After that, it’ll be up to the rest of the committee to turn them into law.

The quality of life panel — led by Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa. — was formed in early 2023 as a way to evaluate military policies and shortfalls that may be discouraging individuals from reenlisting.

Over the last nine months, the panel held a host of roundtables with Pentagon leaders, military families and outside advocates on ways to address those concerns. That included a briefing in late November on base daycare options.

Better pay for junior troops will be top focus of new House panel

At a Nov. 15 event hosted by the political action group With Honor, Bacon and Houlahan said they are considering a host of proposals to add into next year’s defense authorization bill debate, including military sabbaticals for outside job opportunities or family care, more tax exemptions for military pay, and more flexibility for troops in their future duty assignments.

They also are upset over continued reports of housing problems at bases across the country. Bacon blamed some of the problems on a lack of accountability for the issue among senior leaders.

Just how many of those ideas can advance into actual legislation remains to be seen. Senior Republican leaders said the quality of life changes will be key in recruiting and retention efforts. But they also spent most of 2023 focused on social issues in the personnel section of the annual defense budget bill.

Bacon and Houlahan are likely to be key voices throughout the spring in hearings on the quality of life topics. A draft of the authorization bill — including any possible recommendations from the panel — is expected in May or June.

After passing a short-term budget extension in early November, lawmakers are again faced with the possibility of disruptions in military funding and government operations if they can’t come to an agreement over a full-year budget plan in the next few weeks. And their decisions in early January could cause problems for the fiscal 2025 budget before work on that spending plan even begins.

Fiscal 2024 began on Oct. 1, so federal agencies are already nearly three months into new spending cycles without appropriate changes in their funding plans. Pentagon leaders have said that means some new programs and purchases have been delayed until a new full-year budget plan is passed.

When that will happen is unclear. Congress actually faces a pair of potential shutdown deadlines in the next few weeks.

The short-term spending deal approved in November extended funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a few other agencies until Jan. 19. If a budget deal is not reached before then, only those offices would be forced into partial closure.

House votes to prevent a government shutdown

Meanwhile, VA does have advance appropriations to keep hospitals, benefits offices and most other operations going past that date. So, a partial government shutdown in late January may have a limited impact on military and veteran families.

But Defense Department funding — as well as Homeland Security and the rest of the government — only runs until Feb. 2. If a budget deal is not reached before then, troops’ paychecks will halt, non-essential base services will shutter and family moves will be postponed.

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have said they hope to avoid that, but they remain far apart on a compromise.

House Republican leaders have insisted that spending limits must be part of any full-year budget deal. White House officials have insisted that lawmakers follow the budget outlines agreed upon early last summer, as part of the debt limit extension deal.

Typically, work begins on the next year’s federal budget plan in early February. In 2024, lawmakers may still not have last year’s work finished by that time.

Lawmakers earlier this year backed plans for a 5.2% pay raise for all service members on Jan. 1, the largest annual pay raise in 22 years. The boost is not a result of congressional or executive branch generosity, but instead reflects the federal formula tying military salaries to civilian pay trends.

By that formula, the 2025 pay raise for troops should be 4.5%, the third consecutive year of pay hikes above 4% for military members.

White House officials or members of Congress could change that increase in their budget battles over coming months, either raising it to make up for higher cost-of-living concerns or dropping it to save money for other military priorities. But that has not happened since the early 2010s.

Pay boosts for junior troops not yet a priority for Pentagon planners

Lawmakers are more likely to keep the 4.5% raise mark and instead focus on targeted increases for troops with high-demand skills and junior enlisted personnel, a group whose annual base pay typically does not top $30,000.

Last summer, House Republicans advanced legislation to guarantee that even the lowest-ranking service members make at least $31,000. But the legislation was opposed by the White House, in part because of questions surrounding the cost and the other compensation those troops receive — things like housing stipends and enlistment bonuses.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s special military quality of life panel, has said he plans to make the junior enlisted pay issue a key focus of the committee’s work on the annual defense authorization bill this summer.

Pentagon leaders have pushed to postpone the debate until they complete their Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, a periodic review of troops’ pay and benefits. But work from that group isn’t expected to be finished until January 2025. Bacon has said the issue needs to be addressed sooner.

Work on the authorization bill is expected to start in February, but delays in Congress passing a full federal budget for fiscal 2024 could delay some of those hearings and debates.

The findings come as the Department of Veterans Affairs continues to see its annual disability compensation costs rise each year. In fiscal 2022, those payouts totaled $125 billion, almost 45% of all department spending.

Veterans with disability ratings can span a range of ailments, including physical wounds, illnesses linked to military toxic exposure, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2022, about 30% of all veterans in America had some compensable service-connected disability.

CBO researchers found that contrary to stereotypes, a veteran collecting disability payouts is more likely to be younger than the average veteran, be married, and to have a college degree. About one in five veterans with any disability rating are not in the American workforce.

Most Americans respect vets but would not recommend enlisting

Based on census reports and available VA data, CBO said the average earnings for male veterans with a disability rating in 2019 was $52,200 — roughly $10,200 (16%) below that of non-disabled veterans.

However, the range of earnings for those injured and infirm veterans varied widely. Veterans with low disability ratings (10% or 20%) averaged about $3,100 more than their non-disabled peers, a 5% increase. Those with ratings 70% or higher earned nearly 40% less than non-disabled peers.

The report found similar trends with women veterans. Non-disabled veterans averaged $42,900 in annual earnings. Women veterans with a 10% or 20% rating were about $2,300 higher (5%), while those with a rating of 70% or more were $16,000 lower (38%).

The difference typically comes down to an individual’s ability to work, according to the report. Veterans with low disability ratings average about $2,300 in payouts from VA over the course of a year, but have been able to maintain full-time jobs and keep pace with their peers.

“Veterans with a rating of 10 percent or 20 percent probably had relatively minor service-connected medical conditions (such as scars or tinnitus) that did not affect their ability to work,” researchers wrote.

Conversely, veterans with high disability ratings averaged $29,200 in payouts but “had the lowest labor force participation rate,” restricting them to part-time employment or no steady work.

Researchers found similar earnings trends among veterans attending college full-time or part-time, although income from other sources — such as the VA’s GI Bill benefits — played a large role in those financial totals.

Report authors did not draw any conclusions about whether any changes are needed in the veterans compensation system but said that the findings will “allow policymakers and others to compare the financial security of veterans receiving disability payments with that of veterans not receiving payments as a way to gauge the importance of that compensation.”

The full report is available online at the CBO website.

According to data released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Friday, officials saw an increase of more than 2,400 veterans without stable housing during their annual point-in-time count conducted last January.

That put the total number of veterans experiencing homelessness that night in cities across America at 35,574. Advocates for homeless veterans have noted that the actual number of veterans dealing with housing issues is likely even higher, given the limitations of the single-night survey.

