last year? Was his move paid for by taxpayers to Houston? What training does he have in claims? How is Director for Education equitable knowledge to a claims RO executive director?

8) A lot of time is spent posting pictures of you and your staff traveling or shaking hands with people. How much time are you and your #2 Margarita Devlin spending inside the organization tackling problems? How much money do you spend on travel to events versus working meetings?

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11 Comments

  1. Today the VA announce this;

    VA announces broad suicide prevention partnership and safe firearm storage partnership– THEY ARE COMING TO TAKE OUR FIREARMS, and they are billboarding a 1-800 tel number for your neighbors to report us to thje 501Cs who will be pounding down our front doors.
    Come Ben– post this

  2. I’m not going to believe anything these guys say unless I see action. They’ve known for twelve years that my late husband wasn’t at home in 63’64 and all they need Ed to confirm that is ask and we would have provided them with the proof yet they denied him because the CIA has his records and refuse to share them with the VA. Geez why so you think the presumption rule was put into place? It was because Vietnam War Era vet records are such a mess. Action speaks louder than words.

  3. Dave MccLenahan is an Executive at the VA probably a GS-15, he is what Rosenstein is to the DOJ. He is holding two of my Nod’s in his desk drawer for over 400 days. He’s an Obama holdover, he can’t get his head out of O”s rear. He sent a letter to himself acknowledging that he received my Nod’s, telling me it takes over 400 days to process a claim, they have had my claims, appeals,going back to my retirement in 1988 and not 400 days, they just know how to open and close these cases to cover their asses and look good, a case should never be closed and when new information is provided it has to be reopened with brand new dates to make it easier for their administrative paperwork, not the way we should be treated as Veterans. He, was talking about my shrink at the VA in Pittsburg,(I never was in Pittsburg) My phoney Psychiatrist, Thompson was at the Syracuse VA and never diagnosed me with PTSD, Thompson just kept insisting I did not have PTSD and in front of my wife, yet his ignorance to this subject was overturned by not one but two psychiatrists. Thompson did however, tell me “Good Luck with your Mr. Trump”. (Another, Obama holdover) So any Vets with PTSD being turned down at Syracuse under Thompsons watch or Mrs. Botz in New Port Richey lets get these unfair shrinks out of the system and make it known to all Shrinks working for the Government to be ware that not all Vets are ignorant, all these so called doctors are doing nothing more than sucking off a generous government pension, trying to stop those of us who served under combat while they went to some liberal college or university and learned jack, squat. (They can never make it on their own outside of the government and they attempt to deny what we are do?) Give us all a break!

  4. I’m not going to waste my time on this dog and pony show. Does anyone really expect to get a straight or honest informative answer from these dicks? We’re not the only one’s that know how to dodge bullets.

  5. Signed up. But I recognize that what they say, think and what the Congress says and thinks are different animals congered up in backroom budget deals that benefit campaign war chests priority one and direct vote solicitation priority 2. The banker lobby has the biggest lobby war chest.

  6. Thank you Attorney Benjamin Krause for sharing this information with us.
    I have shared it with all of my FB Friends.
    Thank you.
    #Attorneyin2020
    Quancidine Hinson-Gribble

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