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Today, Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas), the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared at the start of the subcommittee’s oversight hearing to look at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) efforts to reduce improper payments within the compensation and pension benefits program for veterans and their families to reduce the bureaucratic paperwork burden and ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are not wasted.

The subcommittee will come to order.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here.

Today, we are taking a closer look at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ efforts to decrease improper payments for compensation and pension benefits.

Congress has appropriated over a hundred and fifty billion dollars to V.A. each year for the past few years.

We must ensure that V.A. is a responsible steward of the taxpayers’ investment.

This means paying every veteran the correct amount of benefits they have earned, the first time.

When V.A. makes overpayments and they are not returned, taxpayer dollars are wasted.

Overpayments can result in V.A. establishing debts that veterans owe back to V.A., which can create a paperwork nightmare for them and their families.

But current law allows for V.A. to either cancel these overpayment debts, or waive collection of those debts.

From fiscal year 2021 to 2024, V.A. issued at least $5.1 billion dollars in compensation and pension overpayments.

V.A. collected, only, on a portion of those overpayment debts.

This means that during the last administration, V.A. wasted roughly $677 million in taxpayer dollars.

For example, V.S.O.s and some of my colleagues in Congress have told me that V.A. overpaid their constituents for dependents.

Those veterans correctly and immediately updated V.A. that they no longer had a dependent child or spouse.

But V.A. did not update their benefits payment until months later.

As a result, many of those veterans owe V.A. debts and are dealing with the stress of convincing V.A. to waive collection of their debt.

If V.A. did not make these overpayments in the first place, there would be fewer wasted taxpayer dollars resulting from uncollected overpayments.

I look forward to hearing from V.A. witnesses today on what the new administration plans to do to fix this bureaucratic headache and prevent delays in processing dependent status updates.

We have to streamline these things that impact veterans and their families far too often.

There are other causes for V.A.’s improper payments of compensation and pension.

For example, the V.A. Office of Inspector General issued several reports on how inaccurate effective dates resulted in improper payments during the last administration.

The effective date for a grant of a claim determines the amount a veteran will receive in disability compensation back pay.

O.I.G. has issued reports, including one in April, that V.A. incorrectly assigned effective dates when it granted certain types of claims – such as PACT Act claims and claims for total ratings due to un-employability.

O.I.G. estimated that those incorrect effective dates resulted in at least 100 million dollars in improper compensation payments.

O.I.G. found that the cause was ineffective policy guidance, job aids, and training when it comes to assigning effective dates of awards.

I understand that it can be very difficult to determine the correct effective date for an award.

I look forward to hearing from O.I.G. today about how V.A. should provide claims processors with effective training and guidance how to assign correct effective dates for all types of compensation and pension claims.

Ultimately, when veterans owe V.A. a debt at no fault of their own, why should taxpayers foot the bill?

But we must ensure that V.A. makes every effort to prevent overpayments from happening in the first place.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how the new administration can cut down on waste resulting from improper payments in compensation and pension.

With that, I yield to Ranking Member McGarvey.