Good afternoon.  Madam Chair, the successful development and implementation of the new computer system to manage the Post 9/11 GI Bill is vital to delivering accurate and timely education benefits, not just for Chapter 33, but for all the education programs.

Before we begin, I would like to address three other issues that affect delivery of education benefits to our veterans and are easily solvable.  The first two are issues involving the operation of the National Call Center in Muscogee.

Our staffs visited the Regional Processing Office and the National Call Center in Muscogee last week.  They met with managers and front line claims and call center workers.  While meeting with management, the staff expressed their concern that the National Call Center was closed two days per week to allow the workers to assist in processing education claims.  While the staff readily agreed that diversion of some labor hours to processing claims they suggested that spreading those processing labor hours over the work week would also allow the call center to remain open.  As a result of that discussion, local VA management forwarded a request to the VA’s Office of Field Operations to make the changes suggested and therein lies my concern:  Why does it take a suggestion from Congressional staff to raise such a common sense issue and why do those responsible at the local level need to get permission from central office?

Second, the call center operates from 7 AM to 5 PM central time with no one to answer calls coming outside those hours.  That means people living outside the continental US have very limited windows in which to contact the call center.  Given the high rates of blocked and dropped calls, I suspect beneficiaries living in the Pacific and European areas have little chance of getting assistance from the call center.  Again, the solution is simple….stagger the working hours of a few employees to cover a wider range of the day.  If that takes additional overtime or incentive pay, based on the staffs’ discussions with call center employees, the extra hours or pay differential would be welcome.

Madam chair, my staff says that every call they take regarding the Post 9/11 GI Bill includes complaints about the difficulty getting through to the call center.  The way VA is managing call center operations defies logic and decisions on working hours should be left to the Muscogee management team.  Regardless, closing the call center two days per week when there are alternatives that meet VA’s claims production needs AND provide customer service at the same time.  I suppose that is a subject for the future, but given the challenges facing VA, the department does not need to be making their own lives more difficult by mismanaging its operations and I hope they will reconsider how they are operating the call center.

Madam Chair, I look forward to today’s testimony and yield back.