By Freddy Groves
Per a Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (VAOIG) report, veterans who are enrolled at the same time in two different education programs are receiving housing allowance benefits from both.
The two programs are the Post-9/11 GI Bill and VET TEC. Oddly enough, there’s no prohibition against the double payments because the way that the VET TEC program was established isn’t the same as other education programs (such as the Montgomery GI Bill) that specifically ban dual benefits. In other programs, a veteran must choose between one set of benefits or the other.
The Post-9/11 GI Bill program consists of three or four years of benefits that include books and supplies, tuition and a housing allowance.
The VET TEC program focuses on high-tech training through specific providers. Benefits include the cost of classes and a housing allowance.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) took 30 random veterans to study and determined that all of them received dual housing allowance benefits, averaging $3,100.
They were also able to identify 249 veterans whose training and education programs overlapped, and calculated how many days that included and how much in housing benefits were paid. In the first example in the OIG report, the veteran received over $12,000 for 105 overlapping days. In the second example, the veteran received nearly $11,000 for 58 overlapping days.
The VBA tried, says the report, to halt the dual housing payments. They were informed by attorneys that it wouldn’t be “veteran-friendly” to reduce benefits and that no laws were being broken in paying the dual benefits. Only in other programs was the veteran required to only pick one program for benefits.
Congress stepped in with bill amendments to continue the VET TEC program past the end of the pilot period (the five-year pilot will end in April 2024), but according to the OIG report, the bills don’t prevent “the concurrent receipt of educational benefits, including monthly housing allowance payments.”
If you’d like to read the whole report, go to http://tinyurl.com/43z96am2.
(c) 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.
