Lack of leadership to blame for the VA's botched 'Forever GI Bill' rollout, report says

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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs failed to modify its electronic systems and lacked an accountable official to oversee implementation of the "Forever GI Bill," resulting in a bungled rollout last year that affected thousands of college students, a new report from the agency's Inspector General says.

The Forever GI Bill, officially called the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017, was approved unanimously in both chambers of Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in the summer of 2017.

The law changed how education benefits are to be applied for veterans, revising the formula that determines students' stipend amounts and removing a 15-year expiration date included in the previous version of the law.

However, beginning in August, the VA's system could not handle the intricacies of those changes across more than 400,000 claims, the report said. The result was that some students were underpaid and, in some cases, not paid at all.

In November, the VA decided to delay full implementation until Dec. 1, 2019.

According to the Inspector General's report, the VA's failure to appoint an accountable official to lead implementation of the program resulted in "unclear communication of implementation progress and inadequately defined expectations, roles and responsibilities of the various VA business lines and contractors involved."

Additionally, investigators found that the VA's Office of Information and Technology and the Veterans Benefits Administration Education Service did not agree on how to solve problems once they arose.

Investigators found a 10-month gap from the time the Forever GI Bill became law and when the VA received the computer software to implement it. During those months, the VA worked with contractor Booz Allen Hamilton to develop the program.