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- job opportunities (7)
- JWV (15)
- links (1)
- Uncategorized (45)
- Veterans Business Opportunities (3)
- June 29, 2009: VA says it's on schedule to process new education claims on time
- June 25, 2009: National Defense Week 6/25/2009
- June 23, 2009: VA Reopening Health Care Enrollment to Thousands of Veterans
- June 19, 2009: Army develops new modernization strategy after scaling back FCS
- June 18, 2009: War supplemental tops next week's congressional agenda
- June 5, 2009: Subcommittee approves bill easing PTSD compensation for vets
- June 3, 2009: Obama taps GOP's McHugh to lead Army
- May 30, 2009: Enforcement Hiring Initiative
- May 8, 2009: VA benefits system continues to encounter processing problems
- May 4, 2009: Veterans frustrated over inaccessible, slow online benefits system
VA says it’s on schedule to process new education claims on time
June 29, 2009 by admin.
06/25/2009
When Congress passed a bill expanding veterans benefits to include generous tuition and cost-of-living payments, veterans groups and critics worried the Veterans Affairs Department didn’t have time to build a computer system to process the applications. But VA is processing claims faster than it receives them thanks to new information technology systems that partially automate the work, top department officials told a congressional panel on Thursday.
VA has received 84,000 applications for new GI bill benefits since May 1 and has processed 47,000 claims, Keith Wilson, director of the office of education service at the Veterans Benefits Administration, told a hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Economic Opportunity Subcommittee.
Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark., said the number seemed low and expressed concern that VA could receive a much larger number of applications between now and Aug. 1, when the department needs to start sending veterans their benefit payments.
Wilson said the highest volume of benefit claims under the new GI bill VA expected this year was slightly more than 450,000 and estimated it could receive 200,000 applications by the end of the summer.
Applications for benefits could be lower than anticipated because some veterans already enrolled in college believe they have a better financial deal under the old GI bill, called the Montgomery GI Bill, he noted.
Stephen Warren, principal deputy assistant secretary of the office of information and technology at VA, said the department can process all the new GI claims it receives with existing systems unless Congress adds new provisions to the law.
Key members of California’s congressional delegation introduced the Veterans Educational Equity Act, designed to correct what they view as inequities in the new GI bill. State-funded universities and colleges charge a relatively inexpensive tuition but levy much higher fees. The bill would provide $6,586.51 in annual payments to veterans attending any public or private university in the state to pay for the fees.
The new GI bill’s formula gives veterans attending private colleges payments based on tuition for public schools, shortchanging California veterans compared with those who attend schools in states with higher tuitions in publicly funded schools, according to Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif.
VA has been able to stay ahead of the curve in processing of GI bill payments because it hired 530 processors and installed new software that helps calculate payments, Wilson said. It also deployed an application to manage payments and exchange data with the Treasury Department, which will send checks to veterans starting Aug. 1.
VA has tested the application that manages payments, and Wilson said it works and will be ready on Aug. 1. Boozman said he was confident that VA will meet its deadline to make payments on that date.
Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, said he appreciates “the fact VA is re-doubling its efforts to make sure the new GI bill payment process works” and added that veterans and Congress need to be reassured that the agency is prepared to pay Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans their correct education benefit in a timely manner.
“Accuracy and timeliness are critical issues because of VA’s chronic mistakes and unreasonable delays in processing VA disability claims,” he said. “The GI bill presents VA with a great opportunity to shine. We hope VA stands and delivers.
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National Defense Week 6/25/2009
June 25, 2009 by admin.
