The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is one of only a few federal agencies for which the President requested an overall spending increase for the coming fiscal year.
For fiscal year 2011, which begins on October 1, 2010, the President is seeking $125 billion for the VA. Specifically, the President is requesting $60.3 billion for discretionary spending for the VA, which is nearly on par with the $61.5 billion called for by veterans service organizations in the Independent Budget (IB). Discretionary funding is mainly used for health care for veterans. The President’s budget request also includes $64.7 billion in mandatory funding, which is spending mainly for disability compensation and pensions for veterans.
One of VetsFirst’s top public policy priorities is to reform the VA’s benefit claims process to reduce the backlog. The President’s budget requests $2.149 billion for the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA) operating budget, which is one of the few categories for which more was requested than was suggested by the IB. The 27 percent increase over the last fiscal year is intended to help reduce the claims backlog. In 2011, the VA estimates that veterans will submit 1,319,000 claims, which would be a 30 percent increase from 2009. The VA believes that hiring additional staff members and better business practices will help decrease claims processing times. The budget request also includes $145 million for the creation of a paperless claims processing system.
Unfortunately, increases in funding and staffing levels for the VBA have not yet been effective in reducing the backlog of claims and appeals. According to the Government Accountability Office, the VA has made only limited progress in recent years toward decreasing average claims processing times. Although VetsFirst believes that VBA must have the resources necessary to meet the current challenges, the VA claims process and substantive regulations and adjudicative principles must also be reformed.
As the budget process continues to move forward, VetsFirst will continue to advocate for the level of funding the VA needs and the strategies that must be adopted to efficiently and effectively address the challenges facing today’s VA. Both the Senate and House Budget Committees will create budget resolutions that must be voted on by their respective bodies. Once a concurrent resolution is agreed to that reconciles any differences between the House and Senate passed resolutions, each body will vote on the concurrent resolution. Although not law, the concurrent resolution provides broad spending guidelines for the appropriations process.
Click here for more information about the President’s fiscal year 2011 budget.
Heather Ansley
The VetsFirst Team
