Military Update: Silence on VA Retro Pay frustrates retirees

[unhappycamper]

Military Update: Silence on VA Retro Pay frustrates retirees
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, December 1, 2007

Retired Air Force Maj. Eric Pettersen, 61, of Colorado Springs, Colo., has been frustrated for months by a lack of information on the VA Retro Pay program coming from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

His frustration, and that of many retirees, turned to anger when a Nov. 15 self-imposed deadline for DFAS to complete a review of pay records for 133,000 disabled retirees, that original pool of retirees potentially eligible for retroactive “concurrent receipt” payments, was missed without explanation.

The retro pay program, which so far has paid catch-up amounts worth $200 million to disabled retirees, has been marred by several missed deadlines and shoddy communication. But those failings will be addressed, a senior DFAS official vowed in a Wednesday interview with Military Update.

“We have not met customer expectations. I personally find that unacceptable and apologize to all the VA Retro-eligible recipients,” said Lee Krushinski. The senior executive has been acting director of operations for DFAS for three weeks, since replacing Patrick Shine who retired Oct. 31.

DFAS and VA officials, when they launched the VA Retro Pay effort in September 2006, said all payments would be made within a year. In August, as that year drew to a close, officials said all but 33,000 files had been reviewed. DFAS set a new deadline of mid-November to fully pay the original pool of eligible retirees, many of whom are owed thousands.

DFAS officials now acknowledge that they didn’t have a firm grasp on the facts when they revised that deadline three months ago. As of Nov. 15, a total of 48,760 files of disabled retirees still needed to have pay reviews completed to determine retro pay eligibility. Also, DFAS officials say they don’t have enough facts yet to set a new completion of payment deadline.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50640



uhc comment: An organization that does not take care of it's veterans has no business creating more of them. I forget who said that, but I firmly believe that.