[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A REVIEW OF THE TRANSITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (TAP)
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-4
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
____________
U.S GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
97-995 WASHINGTON : 2016
________________________________________________________________________________________
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free).
E-mail, [email protected].
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado CORRINE BROWN, Florida, Ranking
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida, Vice- Minority Member
Chairman MARK TAKANO, California
DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan DINA TITUS, Nevada
TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas RAUL RUIZ, California
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana KATHLEEN RICE, New York
RALPH ABRAHAM, Louisiana TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
LEE ZELDIN, New York JERRY McNERNEY, California
RYAN COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, American
Samoa
MIKE BOST, Illinois
Jon Towers, Staff Director
Don Phillips, Democratic Staff Director
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
BRAD WENSTRUP, Ohio, Chairman
LEE ZELDIN, New York MARK TAKANO, California, Ranking
AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, American Member
Samoa DINA TITUS, Nevada
RYAN COSTELLO, Pennsylvania KATHLEEN RICE, New York
MIKE BOST, Illinois JERRY McNERNEY, California
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
hearing records of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs are also
published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the
official version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare
both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process
of converting between various electronic formats may introduce
unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
current publication process and should diminish as the process is
further refined.
C O N T E N T S
----------
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Page
A Review of the Transition Assistance Program (TAP).............. 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Brad Wenstrup, Chairman.......................................... 1
Mark Takano, Ranking Member...................................... 2
WITNESSES
Mr. Davy Leghorn, Assistant Director, The Veteran Education and
Employment Commission, The American Legion..................... 4
Prepared Statement........................................... 34
Mr. Ryan M. Gallucci, Deputy Director, NVS, Veterans of Foreign
Wars of the United States...................................... 5
Prepared Statement........................................... 39
Ms. Valrica Marshall Dunmyer, Chief of Staff and Chief Financial
Officer, Student Veterans of America........................... 7
Prepared Statement........................................... 47
Colonel David W. Sutherland, U.S. Army (Ret.) Chairman and Co-
Founder, Easter Seals Dixon Center............................. 9
Prepared Statement........................................... 51
Mr. Curtis L. Coy, Deputy Under Secretary for Economic
Opportunity, VBA, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.......... 23
Prepared Statement........................................... 62
Ms. Teresa W. Gerton, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Veterans'
Employment and Training Service, U.S. Department of Labor...... 25
Prepared Statement........................................... 68
Dr. Susan Kelly,, Director, Transition to Veterans Program
Office, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel
and Readiness, Department of Defense........................... 26
Prepared Statement........................................... 76
A REVIEW OF THE TRANSITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (TAP)
----------
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m., in
Room 334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Brad Wenstrup
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Wenstrup, Costello, Radewagen,
Takano, Titus, and Rice.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN BRAD WENSTRUP
Dr. Wenstrup. Well good afternoon, everyone. I want to
welcome you all to the first hearing of the Subcommittee on
Economic Opportunity for the 114th Congress. I have to tell you
I am very honored to serve as chairman of this subcommittee and
I look forward to working with Ranking Member Takano and other
members to improve economic opportunities for our nation's
veterans. Before we begin I will tell you that Mr. Coffman may
join us and I ask unanimous consent that our colleague Mr.
Coffman be allowed to join us at the dais and ask questions.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
We are here today to discuss implementation of the
Transition Assistance Program, or TAP. TAP is a critically
important step for today's servicemembers because if we can get
TAP right for them at the onset of their transition from active
duty I believe we can mitigate many other issues that have
plagued and continue to plague previous generations of
America's veterans.
The information on financial management, job search skills,
and veteran benefits are light years away from what was being
provided to servicemembers under previous versions of TAP,
which was called by many death by PowerPoint. And while the
structure of TAP has been greatly improved we can and should do
more and I want to briefly make a few points.
It has been suggested by some that there is no need to
continue to provide TAP in a classroom setting and that the
online version is sufficient. While I agree that the online
version can be helpful it was designed to only be a supplement
to the classroom version and not to replace it. I understand
that in a constrained fiscal environment the services have had
the difficult task of implementing the VOW Act provision which
made TAP mandatory. But I believe that focusing only on the
online version would shortchange our servicemembers of
critically important information.
I also want to echo the comments from the past two chairmen
of this subcommittee by saying that I believe DoD is missing
the mark by not making the education track mandatory for those
servicemembers who are planning to use their G.I. Bill benefits
upon transition. Under the right circumstances the Post 9/11
G.I. Bill can provide over $300,000 worth of benefits to a
veteran and with thousands of schools and training programs
clamoring for veteran students we must do everything we can to
make sure our servicemembers are provided with all the
information and tools they need to make an informed choice on
the right school and how to use their educational benefits. Now
from everything I have heard the education track does a great
job in preparing servicemembers as they make this life changing
choice and I believe it should be mandatory for servicemembers
who are choosing to use their G.I. Bill benefits.
Another issue that I hope to hear more about today is how
VA, DoD, and DoL are measuring and tracking performance and
long term outcomes of TAP. Without measurable outcomes it is
impossible to know for certain if this new curriculum is
working. I know that hard statistics for a program like this
can be difficult but I look forward to learning more about the
steps the agencies have taken to track performance. Before I
recognize the ranking member I do want to commend DoD, VA, and
the Department of Labor for working together to transform TAP
over the past two years. While many strides have been made a
recent report from the VA's Office of Economic Opportunity
highlighted a new challenge. The report stated that while
unemployment rates for veterans continue to remain low, over
half of the Post 9/11 veterans will face a period of
unemployment upon transition. Helping facilitate a smooth
transition so that veterans avoid this period of unemployment
is our challenge and I look forward to exploring ways to
address this challenge head on in today's hearing.