The increase in homeless veterans, meanwhile, was less severe than the rise in homelessness in the general population (12%) and is still 4.5% below veteran levels reported in 2020. The 35,574 estimate is also less than half the 74,000 estimate in 2010, when the White House and Department of Veterans Affairs launched a series of high-profile initiatives targeting the problem.

VA again found homes for 38K struggling vets in 2023

But the point-in-time count took place several months before the expiration of pandemic programs offering extra assistance to veterans facing financial hardships, a move that advocates have warned may have driven up homelessness totals even further in the last half-year.

In a statement, VA Secretary Denis McDonough announced the White House plans to increase a pair of grant programs designed to prevent housing issues among veterans.

“One veteran experiencing homelessness will always be one too many, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that veterans get the safe, stable housing that they deserve,” he said. “These new grants are a critical part of that effort, empowering VA and our partners to provide more housing and wraparound services to more homeless and at-risk veterans than ever before.”

Last month, VA leaders announced that for the second year in a row they had met their goal of permanently housing 38,000 veterans facing financial problems and uncertain shelter options. However, those efforts in 2022 were not enough to help reduce the national numbers.

VA and HUD officials said they are still researching the reasons for the increase, including the rising cost of housing in communities across the country and the end of COVID-related support programs.

Earlier this week, HUD leaders announced the number of grants to homeless service organizations rose 15% from the end of 2022 to the end 2023. That translates into more than 330,000 individuals who sought assistance.

In a statement, officials from the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans called the new homelessness report disappointing but not surprising.

“These numbers reflect what many have long known, we are facing a crisis of housing affordability,” they said. “NCHV, our members across the country, and our national partners have long sounded the alarm regarding the seriousness of this crisis and the need for further and deeper federal investment in solutions.

“The administration and Congress should heed continued warnings that a lack of investment and programmatic change will continue to be disastrous for veterans facing housing instability. Congress must restore expired pandemic-era legislative provisions to improve veteran access to both transitional housing and supportive services.”

Veterans seeking help with homelessness or related financial problems can call 877-424-3838 for help or visit the department’s web site.

Those are the seemingly contradictory findings of a new report from the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute released this week. Researchers found that while most Americans had generally positive views of veterans and few negative stereotypes about them, they also were reluctant to recommend that others follow their example.

“It is one thing to hold military members in high esteem in the abstract, but it is something altogether different to recommend military service as a career path,” the researchers wrote. “Having an all volunteer force means that serving is an occupational choice, one that fewer and fewer Americans appear to be willing to make.”

The 2022 survey of more than 2,400 people found that roughly 54 percent said they would discourage someone they know from enlisting in the military, although more than 61 percent said they would encourage those same individuals if they wanted to attend a service academy or enter a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program.

Most young vets think it’s time to retire ‘Thank you for your service’

Researchers said they did not collect clear data on the reasons for the split, but said that across all questions, about one-quarter of individuals surveyed would not recommend signing up for any military service.

That comes despite findings that “perceptions of veterans by the public are overwhelmingly positive,” according to the report. Roughly 67% of respondents stated that veterans are more hardworking and more reliable than the rest of society. More than half described veterans as self-disciplined, responsible, practical and self-reliant.

“There is a general feeling of deservingness of respect and policy support from the public and government among the public when it comes to veterans, stemming from perceptions of sacrifice,” the report stated.

“The survey data we examined suggest that fears about the public holding outsize negative stereotypes about veterans are unwarranted, and most stereotypes held are in fact overwhelmingly positive.”

The only negative stereotype with a sizable backing in the survey was the idea that veterans may be violent towards themselves. Of individuals surveyed, 46% believed that veterans were likely to cause self-harm, in part driven by public perception of post-traumatic stress problems among military members.

Authors of the study said the findings are significant now given the recruiting challenges facing the military. Army, Navy and Air Force officials all missed their recruiting goals for fiscal 2023.

“The public’s willingness to consider joining the military or recommending that others join is likely to be influenced to some degree by how they think of veterans,” the report stated. “Holding more-positive stereotypes toward veterans is associated with higher probability of recommending joining the military, and holding more-negative stereotypes reduces the probability.”

The full report is available on the RAND website.

The National Association of Black Military Women and left-leaning legal organizations have weighed in on the lawsuits against the U.S. Military Academy and the Naval Academy, filing briefs in defense of the academies’ use of race as a factor in admissions decisions, often known as affirmative action.

In June, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that affirmative action in higher education violated the clause of the Constitution guaranteeing equal protection under the law. But Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a footnote that the decision didn’t apply to the military’s service academies, which presented “potentially distinct interests.”

The footnote left the door open for litigation seeking to ban affirmative action in those military institutions.

A group opposed to affirmative action has walked through that door, suing two service academies for considering race as an admissions factor, arguing the policy is unfair and illegal. The National Association of Black Military Women’s recent briefs defend the policy, making the case that racism still exists in the military and racially diverse leaders can ameliorate it.

“For people to think that there is no racism in the military, that’s a false narrative,” retired Army Col. Irma Cooper, the association’s vice president for operations, said on Friday.

Service academies exempt from Supreme Court affirmative action ruling

In the fall, Students for Fair Admissions, the same anti-affirmative-action advocacy group that successfully challenged affirmative action in civilian universities, turned its attention to the service academies. It filed lawsuits against the Army’s U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for what it characterized as unlawful racial discrimination.

The National Association of Black Military Women, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund argued in a friend-of-the court brief filed Nov. 29 that affirmative action at the U.S. Military Academy, which educates future Army officers, was “critical to the success of Black women in the military and to the military’s success.”

Friend-of-the-court briefs, also known as amicus briefs, are filed by entities that aren’t directly involved in a case but share their insight or expertise.

Nearly the same set of groups, with the difference being the addition of the ACLU Foundation of Maryland and the subtraction of the New York Civil Liberties Union, on Dec. 6 filed a similar brief in the case against the Naval Academy. That academy educates future officers for the Navy and Marine Corps.

The use of race in admissions

In arguing that affirmative action is necessary, the amicus briefs point to the low number of Black and Hispanic officers relative to Black and Hispanic enlisted troops.

Black troops made up 19% of enlisted active-duty service members in 2022 but only 9% of officers, according to data from the Pentagon.

The briefs quote service members of color recounting instances of racism they say they experienced, including offensive language and apparently disparate treatment in the military justice system.

Retired Army Col. Annette Tucker Osborne, president of the National Association of Black Military Women, says in the briefs that when her new commander on a deployment to Kuwait met her for the first time, he looked at her and back at her resume, over and over and over. In Tucker Osborne’s view, the commander was “unable to equate a Black woman with the well-polished and extremely qualified person on paper.”

“I was asked three times, ‘Did you complete Army War College?” she said in a Friday interview with Military Times. “I told you the first time. You didn’t have to ask me three times in front of the whole group of military personnel.”

On that six-month deployment, young white soldiers often wouldn’t salute Tucker Osborne, a full-bird colonel, she said.

Founded in 1976, the National Association of Black Military Women is an organization “dedicated to giving voice to Black military women across the nation.”

