Thank you Chairman Hall for yielding.

I am pleased to have this opportunity for a collective discussion on the effectiveness of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA’s) training, performance management, and accountability requirements.

Over the course of the past several months, this Subcommittee has examined nearly every facet of the VA benefits claims processing system in effort to identify how we might help the Department overcome the claims backlog crisis.

While the recent expansion of its workforce will certainly have a positive impact, VA must ensure that newly hired claims workers receive training that is commensurate with their responsibilities.  

It is critical that the training it provides meets the needs of the Department and its employees.

It is equally important that the results of the training are evaluated. Without feedback, VA may never know whether or not the training is accomplishing its goal.

Any viable training program should be able to identify deficiencies and demonstrate the intended and actual outcome of its curriculum.

VA training must be connected to its vision and mission, and VA managers need to be assured that if employees are pulled off the floor for training that it will result in long-term benefits.

I’m sure that with a growing number of pending claims, there is a certain level of trepidation that, “There's too much work to do already and we'll just get further behind if we have to conduct training.”

There must be clear support, from the top down, in order to conduct adequate training and acquire the expected outcomes.

Certainly, training new employees on everything they need to know in order to make sound rating decisions is a daunting task.

The VA rating schedule itself is complex and it’s merely a portion of the array of knowledge a competent adjudicator must possess to perform his or her job.

I view today’s hearing as an opportunity to not only learn more about the training and assessment program VA provides its employees, but also to reiterate to the Department that it should be forthright about any additional resources deemed necessary to fulfill this critical requirement.

I look forward to our witnesses’ testimony and a productive discussion on VA’s training program.

I yield back.