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Today, Rep. Derrick Van Orden, (R-Wis.), the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared, at the start of the Subcommittee's joint oversight hearing with Technology Modernization on the Digital G.I. Bill Program.

Good afternoon. This joint oversight hearing of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity and the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization will now come to order.

As you have heard me say many times, these subcommittees are not bipartisan, they are nonpartisan. Today we come together once again to look out for the interests of our veterans. Our veterans fought hard for this country, and we owe it to them to fight hard for their interests here in Congress.

Today our subcommittees come together to once again examine how we can work with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) to improve the lives of veterans through the Digital G.I. Bill.

The Digital G.I. Bill is intended to streamline G.I. Bill claims processing by consolidating antiquated legacy IT systems and automating adjudication of most claims. Some of these systems are over thirty years old and must be modernized.

Since our last hearing in July 2022, V.A. has accomplished quite a bit. There has been a fifth release of the software, more than half of supplemental claims are now automated, and the Enrollment Manager system is now up and running. This is good news and shows a lot of progress.

However, the Digital G.I. Bill system that is being developed by V.A. and Accenture is partly the result of past IT failures. Other companies have attempted to modernize the systems, have failed, and V.A. has wasted millions of dollars. We are here to ensure that this does not happen again.

In March, I received a call from the Secretary about the Digital G.I. Bill failing to process veterans’ monthly housing allowance. The Benefits Delivery Network initially failed to pay approximately 282,000 student veterans. While the issue was eventually cleared up, 4,000 veterans still received late checks because of their mistake.

This problem is reminiscent of 2018, when a similar failure resulted in thousands of students waiting weeks, and months in some cases, for their claim to be processed which led to significant delays in the student receiving their monthly housing allowance. Time and time again student veterans are being left in limbo because of V.A.’s failures. That’s unacceptable to me.

Also in March, the new Enrollment Manager system went live. V.A. had insisted to launch it in January, at the beginning of the spring semester, despite an outpouring of concern from schools about the problems that would cause.

This subcommittee was eventually able to persuade V.A. to listen to the boots on the ground and push the go-live back, but it set off a domino effect of delays in the development of this system that no one has ever adequately explained.

It is my understanding that the next Digital G.I. Bill release has been stalled for several months as V.A. takes a step back to reevaluate the schedule and revise the cost estimate because of the Enrollment Manager release.

We must get a handle on these delays and motivate V.A. to keep this project on track. Up to this point, it has been like pulling teeth to figure out how much money has been spent, and no one can tell us how much further funding will be needed. No one can tell us when this project will be final; we can’t even get an answer on when the next release will happen.  We are here today to get these questions answered. If we cannot get answers today, I expect the Committee may need to take direct action. It seems we either need to start docking someone’s pay or issuing subpoenas. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

The strides V.A. has made so far on this project will improve the lives of student veterans by making it easier and quicker for veterans to receive their benefits. If this modernization receives proper oversight and V.A. gets back on track, we can make good on that promise. That is why this project is so important and why we are holding this hearing today.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I’m hopeful that they can shed some light on the delay and explain what steps will be taken to remedy the situation.

With that, I yield to Ranking Member Levin for an opening statement.