The association’s briefs argue racially diverse leaders can foster a better culture for more junior service members of color.

The U.S. Military Academy maintained in a court filing that affirmative action, by increasing racial diversity in the officer corps, also prevents internal racial tensions, boosts recruitment and retention, and builds the military’s legitimacy in the eyes of the nation and the globe.

Students for Fair Admissions has argued the opposite: that considering race in admissions undermines the internal and external trust in the military and amounts to racial stereotyping.

“America’s enemies do not fight differently based on the race of the commanding officer opposing them, soldiers must follow orders without regard to the skin color of those giving them, and battlefield realities apply equally to all soldiers regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin,” the group wrote in a September filing.

And because race helps some applicants, race necessarily hurts other applicants, Students for Fair Admissions argued.

“That’s illegal,” the group wrote.

The service academies’ admissions officers insisted in court filings that race isn’t the determinative factor in deciding whether to admit or deny students.

To get accepted to the academies, applicants must not only meet the academic and physical standards but also receive official nominations, often from members of Congress.

Race can help students get letters of assurance, early conditional acceptances for “outstanding” applicants, according to the admissions officers. It could play a role in the academy’s decision to provide its handful of direct nominations, though those are typically reserved for standout athletes. And it can be a “plus factor” in final admissions decisions.

Students for Fair Admissions wrote that the academies should pursue race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action. The group described affirmative action as “racial box-checking” and “racial pseudoscience” because it relies on broad racial classifications like “Hispanic” and “Asian” that encompass a huge variety of ethnic backgrounds.

Nearly 19% of the military’s active duty officers are service academy grads, but that percentage falls to approximately 13% for Black officers, according to Pentagon data from 2019. ROTC programs at civilian universities are the leading source of officers’ commissions overall.

Next steps

Students for Fair Admissions is seeking preliminary injunctions that would order the Army’s and Navy’s service academies to cease using race as a factor in admissions immediately.

For that to happen, Judge Philip Halpern in New York and Judge Richard Bennett in Maryland would have to decide that Students for Fair Admissions’ arguments should win on the merits, and that waiting for the typical legal process to run its course would create harm that couldn’t be repaired.

Students for Fair Admissions, which is representing two anonymous white high schoolers who would like to apply to West Point, has said the judges need to act now. One of those students is applying in this admissions cycle and might miss out on a spot that he would have gotten if he weren’t white, the group argued in the complaint.

“Unless West Point is ordered to stop using race as a factor in admissions, [his] race will prevent him from competing for admission on an equal footing,” Students for Fair Admissions wrote.

Lawyers for Students for Fair Admissions didn’t respond to a Military Times request for an interview.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department’s Civil Division are representing the academies. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the New York office, declined to comment. The Civil Division didn’t respond by time of publication to a Military Times request for comment.

Whether or not the judges decide to end affirmative action in the academies immediately, it’s likely those decisions will get appealed, Sarah Hinger, an ACLU attorney who worked on the amicus briefs, told Military Times on Thursday.

The cases likely will one day end up before the Supreme Court, in Hinger’s view.

Although six of the nine Supreme Court justices voted in June to scrap affirmative action in civilian universities, the service academy cases would force them to balance a desire to enforce equal protection consistently with the norm of courts deferring to the military, Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor, wrote in Bloomberg in September.

“It’s likely to be a close call, but consider: If there had been five firm votes on the court for striking down the military’s use of affirmative action, there would have been no need for Roberts to exclude the academies from June’s decision,” Feldman wrote.

The case in the Southern District of New York is Students for Fair Admissions v. United States Military Academy at West Point et al (7:23-cv-08262).

The case in the District of Maryland is Students for Fair Admissions v. The United States Naval Academy et al (1:23-cv-02699).

They’re also poised to write their biggest check ever to their sole wreath supplier, a Maine company owned by the founders of the charity whose main source of income is donations to the non-profit.

Wreaths Across America and the Worcester Wreath Company are open about the relationship, advertising for each other on their websites. Both have filed appropriate disclosures and tax forms and have received no pushback from the Internal Revenue Service or state tax officials.

But as the operation has grown from a regional volunteer effort to a nationwide campaign bringing in more than $30 million annually — more than double its 2017 total — so have questions about whether the close ties between the non-profit group and for-profit company undercut the charitable message of the effort.

“You often see a small charity where some of the insiders still work for a related company or the founders and get paid,” said Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe chair in accounting at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business. “The unusual part here is the scale. That an organization of this size would still have such a large portion of its budget in the form of transactions with related persons raises questions.”

The idea for Wreaths Across America grew from a decision by Worcester Wreath owner Morrill Worcester in the 1990s to donate extra holiday wreaths to Arlington National Cemetery. As the tradition attracted more attention, the company split off the work into a charitable arm, still maintaining ties with its founders.

Over the years, major donors such as American Airlines, Chevrolet and Jersey Mike’s Subs have handed over hundreds of thousands of dollars. In contrast to the early years of the operation, today the two entities have flipped roles, with the charity drawing national headlines and the private wreath firm relying mostly on the organization for revenue.

“If it is the case that the for-profit vendor would collapse or need to significantly downsize were it to lose the business of the charity, it is a glaring conflict of interest to have owners of that vendor on the charity’s board or in key staff positions,” said Laurie Styron, CEO and executive director of CharityWatch, an independent charity watchdog group.

“The owners and their close relatives should either sell off their financial interests in the for-profit vendor, or the interested parties should resign from the charity and allow an independent board to recruit leaders in whom the public can have confidence in their capacity to act independently.”

Buying wreaths

The charity’s goals and operations are straightforward. The group has a stated mission to “remember the men and women who served our country, honor our military and their families, and teach our children about our freedom and those who protect it.”

Charity officials say they try to advance those goals through a series of education events throughout the year, but the wreath distribution every December is its highest profile initiative. Nearly 3 million volunteers are expected to take part in wreath laying activities this weekend.

The arrival of wreaths at Arlington Cemetery this week is a multi-day media event, with lengthy rules for an expected rush of news crews and photojournalists documenting the thousands of volunteers and wreaths.

Individuals and groups who participate in Wreaths Across America events each December receive all of their wreaths through the charity. Donors pay $17 for each one, with $5 going back to civic and youth groups helping with sales. WAA officials say that arrangement has raised $22 million over the last 15 years for local charities and civic groups beyond wreath laying activities.

In fiscal 2021, the charity sent nearly $21.5 million to Worcester Wreath. Company officials have said publicly that the Wreaths Across America contract makes up more than 75% of their annual revenue.

Worcester Wreath officials said they donate 30% of their profits to the charity and other local veterans groups, but much of that profit comes from the contract with WAA. This year, the charity expects to place nearly 3 million wreaths on gravesites at more than 4,200 locations nationwide, all bought from the Maine supplier.