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National Defense Week |
Defense contractor plans to close New Bedford plant producing military backpacks and relocate work to Puerto Rico.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43027&dcn=e_ndw
Officials defend the hybrid tilt-rotor aircraft, describing it as an essential weapon system.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43021&dcn=e_ndw
Plan sets pay hike a half-percent higher than the Obama administration requested.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43022&dcn=e_ndw
Figure would exceed Obama’s request for civilians by 1.4 percentage points.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43023&dcn=e_ndw
From Nextgov.com: Defense announces new modernization program in wake of FCSBy Bob Brewin
5. Plan will incorporate network technologies developed for troubled weapons program.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43020&dcn=e_ndw
ICE and ATF don’t coordinate operations or collect and analyze data effectively, watchdog says.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42997&dcn=e_ndw
- Senate approves $106 billion supplemental conference reportBy Humberto Sanchez and Dan Friedman, CongressDaily
Bill includes $79.9 billion for the wars Afghanistan and Iraq and $10.4 billion for the State Department and foreign operations.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42995&dcn=e_ndw
8. Senator considers buying more fighter jets for NavyBy Megan Scully, CongressDaily
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he does not back congressional efforts to add more F-22 Raptor fighter jets or C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes to Air Force arsenal.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43009&dcn=e_ndw
9. Following Federal TweetsNextgov.com has compiled dozens of official federal Twitter feeds in one place, so you can catch up on what agencies are tweeting about in just a few quick clicks. Click here to read The Feed.
“We need to move toward the culture of the country.”
– Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry on Tuesday on the government’s eventual shift to using résumés in job applications instead of Knowledge, Skills and Abilities statements.
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VA Reopening Health Care Enrollment to Thousands of Veterans
June 23, 2009 by admin.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJune 19, 2009WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which now has nearly 8 million Veterans enrolled in its award-winning health care system, is poised to welcome nearly 266,000 more Veterans into its medical centers and clinics across the country by expanding access to health care enrollment for certain Veterans who had been excluded due to their income.“This incremental approach to expanding enrollment ensures that access to VA health care for a greater number of beneficiaries does not sacrifice timely access or quality medical care for those Veterans already enrolled in VA’s health care system,” Dr. Gerald Cross, VA’s Acting Under Secretary for Health, said. “Over the next four years, we hope to provide enrollment to more than 500,000 Veterans.”Under a new regulation effective June 15, VA will enroll Veterans whose income exceeds current means-tested thresholds by up to 10 percent. These Veterans were excluded from VA health care enrollment when income limits were imposed in 2003 on Veterans with no service-connected disabilities or other special eligibility for care. There is no income limit for Veterans with compensable service-connected disabilities or for Veterans being seen for their service-connected disabilities.Veterans who have applied for VA health care but were rejected due to income at any point in 2009 will have their applications reconsidered under the new income threshold formula. Those who applied before 2009, but were rejected due to income, must reapply. VA will contact these Veterans through a direct-mail campaign, Veterans service organizations, and a national and regional marketing campaign.Information about enrollment and an income and assets calculator are available at www.va.gov/healtheligibility. The calculator provides a format in which Veterans enter their household income, number of dependents, and zip codes to see if they may qualify for VA health care enrollment.In addition to applying online, Veterans may also contact VA’s Health Benefits Service Center at 1-877-222 VETS (1-877-222-8387). Each VA medical center across the country has an enrollment coordinator available to provide Veterans with enrollment and eligibility information.
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Army develops new modernization strategy after scaling back FCS
June 19, 2009 by admin.
06/18/2009
Battlefield communications networks will be a critical component of a modernization strategy the Army is developing after canceling the $160 billion ground vehicle portion of its Future Combat Systems program, an Army spokesman said.
The Brigade Combat Team Modernization Strategy aims to develop a new line of ground combat vehicles and deploy sensor systems and unmanned vehicles engineered under FCS.
Army spokesman Paul Mehney said the service has started analyzing the network capabilities the new ground vehicles would require and how to incorporate systems developed for FCS.
The proposed 2010 FCS budget line, which funds the new modernization strategy, will remain the Army’s largest research-and-development project at just under $3 billion, David Ahern, the Pentagon’s director of portfolio systems acquisition told the Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee on Wednesday.
The Army has requested $749 million for battlefield networks in 2010, the second largest FCS line item after systems engineering, which is budgeted at slightly more than $1 billion.
The Government Accountability Office, which has issued a series of critical reports about FCS during the past several years, had rare praise for the new network concept at the hearing.
The Army’s decision to design an integrated combat network into FCS rather than cobble it together from discrete parts is “discerning,” said Paul Francis, GAO’s managing director for acquisition and sourcing management. But he called service’s approach “too grand.”
During FCS development, “the Army has achieved an understanding of what the information network needs to be, what may be technically feasible, how to build it, and how to demonstrate it,” Francis said. But he expressed concern about how the service would transfer capabilities of a network designed for FCS to a new line of ground vehicles developed during the next five to seven years. He recommended an incremental fielding approach to incorporate network capabilities into the vehicles as they become available.
