Carol Ann Fausone
\nBrigadier General (ret)<\/p>\n
Positive reports surfaced last year on the significant reduction of the Department of Veterans Affairs<\/a> (VA) backlog in benefits claims \u2013 VA workers slashed the backlog by over half to 245,000. VA officials were optimistic on cutting that number to zero by the end of 2015\u2026but now that appears out of reach.<\/p>\n Army Times<\/a><\/em> reports that VA will likely not reach a backlog of zero by the end of 2015, as was their goal. VA workers did set a record of completing over 1.3 million claims last year, but with new claims only continuing to increase it appears zeroing-out the entire backlog in the next eleven months or so is unlikely.<\/p>\n “I think they can get close, but I don’t think they can get to zero,” Jackie Maffucci, the research director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told Army Times<\/em> last week. “Just looking at the numbers, it’s (more…)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carol Ann Fausone Brigadier General (ret) Positive reports surfaced last year on the significant reduction of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) backlog in benefits claims \u2013 VA workers slashed the backlog by over half to 245,000. VA officials were…<\/span><\/p>\n