Four board members of Wreaths Across America — including Karen Worcester, the executive director — are related to the owners of Worcester Wreath. Charity officials in tax filings say those members “recused themselves from discussion and vote of the agreement between the organization and Worcester Wreath.”

Amber Caron, director of communications for WAA, said the wreath production contract is handled by a third-party vendor and overseen by a special subcommittee of the board.

“This process is public and executed every three years,” she said. “It is open to any wreath company to submit a bid, nationwide. Up until this point, it has not been deemed necessary by the [subcommittee] and advisor to have more than one vendor to meet the needs of the program.”

Caron said if the charity’s third-party advisers recommend moving away from Worcester Wreath or adding other companies to help with the inventory, “we will consider all options that are in the best interest of the organization.”

But thus far, that has not happened. Wreaths laid in cemeteries as far away as California or Montana are shipped from the Worcester Wreath property in Maine through a series of donated and contracted shipping arrangements. Costs associated with the “Honor Fleet,” as WAA leaders call them, are factored into the sponsorship packages.

Charitable concerns

The financial relationship between Worcester Wreath and Wreaths Across America has been whispered about in the veterans community, but has not led to any public confrontations. The charity counts dozens of high-profile military and veterans support groups among their partners, and thousands of their members will be among the volunteers laying wreaths this weekend. The Military Times Foundation donated $15,000 in free advertising to Wreaths Across America in 2023.

Paul Streckfus, editor of EO Tax Journal, said the Internal Revenue Service does not require that a tax-exempt organization have an independent board or exclude employees whose family members may have related business interests. Such arrangements may draw extra scrutiny, he added, but in themselves are not improper.

Mittendorf, however, said a separate issue is the idea of groups breaking faith with donors who believe their charitable contributions are being spent to maximize the good done, and not to support for-profit ventures.

“They have an obligation to support their public purpose, and to avoid appearances of conflicts of interest in that,” he said. “Even if they’re operating in a way that doesn’t cross into something that’s impermissible, it may create an appearance of conflict of interest. And that makes it difficult in trying to maintain public trust.”

CharityWatch has written about concerns regarding WAA and Worcester Wreath. Styron, the CEO, said given the connections between the two, the non-profit should be following more rigorous auditing and reporting practices to prove it is operating responsibly.

“There is too much financial interest concentrated in one family’s company to inspire confidence that the charity’s board will act with true independence given the close family ties the charity reports among key staff,” she said.

A volunteer army

Wreath laying events connected with the charity are organized through local site officials, and not through the Department of Veterans Affairs or DOD as a whole. Officials at Arlington National Cemetery — the largest single site event — said they have no consultation with Wreaths Across America on their internal operations.

Arlington cemetery staffers do help publicize the annual wreath laying and coordinate with the WAA on logistics of the event. But in a statement, cemetery officials said that “the wreaths are not purchased by the Army, therefore the usual laws and regulations regarding Department of Defense procurements are not applicable.”

About 60,000 volunteers are expected at the cemetery on Saturday for this year’s wreath layings, making it one of the busiest days of the year at the hallowed site. Caron said another 4,217 sites have signed up to participate in the event as well, up more than 500 from 2022.

Ahead of this year’s event, Wreaths Across America sent 13 tractor trailers carrying wreaths, Gold Star family members and corporate sponsor signs through eight states and the District of Columbia.

The caravan, which launched Sunday from Harrington, Maine — home of Worcester Wreath — is scheduled to arrive at Arlington Cemetery on Thursday morning.

“We’ve been parked on more than 6,000 veteran deaths for 20 years now, and that’s way too many,” said Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, and a Navy veteran, during a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing. “We’ve known the underlying factors. So why is it, 20 years later, we’re just now trying some new approaches?”

Last month, Department of Veterans Affairs researchers said the suicide rate among veterans rose slightly in 2021 despite continued focus on the problem from agency leaders and programming. An estimated 17.5 veterans died by suicide every day in 2021, which translates into nearly 6,400 preventable veteran deaths that year.

That total was the second lowest since 2007, a point that VA officials have emphasized in recent weeks to downplay concerns about the still-high numbers.

Veteran suicides rose in 2021 despite increased prevention efforts

But lawmakers said incremental improvements aren’t enough given the thousands of veterans being lost to suicide.

“You guys need to do more,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisc., and a Navy veteran, told VA officials testifying at the hearing. “If that means we halve your staff, take those salaries and benefits and give it to outside groups, then that’s it. … I understand you’re trying, but if you’re not showing results, you have to go.”

VA officials defended department efforts, noting the complexity of the problem of suicide prevention and the significant effort focused on the problem.

“This is our top clinical priority and our top priority, period,” said Dr. Erica Scavella, VA’s assistant undersecretary for health for clinical services. “We’re committed to fixing this.”

Part of that work has been distributing $174 million in suicide prevention grants to community groups over a five-year period. In September, VA announced the $52 million in new grants to 80 community-based organizations in 43 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and American Samoa. These organizations receive up to $750,000 and provide non-clinical support to veterans and families.

Ken Falke, founder and chairman of Boulder Crest Foundation — a grant recipient — said the grant program is a step forward but remains too restrictive and too limited in its scope.

His organization runs 48 “post-traumatic growth” programs for veterans nationwide, but the grant limits mean that only 12 of them can be funded with federal support. Several lawmakers questioned whether money for other VA-run outreach efforts would be better spent in those kinds of established community programs.

But committee members warned that groups need to show they are producing results with taxpayer money to justify future funding.

“VA isn’t going to solve this problem by itself,” said Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Calif. “This program could be wildly successful, but it could be a financial failure as well. We have to approach this in a data-driven, continuous improvement model, to make sure every grantee is continually improving that program. And I don’t know if VA has the capability to do that.”

Department officials expect to issue a report on the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program early next year, ahead of congressional debates on whether to reauthorize — or increase — the program.

Veterans in need of emergency counseling can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and selecting option 1 after connecting to reach a VA staffer. In addition, veterans, troops or their family members can also text 838255 for help, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.

“Growing up, many of my neighbors in Milwaukee were World War II or North Korea veterans, and I had an idea of what service meant because they always spoke to me,” said Maj. Gen. Johnny Davis, head of Army Recruiting Command, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“That’s not the same today. I’ve served all over the world, and I’ve moved with my family. We’ve often been the only Army family in neighborhoods off post.”

Army, Navy and Air Force leaders missed their recruiting goals for fiscal 2023. The Marine Corps and Space Force met their targets, but acknowledged that matching those numbers for this fiscal year will again be a challenge.

Half of US would recommend military service to loved ones, report says

The slipping interest in joining the armed forces comes as public perception of the military continues to decline, according to recent national polling. Roughly 46% of Americans questioned in the annual Reagan National Defense Survey said they have a great deal of confidence in the American military, a near steady decline from 70% in 2018.

Survey respondents blamed politics creeping into military policies for part of the problem. Among Republicans, more than one-third (38%) said the institution is “too focused on social issues at the expense of a focus on warfighting.” About half of Democrats surveyed (53%) said the military is not appropriately balancing a focus on warfighting and social issues.

