http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=0-NAVYPAPER-2089257.php
Veterans soon could see back disability pay
By
Gordon Lubold
Navy TimesStaff writer
18 September 2006 Issue
More than 100,000 veterans will begin to get retroactive disability pay as early
as this month after the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans
Affairs resolved a long-running issue on paying veterans who have been
shortchanged. Veterans who were paid benefits for either Combat-Related Special
Compensation or Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay and were underpaid due
to changes in federal law may begin to see retroactive payments right away.
However, it will take up to a year for all the payments to be made, and most of
them won’t be made until after Jan. 1, according to a statement from the Defense
Finance and Accounting System, which will oversee the payments. The issue stems
from the two disability programs, Combat-Related Special Compensation and
Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay, which created administrative and
budgetary headaches for the Defense Department and VA as the two agencies
attempted to pay retirees under either program.
In 2003, the Pentagon and VA implemented a series of new laws that ended the ban
on “concurrent receipt,” in which retirees receive both retirement and VA
disability payments.
That meant veterans who should receive payments under both programs but who had
been banned until then from receiving two sets of entitlements were due money.
That triggered a yearlong struggle to figure out just who rated what and how
much.
Now that the issue has been all but straightened out for future payments,
accountants are going back to find and fix problems for payments that have
already begun to retirees. More information from DFAS, which will oversee the
payments, will be made available by late September, officials said. After
budgetary issues were worked out between the two departments, officials then had
to figure out how to make the payments to veterans. It proved no simple task.
“We have worked closely with [VA] to resolve logistical issues required to make
the payments,” the DFAS statement said.Pentagon officials said they’re glad the
problem is over and look forward to seeing the payments start going out to
veterans soon.“We are pleased that DFAS and [VA] have developed procedures to
address the payment of retroactive CRDP/CRSC entitlements and support their
efforts to make them as expeditiously as possible,” said Maj. Stewart Upton, a
Pentagon spokesman.
Upton referred queries to officials at DFAS, who weren’t immediately
available.It’s not yet clear how much money will be paid to veterans, although
it’s expected to be millions of dollars. No average payment was immediately
available from officials at the finance and accounting agency, but some veterans
are owed thousands of dollars.Those payments, however, won’t come quick.
Reviewing cases
In some cases, accountants may have to review individual cases by hand to
ensure the retroactive payments are made properly, as systems are updated to
support the thousands of payments to be issued. “Until the systems are enhanced,
manual calculations are being made to determine the appropriate payment amounts
for those retirees entitled to additional money from [the Defense Finance and
Accounting System],” the statement read. According to the Military Officers
Association of America, VA, which is paying for the retroactive payments, will
have a full plate now as it attempts to refigure payment amounts for thousands
of people.
“VA officials caution that, if any unexpected glitches crop up, the payments
will be delayed until the second half of January,” the association said in an
informational brief on its Web site. “That’s because they’ll have their hands
full at the end of the year reprogramming and implementing new pay rates for
2007.”While it may take some time for everyone to get their payments, the fact
that the Defense Department and VA finally reached agreement on the issue is a
major step forward for veterans affected by the issue.
Military advocates who tracked the issue said veterans have long known they were
owed money. The devil, however, was in the details. Now many of those details
have been worked out in principle, said Steven Strobridge, a retired Air Force
colonel who serves as the association’s government relations director. “People
were going to get their money sooner or later,” Strobridge said. “The problem
was it was a real tough nut to crack and it required a lot of tough negotiations
about not only who is going to pay for it, but then how do you figure out who is
owed how much and why.”
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)