The Army also plans to include upgraded versions of the Abrams tank and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle into its new modernization strategy, but Francis said those vehicles have “space, weight and power constraints that may limit their ability to be integrated with an FCS-like network.” These potential limitations are one of the issues the Army is considering in its analysis of how to adapt the FCS network to the strategy, Mehney said.
According to Francis, it is unclear whether the Army also plans to include specialized command and control and reconnaissance and surveillance vehicles that were key components of the FCS network. Mehney said the study will determine whether to incorporate them into the new modernization strategy.
The Army is testing the FCS network at Fort Bliss, Texas, using Joint Tactical Radio System, Ground Mobile Radios developed by Boeing Co. to transmit sensor and imagery data. Mehney said the radios “are not working perfectly, but they are working, and we are making good progress.”
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War supplemental tops next week’s congressional agenda
June 18, 2009 by admin.
CongressDaily
The Senate is set to move next week to the conference report of the fiscal 2009 war supplemental bill, but Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., are threatening to stall Senate business over expected removal of a provision barring release of detainee mistreatment photos.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Thursday said he expects conferees to wrap up work on the report this afternoon, with a House vote Monday or Tuesday and the Senate vote a day later.
House conferees will likely prevail in removing a Senate-passed amendment that bars the White House from having to release of photos of detainee mistreatment in response to a lawsuit. McCain on Thursday said he would join Lieberman and Graham in a threatened filibuster of the supplemental and other Senate bills over removal of the provision. He said they would “do everything that we can to oppose such legislation,” McCain said.
It isn’t clear if Democrats have enough votes to overcome a filibuster. “I don’t know,” Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said when asked if he could get to 60 votes. Reid did not directly answer a question about votes, but stressed the need to quickly pass the bill to fund troops overseas.
If the Senate finishes work on the supplemental, it will likely move to a bill that would set up a public-private partnership to promote international travel to the United States, a Reid spokeswoman said. The bill is strongly backed by Nevada lawmakers, including Reid, eager to promote travel to Las Vegas.
Reid also said he “hopes to move forward” on a drug reimportation bill. A bipartisan group of senators hoped to attach the measure to a bill giving the FDA power to regulate cigarettes, which the Senate is expected to pass on Thursday. Reid did not allow a vote on the amendment, saying it could endanger the bill, but he told Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that he would seek a separate vote. It is unclear when the bill might come up, Reid’s spokeswoman said.
The House expects to take up the FDA-tobacco bill and the long-delayed supplemental next week. Also on the agenda are the Commerce-Justice-Science and Homeland Security appropriations bills.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on Thursday that the House will probably vote on the Senate’s version of the tobacco bill rather than going to conference to work out differences in the two versions. President Obama has said he would sign the bill.
While Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., have said they expect the war funding bill to be on the floor next week, although House-Senate negotiators are still trying to reach agreement on the package.
The House named conferees on Thursday and overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding Republican motion to instruct conferees to include the Lieberman-Graham amendment in the final bill. Leading the House conferees are Appropriations Chairman Committee David Obey, D-Wis., and ranking member Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., and ranking member C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla. They are scheduled to meet this afternoon with Senate conferees.
Humberto Sanchez contributed to this report.
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Subcommittee approves bill easing PTSD compensation for vets
June 5, 2009 by admin.
The House Veterans Affairs Disability Assistance Subcommittee on Wednesday approved a bill that would make it easier for veterans to receive financial compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from service in Iraq and Afghanistan.The bill was referred to the full committee on a voice vote, despite votes against it from at least two of the three Republican members.Sponsored by Disability Assistance Subcommittee Chairman John Hall, D-N.Y., and 16 other Democrats, the bill would allow a veteran to qualify for the monthly compensation for combat-related PTSD just by demonstrating that the psychological disorder was caused by something that happened while he or she was serving in the “combat theater” as defined by the Defense secretary. Currently, the Veterans Affairs Department requires proof that the stress occurred during “combat with the enemy.”Hall said that narrow definition was not what Congress intended when it passed legislation providing the financial compensation. He said it denies financial assistance to the many service members who experienced traumatic incidents while performing support functions. It particularly impacted women veterans, who are defined as noncombatants, he said.But Subcommittee ranking member Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., protested that the bill was too broad and could cover hundreds of thousands of veterans.Hall promised to work with Lamborn and the Republicans on possibly refining the qualification criteria before the bill goes to the full committee, perhaps next week.