The military has been the center of a host of high-profile social debates in recent years, including fights over coronavirus vaccinations, diversity training, abortion access and transgender rights.

But pressed on the topic by senators, military representatives said they are not hearing complaints about politics invading the ranks from potential recruits.

“That does not resonate with the issues that are on the minds of our recruits or what we are hearing from our recruiting force,” said Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein, commander of Air Force Recruiting Service.

Instead, service officials said, recruiters complain about inconsistent access at high schools and colleges, limiting their opportunities to explain military service to young men and women. And potential recruits have basic questions about military life, benefits and post-service career expectations that, if unanswered, shut down interest in enlisting.

“Forty years ago, if you had 10 dinner tables in a neighborhood, those dinner tables would each have a parent who served or a teacher who served or someone else who served. Today, it’s only one in 10,” said Rear Adm. Alexis Walker, head of Navy Recruiting Command.

“So, we are trying to fill that narrative space, talk about the positive benefits of service and get out that message that isn’t happening around the dinner table anymore.”

Officials said they are aggressively partnering with veterans organizations and other civic groups in an attempt to better spread that message. But they also acknowledged that other marketing and incentives will be needed to turn around the lackluster recruiting figures of recent years.

Officials said they are still working to correct those errors and process those claims as quickly as possible. But House lawmakers raised concerns about the scope of the problems, some of which date back more than a decade.

“Mistakes are bound to happen,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s panel on technology, during a hearing on the topic on Monday. “But it’s unacceptable that some of these errors persisted for years before anyone discovered them.”

In late August, VA officials announced that roughly 32,000 disability claims had been lost in the VA.gov computer systems for several months or years. Two weeks later, department leaders found 57,000 more lost cases, most involving veterans who tried to add or remove dependents on existing disability claims.

More technical problems found with VA’s disability claims system

On Monday, Veterans Affairs Chief Information Officer Kurt DelBene said that further reviews have found about 81,000 dependency claims misdirected within the computer system, as well as several thousand other cases in other categories.

He promised fixes as quickly as possible.

“VA.gov is the digital front door, and veterans need to have confidence and trust that their benefits and services are available, accurate, and secure,” he said.

About 26,500 of the outstanding dependency cases have now been processed and completed, and 22,500 of the outstanding disability claims finished, he said.

The department’s VA.gov site fields more than 14 million inquiries each month. VA staffers have blamed the past mistakes on software errors compounded by a lack of regular monitoring for potential problems.

While individuals whose cases were processed late can be eligible for retroactive payouts back to the original date they tried to file, the delay of months or years for those cases to be processed could have caused significant financial hardship for some veterans and their families.

Rosendale said he intends to file new legislation forcing closer oversight of the online benefits systems to avoid similar problems in the future.

“We all need to be confident that errors in VA.gov and other systems will never again be allowed to compound undetected and impact so many people,” he said.

Meanwhile, DelBene said he hopes the department will be able to process most of the remaining unaddressed cases before the end of the month.

Conference committee members began their inter-chamber work on the massive military budget policy bill on Wednesday. By late last week, leaders from the House and Senate Armed Services Committee said only a few disagreements remained, and were expected to be worked out early this week.

Those conflicts largely revolve around fights over abortion access policies, diversity training in the military and other social issues inserted into the House draft of the authorization bill. Senate Democrats have been opposed to those changes.

But both Republicans and Democrats are focused on finding a way to finish the work. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., vowed ahead of last week’s conference work that “we will enact an authorization bill this year.” Despite partisan fights on Capitol Hill, the measure has advanced out of Congress for more than 60 consecutive years.

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In a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough on Thursday, the group of 51 House and Senate lawmakers urged the department to follow the lead of the Health and Human Services authorities who have already issued regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.

The move was mandated under the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, but VA officials have not put in place similar protections.

“We believe that our nation’s heroes are entitled to the same anti-discrimination protections as civilians using other federal health programs,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is of utmost importance that the VA act without delay.”

Transgender vets threaten to sue VA over delay in surgery options

The effort was led by Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. In a statement, Cherfilus-McCormick said the change is an opportunity for VA leaders to “send a clear, resounding, and enforceable message that no form of discrimination is ever to be tolerated.”

Department officials did not have an immediate response to the letter. Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, VA leaders have repeatedly promised to make department services accessible and welcoming to all veterans, regardless of their background.

The congressional letter follows a petition from 14 veteran and civil rights groups pushing for the changes, saying the anti-discrimination policies are long overdue.

“These rules should be diligently communicated, leaving no room for ambiguity, and enforced across all levels of the organization,” said Rachel Branaman, interim executive director of the Modern Military Association. “Veterans, regardless of their background, deserve health care experiences that are uniformly positive, accessible, and responsive to their unique needs.”

Blumenthal said that minority veterans are particularly vulnerable to refusal of care or discrimination in services.

In addition, medical options for transgender veterans and reproductive health care services for women veterans have faced renewed scrutiny from conservative lawmakers in recent budget bills.

“I don’t like to ask our employees to work mandatory overtime, but I like less to have veterans wait for their benefits,” said Willie Clark, deputy under secretary for field operations at the Veterans Benefits Administration. “So we are keeping mandatory overtime for now … Our hope is downstream we can rely on it less.”

VA officials said they are pushing to hire more staff and find ways to ensure current employees aren’t burnt out by the flood of cases coming in. Staffers processed a record number of disability claims in fiscal 2023 and appear to be on pace to break that high mark again this fiscal year.

Clark said that before Oct. 1, department workers three times processed more than 9,000 claims in a single day. Since Oct. 1, benefits specialists have handled more than 9,000 claims 18 times.

Vets tap businesses for VA disability claims help, but there’s a cost

Much of that increased workload are new military toxic exposure claims filed through the the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — better known as the PACT Act — signed into law in August 2022. More than 750,000 new claims on that topic have been filed in the last 13 months.

As a result, the number of backlogged claims — cases taking more than 120 days to complete — has risen steadily in recent months, to more than 319,000 this week, VA officials said. Clark said that figure is expected to rise “between 450,000 and 700,000 next year.”

The previous high in backlogged claims was set in 2013, when the overdue caseload reached 611,00 after a flood of claims from Vietnam veterans for illnesses related to Agent Orange exposure. It also prompted intense scrutiny from Congress and forced an overhaul of benefits processes, including digitizing the department’s records system.

Clark said he expects the backlog to be under control again sometime in 2025. But that will likely require keeping up the agency’s current processing pace.

Since early 2022, nearly all claims staff have been required to work 20 hours of overtime every month to help with the workload. Exceptions are made for employees with disabilities or other obstacles, and Clark said “respite periods” in the summer and winter have been put in place in an effort to avoid burnout.

Leaders are also hoping that new processing efficiencies will help deal with the workload. And VA Secretary Denis McDonough said officials are planning to continue their push to grow the workforce this fiscal year, although he acknowledged that budget fights on Capitol Hill could disrupt those plans.

