Members of a House subcommittee tasked with creating more economic options for veterans leaving the military urged Department of Veterans Affairs officials on Friday to more prominently highlight a program designed to provide education and training for new careers.
At a public hearing at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, the chairman and ranking representative of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity urged VA officials to look for ways to better utilize and possibly expand the Veteran Readiness and Employment program.
“I received a report on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ annual Army-to-Civil Transition Summit, and one thing that concerns me was that, at least as far as I know, there was very little talk about the Veteran Readiness and Employment (VR&E) program,” said Mike Levin, a senior VA official, of a July event hosted by the VA’s Office of Public Affairs, Transition and Economic Development to help military members transition to civilian life.
“This program has been underused in my five-plus years in Congress, and I’m trying to figure out why that is and how we can improve it. I think the role the program plays in helping service members leave the military due to illness or injury is incredibly important.”
VR&E supports military members and veterans with war-related disabilities and barriers to employment by providing them with resources such as counseling, rehabilitation, job search, self-employment development, skills assessment, career counseling and other services.
But making sure these veterans are aware of their eligibility for these benefits is a concern for several members of Congress. Reps. Colin Allred (D-Texas) and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) introduced a bill in May that would require the VA to “regularly promote” the VR&E program and make information about it more publicly available to veterans.
In response to Levin’s question about whether the program is currently being used effectively, VR&E Executive Director Nick Pamperin said VR&E has experienced record growth recently, with enrollment up over 45% and membership up 38%.
“We have over 160,000 veterans in our program,” he said. “In the two and a half years that I’ve been in this program, it’s been 117,000 or 120,000, and I think we’ve seen tremendous growth as part of our outreach, as part of the PACT Act, as part of all of our efforts.”
But Levin pressed for more information on how many veterans overall would be eligible for VR&E benefits. Pamperin said he would need to find out because the program requires veterans to have both a war-related disability and occupational barriers before they are approved by a VA counselor.
“I’ve heard that many, several hundred thousand, could benefit from this program,” Levin said. “It sounds like things are improving, but what else can you do differently? What creative ideas or suggestions do you have?”
Melissa Cohen, VA executive director of outreach, transition and economic development — who oversees the department’s transition assistance program that helps military members transition to civilian life — said the VA is taking steps such as partnering with the Department of Labor on off-base transition training, scheduling calls well in advance through the Solid Start program to offer services to newly discharged military members and using QR codes during TAP classes to schedule appointments with benefits counselors.
One challenge the VA faces, however, is recruiting enough counselors to serve veterans through its various high-demand assistance programs, including the VetSuccess on Campus program, which provides on-campus services to veterans and eligible dependents and has counselors covering large regions.
“Unfortunately, we are constrained in terms of hiring rates for a VSOC,” Pamperin said. “Because of our record growth, our top priority right now is to make sure veterans see a counselor. We have this legal requirement of one counselor for every 125 veterans. This year alone, we added 342 (full-time employees) to the VR&E program just to maintain that ratio.”
He added that the VA is required by law to hire specialized consultants with master’s degrees, so recruiting is often difficult and needs to be prioritized to meet the growth in the VR&E field.
Subcommittee Chairman Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.) called the consultants’ information helpful feedback for Congress to act on, but urged the VA to be more aware of how many veterans could benefit from the VR&E program.
“You can’t tell me how much money you need for x number of employees if you don’t know how many employees you need, because you don’t know how many veterans need to be taken care of,” he said. “So until you have an actual survey, until you have a census of the number of veterans that are currently enrolled, the number of veterans that could potentially be enrolled, you can’t reasonably ask us for the appropriate amount of money; it’s our job to prepare the budget to give you the money; if you don’t have the necessary data points.”