By Otto Kreisher CongressDaily June 4, 2009
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Obama taps GOP’s McHugh to lead Army
June 3, 2009 by admin.
CongressDaily
House Armed Services Committee ranking member John McHugh, R-N.Y., has been tapped to become Army secretary, President Obama announced Tuesday.
McHugh would join Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former GOP House member from Illinois, as Republicans serving in a Democratic administration.
“John shares my belief that a sustainable national security strategy must include a bipartisan consensus at home,” Obama said. “He hasn’t agreed with every decision my administration has made, but he brings patriotism and a pragmatism that has won him respect on both sides of the aisle.”
If confirmed, McHugh would replace Pete Geren, a former Democratic House member from Texas who became Army secretary in 2007 in the wake of revelations of substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, is seen as the frontrunner to replace McHugh as ranking member, according to House GOP aides, although Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ranking member Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., is the next most senior member.
A Thornberry spokesman would not comment on whether the Texas lawmaker has had any conversations with party leaders, but said he is interested in the ranking member slot.
“Mac is anxious to serve and he’s certainly going to take the opportunity when it presents itself to discuss with the leader and others in leadership how he can serve,” he said.
A Bartlett spokeswoman said her boss “remains interested” in the position, but added that the focus Tuesday should be on McHugh.
House Education and Labor Committee ranking member Howard (Buck) McKeon, R-Calif., also is giving the Armed Services post “serious consideration,” his spokeswoman said. McKeon, a senior Armed Services member from a district with several large military installations, did not compete for the post last year, but his spokeswoman said he sees this as a “unique situation.”
McHugh, 60, has represented upstate New York’s 23rd District for nine terms. His district includes Fort Drum, where the Army’s 10th Mountain Division is based.
As ranking member, McHugh has reached across the aisle, most recently on a defense acquisition reform bill that won unanimous congressional support. And he has generally supported Obama’s Afghanistan policy, including his decision to send 21,000 more troops to the war zone.
McHugh also has adopted a more moderate approach than many of his GOP colleagues to Obama’s plans to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has refrained from accusing Democrats, as some Republicans have done, of wanting to put out a “welcome mat” for terrorists.
But McHugh, who is known for his candor, has also publicly criticized the Pentagon this year, particularly for its handling of the fiscal 2010 budget.
McHugh recently raised concerns that the Pentagon’s internal budget deliberations were too secretive and has argued for more information to explain its decisions. He also has said he fears the sweeping changes made to defense programs in the fiscal 2010 request are dictating the outcome of the comprehensive Quadrennial Defense Review now under way.
About the Army’s budget request, McHugh has called the 2.1 percent increase in funding “misleading” because it includes money for programs previously paid for out of supplemental spending.
“The Army is under tremendous pressure based partially on limited resources,” McHugh said in his opening statement at a May 14 Army budget hearing. “If we continue down this path, something has to break.”
Billy House contributed to this report.
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Enforcement Hiring Initiative
May 30, 2009 by admin.