The news means that department staffers have helped house more than 78,000 homeless veterans since the start of 2022, part of a focused outreach campaign designed to target veterans in most need of immediate help.

In a statement, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the progress is encouraging but also underscores the challenges facing too many veterans in America today.

“While we met our goals for 2023, we’re not stopping here,” he said. “We’re going to keep pushing — through the end of this calendar year and beyond — until every veteran has a safe, stable place to call home in this country they fought to defend.”

The number of homeless vets dropped sharply over the last two years

According to the latest estimates from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, about 33,000 veterans across the country are without reliable housing options on any given night. That figure has dropped in recent years.

VA officials said since the start of 2022, department programs have helped nearly 192,000 veterans and family members avoid losing their homes because of financial reasons. They have also seen about 93% of the individuals placed in permanent housing remain in solid financial standing one year later.

Monica Díaz, executive director of the VA Homeless Programs Office, credited increased partnerships with local organizations for helping officials better reach and aid veterans.

“The need is there. I don’t think the need among veterans has changed,” she said. “And I think that need will continue to be prevalent. But if veterans have trust in the system and can come to us for help, that is a success.”

Finding affordable housing for veterans remains a challenge, Diaz said. Veterans Affairs officials will work in the future to find additional ways to partner with landlords and rental companies to expand those options.

Veterans seeking help with homelessness or related financial problems can call 877-424-3838 for help or visit the department’s web site.

Department leaders have not completely given up on the plan, but promised lawmakers on Nov. 22 that they will not implement the changes until February 2025 at the earliest. The new rules had been set to go into effect by mid-February 2024.

VA press secretary Terrence Hayes said leaders are making the reimbursement changes “to better align with the rest of the health care industry.” A VA inspector general report from 2018 found the department had been paying 60% more than typical industry rates for air ambulance services, potentially wasting taxpayer money.

DoD misspent more than $100 million on ambulance rides, audit reveals

In remarks at the National Press Club earlier this month, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the goal of new reimbursement rules is not to cut costs for emergency medical care but instead to push local providers into formal contracts with VA for the services, ensuring stability and consistency in pricing.

“As near as we can tell, VA alone among all major health care systems in the country pays for each individual ambulance,” he said. “We’re just paying cash for each run.”

But industry opponents have said sharp cuts in reimbursement rates for ambulance services could severely cripple operations in rural areas, potentially even forcing the closure of some emergency response services.

And lawmakers have decried VA’s proposed fixes as too broad and possibly dangerous. In a statement, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Mont., hailed the one-year delay as critical time needed to work out disagreements between VA and the emergency services companies.

“The availability of emergency air and ground transportation services in Montana and rural America can be the difference between life and death,” he said. “VA’s hasty implementation of its rate change for these services could have been the final straw for providers in rural America, and I’m glad to see VA answering my call and taking steps to fix this reimbursement issue.”

Both the House and Senate are considering legislation on the issue. Lawmakers can now work on those proposals without a looming deadline early next year.

Ben Clayton, CEO of Life Flight Network, one of the groups involved in the lobbying efforts against the rule change, called the decision “a significant victory” for veterans.

“I look forward to working with the VA to ensure that reimbursement rates for air medical care are sustainable, protecting veteran access to this lifesaving service,” he said. “Although there is still work to be done, this delay reflects a genuine effort by the VA towards a solution.”

In November 2022, as part of outreach efforts mandated under the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — better known as the PACT Act — VA officials began administering toxic exposure screenings as part of regular veteran health care visits. VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal said this week that the department completed nearly 5 million total screenings in the last year.

About 40% of veterans surveyed reported potential health concerns related to burn pit smoke, Agent Orange poisoning, water contamination or other military toxic exposure threats during their time in the ranks, Elnahal said. That rate has remained steady over the course of the last 12 months.

“It’s connected to all generations,” he said. “This is really a confirmation of what advocates have been saying for years, that the denominator of veterans exposed to harmful substances is quite large.”

VA to screen all patients for toxic exposure issues

Veterans who voice concerns about problems during the screenings are not necessarily ill or injured now. But VA staff said the goal of the questionnaire is to head off potential serious health problems with early intervention and consistent monitoring.

Elnahal said VA staff have set up new referral procedures for individuals who show signs of toxic exposure injuries and additional training for clinicians on the topics.

“No clinician should be surprised when a veteran presents with a concern about an exposure and how that might relate to their health,” he said.

Department leaders hope to eventually use the data collected from the screenings to look for trends in military toxic exposure illness rates, potentially predicting which veterans may face more serious health consequences in the future.

The information will also be used to add more illnesses to the list of conditions presumed caused by military service, opening the door for veterans to more quickly and easily obtain disability benefits.

Elnahal said officials’ next push with the screenings will be to contact more veterans who do not regularly use VA for health care, to better gauge their medical status. About 3 million veterans are enrolled in VA health care but do not regularly visit any department medical offices.

In a letter to VA attorneys sent Monday, members of the Transgender American Veterans Association and Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic said the move may be necessary given the slow pace of work on the issue within the department. The groups said they want VA to unveil a formal rulemaking plan detailing when they will begin providing the surgeries.

“Transgender veterans have waited far too long for the medically necessary health care they require,” said Rebekka Eshler, president of TAVA, in a statement. “It is high time that Secretary McDonough follows through on his public promises to the transgender veteran community. Statements are nothing without action.”

The National Center for Transgender Equality has estimated that there are more than 134,000 transgender veterans in America today, and another 15,000 transgender individuals serving in the armed forces.

After two years, still no timeline for transgender surgeries at VA

In the past, VA officials have estimated that as many as 4,000 veterans nationwide would be interested in the procedures, also known as gender reassignment surgeries. The department does offer other support for transgender veterans, but those services have come under criticism from conservative lawmakers in recent months.

In July 2021, McDonough announced that the department for the first time would begin offering the surgeries at some department medical centers, part of a larger effort to make VA “more welcoming” to all veterans.

But in the 28 months since the announcement, no formal steps have been taken to move ahead with the medical procedures. In an interview with Military Times earlier this month, McDonough acknowledged the delay, saying he was still working through how to proceed on the issue.

“As the person who called for this and as the person who will be defending the policy when we do it, when I’m ready to move ahead, I’ll do it,” he said. “This is an important suite of care for vets.”

But TAVA officials — who first publicly called for action on the issue nearly eight years ago — said the delay unnecessarily endangers the health of transgender veterans.

“VA’s failure to provide gender confirmation surgery subjects transgender veterans, including TAVA members, to increased risk of physical harm, psychological distress, and suicide,” the groups wrote. “Forcing veterans to seek [surgery options] outside of VA facilities disrupts their continuity of care, resulting in financial, physical and emotional harm.”

VA officials have not said how much adding the surgeries to its available medical offerings would cost. Advocates said they plan to file legal action against the department in mid-December unless a plan forward is announced.

The agency handed out more than $1.1 billion in support to more than 2,800 veteran companies in fiscal 2023, an increase of roughly 40% in funding and 33% in total loan numbers since 2020. From fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2020, officials had seen declines in those figures.

SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman said in a statement that the uptick is both “a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of our American heroes and the SBA’s commitment to simplifying access, cutting red tape, and broadening our outreach network to meet the needs of entrepreneurs.”

The administration estimates that the country has about 1.9 million veteran-owned small businesses which employ about 5.5 million Americans, a small but significant portion of the country’s workforce.

Veteran small business start-ups need more federal and community support, advocates say

In June, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing the SBA to develop more tools to help would-be veteran entrepreneurs and military spouses looking to start their own businesses. The agency this year has already announced plans to add six new Veteran Business Outreach Centers to their existing network of 22 sites.

Guzman attended the opening ceremony of one new center in Long Beach, California, earlier this month as part of agency outreach efforts around Veterans Day. Another is set to open in Nevada before the end of the month.

SBA officials in recent months have also launched a new SBA Veteran Business Certification program to connect service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses with more federal contracting opportunities, and expanded existing entrepreneurship training programs with a focus on women veterans and disabled veterans.

More information on support services for veteran businesses is available on the SBA website.

The moves, announced Friday, came in response to an NPR report earlier this month which found thousands of veterans in danger of losing their homes because of the end of the Veterans Assistance Partial Claim Payment program in late 2022.

The program, established by Congress, allowed individuals to skip some mortgage payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the promise of making up those payments later. But when it was canceled, some mortgage companies demanded all of the back payments be paid quickly, leading to financial problems for those families.

NPR reported that about 6,000 individuals with VA home loans have already entered the foreclosure process as a result of the problems. It is unclear whether Friday’s actions will bring any relief to them.

Veteran suicides rose in 2021 despite increased prevention efforts

In a statement, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said the department will push all mortgage companies to pause foreclosures on VA-guaranteed loans through May 31, 2023. Department leaders will also extend the COVID-19 Refund Modification program through that date.

The modification program “will allow veterans to obtain a zero-interest, deferred-payment loan from VA to cover missed payments and modify their existing VA-guaranteed loan to achieve affordable monthly payments for the duration of this extension,” Hayes said. It was set to expire at the end of the year.

VA leaders are also launching a new VA Servicing Purchase program in coming months, designed to allow the department to purchase defaulted VA loans from mortgage servicers. That will allow federal officials to modify the loans and directly manage them, with the goal of finding ways to keep veterans from losing their homes.

Last week, a group of Democratic senators praised the new program as an important step in helping veterans, but warned that implementing the program will take time that many financially struggling veterans do not have.

“Tens of thousands of veterans and service members are left with no viable options to get back on track with payments and save their homes,” the senators wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “Stories from across the country show that this is already having severe consequences for veterans and their families.”

Hayes said department assistance efforts have helped about 145,000 veterans avoid foreclosure in the last year. The department typically guarantees more than 1 million home loans annually.

Veterans in need of housing assistance can visit the department’s website for more information.

According to estimates released by the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday, suicides among veterans were up 1.8% from 2020 to 2021, the most recent year for which state death data is available. The totals had dropped each of the two years before the 2021 reversal.

An estimated 17.5 veterans died by suicide every day in 2021. That’s the second lowest rate since 2007 but still translates into nearly 6,400 preventable veteran deaths that year.

Officials said stress from the coronavirus pandemic may be partially to blame for the increase, noting that suicide rates across America rose from 2020 to 2021. Researchers also found higher levels of gun ownership among all Americans in 2021, a complicating factor since most veteran suicide deaths involve firearms.

Suicide prevention campaign urges vets to ‘be the one’ who reaches out

But they emphasized that suicidal thoughts and actions are rarely the result of a single factor, and addressing the problem will require a complex array of support services and public education efforts.

More than 71,000 veterans died as a result of suicide from 2011 to 2021. That’s 10 times the total number of troops killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over 20 years.

“We will do everything in our power to learn from this report and use its findings to help us save lives,” VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal said in a statement accompanying the data release. “It will take all of us working together to end veteran suicide, and we will not rest until that goal becomes a reality.”

VA researchers found that veterans are nearly twice as likely as their civilian peers to die by suicide, a persistent trend in recent years that has led to billions of dollars in outreach and intervention programs over the last 20 years. But efforts to bring down those suicide totals have been limited and inconsistent.

Fewer than 40% of the suicide deaths among veterans involved individuals who had recently used VA health services. Department leaders said that points to the need for wider community involvement in helping veterans in times of crisis.

“VA health care is not the only part of the answer,” Elnahal said.

Researchers found lower rates of suicide among veterans aged 75 years and older and those 34 years and younger, both encouraging signs. But they also reported higher rates among women veterans, homeless veterans, American Indian and Alaska native veterans, and numerous other subsets of the veteran population.

In the last year, VA officials have launched several initiatives to help provide additional support services to veterans experiencing mental health emergencies. That includes offering no-cost suicide prevention care at any health care facility — VA managed or unaffiliated with the department — since January, an effort officials said has already helped 33,000 veterans.

The department has also increased campaigns focused on the safe storage of firearms, which were used in 72% of veteran suicides in 2021. By contrast, 54% of all U.S. suicide deaths in 2021 involved guns. These efforts have included distribution of more than 400,000 gun locks and lethal means safety training to about 2,300 community health care providers.

But Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, in a statement accompanying the report, acknowledged that more needs to be done on the issue.

“One veteran suicide will always be one too many, and we at VA will use every tool at our disposal to prevent these tragedies and save veterans’ lives,” he said.

Including suicide deaths among active-duty troops, National Guard personnel and military reserve members raises the suicide rate for the military and veterans community to about 20 individuals every day.

Some veterans advocates have argued that figure is likely much higher, because some drug overdose deaths and other accidental fatalities are not included in official federal calculations of suicides.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., called the report’s findings worrisome.

“Too many of our veterans are still suffering in silence,” he said in a statement. “While Congress has made an incredible investment in VA’s suicide prevention efforts over the past decade … this increase is still troubling.”

Bill Clark, national commander at AMVETS, called for large-scale changes in VA’s approach to suicide prevention in light of the lack of progress in addressing the problem over the last 20 years.

“We cannot afford to lose more lives while navigating bureaucratic processes,” he said. “We need swift, decisive action that puts the well-being of our veterans at the forefront.”

Veterans in need of emergency counseling can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and selecting option 1 after connecting to reach a VA staffer. In addition, veterans, troops or their family members can also text 838255 for help, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.

In a letter to Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the goal of the Veterans Crisis Line must be to “make sure that veterans get the support they need, whenever and wherever they need it” and that he takes the recent whistleblower allegations “very seriously.”

McDonough also committed to working with an upcoming Government Accountability Office investigation into the allegations.