We are pleased to announce that the April 6 Career Opportunities List (COL) will include hundreds of revenue agent vacancies in more than 100 locations in four categories:
We encourage all qualified employees to consider these exciting revenue agent career opportunities – and the many other positions to follow on future COLs.To streamline the process, persons who want to apply for more than one business unit or location will only need to submit one application per category. You will be able to indicate the locations and business units that you would like to be considered for when you submit the single application.Applications for the GS-5/7/9/11 entry-level positions will be submitted on Forms 4536 and 9686 using the standard process. In general, the entry-level requirement for revenue agents is 30 semester hours of accounting coursework.In a change to past procedure, applications for the GS-12 and GS-13 positions will be submitted through USAJOBS. This will enable us to process and fill the jobs in the most expeditious manner. Though the announcements are not yet open, interested applicants can get familiar with USAJOBS and start the process now by:
All of the April 6 revenue agent announcements are being posted simultaneously internally and externally. This will help us fill the vacancies in the most prompt manner. But, consistent with our desire to provide career advancement within the IRS, internal candidates will continue to be provided first consideration.Finally, some of you may have recently applied for other revenue agent vacancies on the COL. If so, you will still be considered for those positions. However, in order to be considered for the future positions, you should also submit an application for the April 6 announcement(s).To learn more about these job openings and how to apply, visit the Enforcement Hiring Center Webpage where you’ll find announcement numbers, qualification information, search tips and step-by-stepUSAJOBS instructions (for those of you applying for GS-12 or 13 positions).This scale of advancement opportunities for our current workforce is unprecedented and exciting. Equally energizing is the prospect of many new employees joining us in the months ahead. We want to thank you for the work you do each day to administer our nation’s tax laws, and wish each of you applying for new positions the best of luck in your career aspirations.–Linda Stiff, Deputy Commissioner Services & Enforcement–Mark Ernst, Deputy Commissioner Operations Support
Earlier this month, the Commissioner announced a significant increase in our fiscal year 2009 budget. As a result, the agency is undertaking its largest hiring initiative in recent memory.Numerous recent and upcoming job postings are offering many career advancement opportunities for your consideration. This year the IRS is hiring hundreds of revenue agents, revenue officers, tax compliance officers, customer service representatives, and others.To make it easier for you to apply and help us process the expected high volume of applications, some changes are being made beginning with revenue agent vacancies posting on April 6.
Revenue Agent Vacancy Announcements Open April 6
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VA benefits system continues to encounter processing problems
May 8, 2009 by admin.
An online benefits application Web site that the Veterans Affairs Department launched on May 1 continued to encounter problems on Monday after coming to a near halt on Friday.The department created the Veterans OnLine Application (Vonapp) site in response to the new GI bill, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, which provides veterans with more generous educational benefits than the previous GI bill, originally passed in 1944. For example, this version hikes payments for tuition from $1,300 a month to a payment that is pegged at the highest tuition at a public university in a veteran’s state of residence, which for Massachusetts would be $10,232. The bill includes monthly living expenses of $1,100 to $1,200.The site either timed out or responded slowly on May 1, the first day post-9/11 veterans could file for the rich package of educational benefits.Vonapp continued to frustrate veterans trying to file benefit applications, with the site prominently displaying a message warning users they could experience problems uploading attachments to their online applications:”Attention VONAPP Users:Some users have reported problems with attaching documents. This is a temporary issue currently being addressed. If you are unable to attach documents, proceed to complete and submit your application without attachments. Please mail your supporting documents to the VA regional office listed on your confirmation page. Once full attachment capability is available, this page will be updated.”The notice was posted after VA experienced what it described as an “unprecedented” volume of users trying to access Vonapp. Late Friday, after veterans nationwide complained about an inability to access the site, VA posted a notice that read: “We are receiving an unprecedented number of users on the Vonapp Web site at this time. When accessing Vonapp, you may experience delayed response time, error messages and possible timeouts. Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve this issue.”Veterans are asked to supply documents to receive benefits include their DD Form 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty.In the morning of May 2, users could not access the site. A notice told veterans, “Our servers are currently unavailable. It may be possible they are down for maintenance. We ask that you please try back later. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and ask for your patience.”By that afternoon, Vonapp was available with a swift connection from a Nextgov remote office in Las Vegas, N.M., and appeared to be functioning smoothly until the notice about document attachments appeared about noon EDT on Monday.Robert McFarland, who served as VA’s chief information officer from January 2004 to April 2006, said the department should have anticipated that it would have been hit with a heavy load on its online benefits system and should have beefed it up to meet the anticipated demand.”We’re not talking about the entire population of the country [trying to access the site]. . . . It’s a finite number, and you plan for that for that finite number,” he said.Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, estimates 1 million veterans are eligible for the new GI bill benefits. Sullivan said the speedy connection he experienced to the site on Monday indicates VA worked overtime to resolve connection problems with the system. “Instead of taking four minutes to enter [on Friday], VA’s computers responded in a few seconds,” he said.McFarland said it should not be have been difficult for VA to have developed a system that could manage attachments, and added until it could handle attachments, the Veterans Benefits Administration should use a hybrid online/mail-in application process.Larry Scott, who runs the VA watchdog group VA Watchdog.org in Vancouver, Wash., said he believed “VBA is creating an electronic nightmare to go along with their paper nightmare.”Scott said it does not make sense to e-mail documents to VBA. “The average vet will scan into a graphic format such as .JPG or .PDF,” he said. “To make the document readable, VBA would have to run [optical character recognition] software on it, and depending on the quality of the scan from the veteran, this could lead to many errors that would then have to be manually corrected by someone at VBA.”VBA will find it difficult to collate documents mailed to regional offices along with online application forms, Scott added.McFarland said the difficulty matching paper documents with online applications depends on whether VA plans to process post-9/11 claims in a central location or regional offices.The problems VA continues to experience with Vonapp, Scott said, will add delays to a tight schedule to start processing post-9/11 GI bill benefit claims by Aug. 1.VA did not respond to a query from Nextgov by deadline on what caused the problems on Friday, or what it is doing to resolve the problems in attaching documents to an online application.