On Wednesday, Moran voiced concerns about “gross mismanagement creating a danger to the health and safety of veterans nationwide” in the crisis line’s operations and called for a full examination of the service.

Vets calling crisis line get lost in system, whistleblowers warn

The Veterans Crisis Line has seen a rapid expansion in recent years, growing from about 900 full-time employees in early 2021 to more than 1,800 today. It has also seen a dramatic rise in demand since last summer, when federal officials launched a new three-digit dialing system — 988 — for individuals seeking emergency mental health care.

A group of current and former employees told Senate staff that the extra workload has prompted leadership at the Veterans Crisis Line to establish a special unit designed to handle “callers with complex needs.” Individuals who present erratic or hostile behavior towards VA staff can be sent to those specialists instead of going to the next available worker.

But the whistleblowers said the special unit is understaffed, and many of those rerouted calls are simply dropped or lost.

In his letter to Moran, McDonough said the special queue for complex callers was established in 2018 as a way to both provide specialized care to those individuals while ensuring that other callers and staff are not overwhelmed by their extra needs.

He wrote that operators are following industry best practices to help de-escalate tense situations through “selectively delayed responses,” and callers always have the option to receive immediate care if the situation demands it. He also said crisis line operations mandate “no break in record retention” with those callers, allowing operators to follow up if they are disconnected for any reason.

But Senate staff said the whistleblowers challenged that contention, saying that often veterans shifted to the complex cases queue leave before operators can collect any information, leaving the fate of callers uncertain. They also complained that rules for which callers should be routed to the specialists are vague, leading to some individuals being sent there unnecessarily.

VA officials said the special unit currently has 127 employees who have received an additional 32 hours of training to deal with the more complex cases. McDonough said leadership will increase that total in coming years if workload dictates that.

Moran said he was pleased with the secretary’s response but still concerned with the whistleblower accusations.

“This seems to be a significant problem,” he said. “If you’re on a crisis line, life and death is involved in those calls.”

The Veterans Crisis Line operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and bills itself as a consistent, reliable support service for veterans, troops and family members. Operators have responded to more than 6 million contacts since it launched in 2007 and issued more than 1 million referrals to local suicide prevention offices.

Veterans in need of emergency counseling can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and selecting option 1 after connecting to reach a VA staffer. In addition, veterans, troops or their family members can also text 838255 for help, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.

In a letter to Department of Veterans Affairs leadership sent Tuesday, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said the allegations represent “gross mismanagement creating a danger to the health and safety of veterans nationwide.”

Republican committee staffers said officials from the Government Accountability Office have already committed to investigating the claims, filed by multiple current and former staffers of the suicide prevention hotline to Moran’s office in recent weeks.

Veterans Affairs officials did not respond to requests for comment on the whistleblower complaints.

Suicide prevention campaign urges vets to ‘be the one’ who reaches out

The Veterans Crisis Line has seen a rapid expansion in recent years, growing from about 900 full-time employees in early 2021 to more than 1,800 today. It has also seen a dramatic rise in demand since last summer, when federal officials launched a new three-digit dialing system — 988 — for individuals seeking emergency mental health care.

Whistleblowers told Senate staff that extra workload has prompted leadership at the Veterans Crisis Line to establish a special unit designed to handle “callers with complex needs.” Individuals who present erratic or hostile behavior towards VA staff can be sent to those specialists instead of going to the next available worker.

But whistleblowers said the special unit is understaffed, and many of those rerouted calls are simply dropped or lost. Moran said those reports raise “grave concerns” about operations at the crisis line.

The number of callers affected is unknown because of incomplete record keeping with those interactions, Senate staff said. Whistleblowers said rules regarding when to transfer callers to specialists are also unclear.

The Veterans Crisis Line operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and bills itself as a consistent, reliable support service for veterans, troops and family members. Operators have responded to more than 6 million contacts since it launched in 2007 and issued more than 1 million referrals to local suicide prevention offices.

About 17 veterans a day die by suicide, according to the latest estimates by the Department of Veterans Affairs. That number grows to around 20 a day when active duty troops, Guardsmen and reservists are also factored in.

Veterans in need of emergency counseling can reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and selecting option 1 after connecting to reach a VA staffer. In addition, veterans, troops or their family members can also text 838255 for help, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.

Neither VA nor congressional sources named any of the individuals involved, but a department spokesman confirmed that more than one administrator was moved in response to the allegations. No one has been fired, but the staffers “have been moved to other positions while investigations are conducted.”

On Monday night, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., made public letters he sent to VA Secretary Denis McDonough detailing allegations of sexual harassment by an unnamed senior leader in the office. He said nearly seven weeks after his initial query about the accusations, agency leadership has yet to issue a formal response.

Lawmakers demand VA fire substandard staff faster

Committee officials said earlier this fall that two whistleblowers reached out to Congress to report “unwarranted sexually suggestive and aggressive messages” from a senior manager at the ORMDI. The allegations included threats and disparaging comments about one victim after she refused the advances.

Bost said both the accusations and lack of immediate response from VA leadership were upsetting.

“The disturbing allegations brought to my attention by VA whistleblowers suggesting that there has been sexual harassment in VA’s ORMDI office for at least a year are not in line with VA’s mission of being a place where dedicated public servants are able to care for and serve America’s veterans,” he said in a statement. “Should these allegations be true, those individuals have no place serving at VA, and they should be disciplined appropriately and immediately.”

VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said officials are preparing a formal response to Bost’s requests and launching a full investigation into the allegations.

“VA is committed to ensuring a safe, welcoming, and harassment-free environment for all,” he said in a statement. “Whenever there are allegations of wrongdoing, we investigate thoroughly and take appropriate action.”

The office, established in 1998, changed its name two years ago to reflect a new focus on diversity efforts. Its mission statement includes a mandate to “grow a diverse workforce and cultivate an inclusive work environment, where employees are fully engaged and empowered to deliver the outstanding services.”

The office’s website also promises employees that staff there can “assist you with resolving conflicts and building a healthy organization.”

Hayes could not say whether other staffers have been reassigned to oversee the office’s work while the investigation is underway.

The SVA Career Center project, set to debut in early 2024, is designed to supplement campus employment offices by providing veteran-specific advice and resources for students with military backgrounds.

In a statement, Jared Lyon, president and CEO of Student Veterans of America, said the new effort will “offer personalized resources crucial for a seamless transition into meaningful civilian careers after military service.” He also said the Disney donation will help speed efforts to staff and run the operation.

The contribution is the latest in years of support from the entertainment company to Student Veterans of America. Disney Institute launched veterans-specific training programs with the advocacy group in 2013 and will host its next Veterans Institute Summit in fall 2024 in Florida.

Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, said in a statement Monday that the move “will help veterans making the transition from military life to college and career” and continue his company’s efforts “in giving back to those who bravely serve our country in uniform.”

SVA, which boasts nearly 1,600 on-campus chapters across the country, is expected to unveil its new career center offerings at the group’s national convention in January.