By Bob Brewin 05/04/2009
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Veterans frustrated over inaccessible, slow online benefits system
May 4, 2009 by admin.
Veterans frustrated over inaccessible, slow online benefits system
05/01/2009
Veterans nationwide, trying for the first time on Friday to log on to online forms to apply for a rich package of educational benefits, encountered a network that either failed or was extremely slow.
The Veterans Affairs Department launched the Veterans Online Application (Vonapp) site to begin taking applications from veterans interested in the benefits offered in the new GI Bill, whose formal title is the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act.
The GI bill provides veterans with more generous educational benefits than the previous GI bill, originally passed in 1944. For example, this version hikes payments for tuition from $1,300 a month to a payment that is pegged at the highest tuition at a public university in a veteran’s state of residence, which for Massachusetts would be $10,232. The bill includes monthly living expenses of $1,100 to $1,200.
But veterans became frustrated when they tried to log onto the site. Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, said it took more than four minutes to reach Vonapp’s login screen using his computer in Austin, Texas, which has a high-speed cable modem.
“Veterans should not be viewing the hour glass of death” as they try to file for benefits, he said. “The VA needs to fix this now.”
Joe Mancinik, a Navy veteran who attends The George Washington University in Washington, said his attempts to access the site took more than a minute. Once on the site, however, the system timed out.
When Larry Scott, who runs the VA watch dog group Watchdog.org in Vancouver, Wash., tried to log on for the first time, he received a message from Vonapp that read: “Connection Interrupted. The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading. The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again.”
Scott, who accesses the Internet over a 24-megabyte-per-second cable connection, said he was successful signing into the site on his second attempt, but “the connection was slow beyond belief.”
“It appears the VA did not adequately prepare their servers to handle what they knew to be a huge load,” he said. “They had to know this was coming.”
Others who were able to log on to the system also found the site slow. Dean Lee, assistant adjutant for the Veterans of Foreign Wars Department of California, said communications with the site dragged over his T-1 connection, which receives data at 1.5 megabytes per second.
Nextgov attempted to connect to Vonapp three times over a 100 megabyte-per-second Internet circuit from its offices in Washington and once received a time-out message, with the other two attempts taking minutes to complete.
At a Nextgov remote office in Las Vegas, N.M., only one connection out of 10 attempts worked, and that was shortly after midnight EDT, when registration for the new GI bill benefits first opened.
All attempts to reach the Vonapp login page after 11 a.m. EDT from New Mexico either resulted in a time out or an inability to get beyond the first two or three screens that lead into the login page.
Sullivan said 1 million veterans are eligible for post-911 educational benefits and VA should have anticipated a heavy load on the first filing day.
VA should have tested if the system could handle a heavy load, said Bob Charette, president the risk analysis firm Itabhi Corp. in Spotsylvania, Va. “This could just be a first-day problem, unless its continues over the weekend,” he said.
The department has until Aug. 1 to receive and process the claims, and VA made a smart decision to start the application process three months before it had to make payments, said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Washington.
He said he had no problems accessing Vonapp from his office, adding he was “not a techie, but I would imagine most systems would have difficulties handling potentially hundreds of thousands of accesses at the same time.”
VA did not respond to a query on the amount of traffic the site experienced on Friday and what it could have done to resolve connection problems.
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