I now recognize Ranking Member Takano for his opening
comments.
OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER MARK TAKANO
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, especially to our new
members Ms. Radewagen and Ms. Rice. We welcome you. I know we
will accomplish a lot under your stewardship, Mr. Chairman, of
the committee during this session. Also thank you for your
continued service to the United States Army and we are excited
to have that level of experience and understanding that you
bring from your experience in tackling the economic issues
facing our veterans.
Transitioning from the military is a defining moment in all
of our servicemembers' lives. Upon exiting the military at a
minimum servicemembers should understand the resources
available through their branch of service, the benefits
awaiting them as veterans, and perhaps most importantly how to
find a job. From a retiring commander to a one-term enlisted
soldier leaving the military means different things to
different individuals. There is no one answer as to how we can
prepare these individuals for what comes next. Yet we have a
responsibility to give them the best information available to
help them focus on their next move as civilians. The Transition
Assistance Program, or TAP, has gone through several iterations
over the last several years and we expect it to continue to
evolve as better practices are realized and implemented. The
latest concept of TAP is Transition GPS, which is designed to
deliver a wide array of information over a five-day period. One
of the most important aspects of the program is a briefing on
financial responsibility and access to financial counseling
while still on active duty. Too many of our younger
servicemembers are leaving the military without thinking about
their financial futures and having access to a trained
professional who can help guide them toward financial
responsibility is extremely important. I look forward to
hearing Dr. Kelly speak to the financial responsibility
briefing and other aspects of the DoD portion of this training.
I am also looking forward to hearing from Mr. Coy about the
VA portion of the training and how veterans are learning about
how to access their veterans benefits. The Post 9/11 G.I. Bill
is an incredible education benefit and I am very interested in
hearing more about how servicemembers are learning about the
optional education track briefing. Last Congress I was an
original cosponsor to the legislation introduced by Congressman
Flores that would have made the education track mandatory. In
many instances student veterans are unaware of the differences
between education institutions, the quality of education at
those institutions, and the likelihood of finding a job upon
graduation. The education track remains optional for the time
being and I hope to hear from our agency witnesses that
servicemembers are being encouraged to take this optional
course if they are planning to use their education benefits.
Finally some portions of the Transition GPS training are
now interactive and online. I am very interested in learning
more about how servicemembers are utilizing these resources. I
would also like to welcome our guests from the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Student Veterans of America,
and Easter Seals Dixon Center. I look forward to hearing what
some of the veterans you speak with are saying about TAP and
any recommendations you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. I want to thank the Ranking Member for his
comments and also I would like to reiterate what you said about
welcoming our new members. I think that you should know that
this is a committee, a subcommittee, that has great opportunity
to really do a lot of benefit for our members of our country
that serve in uniform, and for their families and their lives
as they move forward and they leave the military. But now I
would like to welcome our first panel to the witness table.
First we have Mr. Davy Leghorn, Assistant Director of the
Veteran Education and Employment Commission for the American
Legion; Mr. Ryan Gallucci, Deputy Director of the National
Veterans Service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars; Ms. Valrica
Dunmyer, Chief of Staff and Chief Financial Officer for Student
Veterans of America; and finally Colonel David Sutherland,
Chairman and Co-Founder of the Easter Seals Dixon Center. I
want thank you all for being here, for your service to our
nation, and for those in uniform, and for your continued hard
work and advocacy for veterans. Mr. Leghorn, we will begin with
you. You are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. DAVY LEGHORN
Mr. Leghorn. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, on behalf of
National Commander Michael Helm and the 2.4 million members of
the American Legion, we thank you for this opportunity to
testify at this hearing on improving the Transition Assistance
Program and veterans' transition in general.
Over the past two years the American Legion has intensely
scrutinized the new TAP, observing it in operation across the
country. The testimony we present today reflects this scrutiny
and provides observations as well as recommendations for
improvement. In general we were highly impressed both by the
amount and the quality of information that was conveyed,
particularly in such a relatively short period of time.
The American Legion has long advocated for the inclusion of
VSOs in TAP. VSOs provide important services to transitioning
servicemembers and we are pleased to note that during the TAP
sessions we observed the attendees were referred to VSOs for
claim services by the TAP instructors. We would, however, like
to offer some recommendations. The first regards a need to
increase emphasis on soft skills, that is behaviors and
etiquette that makes an individual employable. The vast
majority of personnel leaving the armed services have not had
significant experience working in a civilian work setting. We
believe that insufficient emphasis is placed on these soft
skills during TAP. Further, a five-day course cannot hope to
teach behaviors obtained by spending a substantial part of
one's adult life in a civilian work place. However, we believe
that transitioning servicemembers would benefit if there were
more discussions of workplace culture.
The second regards an improvement to the information on
education that is provided in TAP. With the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill
every transitioning servicemember has access to the opportunity
to attend a higher education program, or in some instances
transfer the benefit to their dependents. As such we recommend
that the educational track incorporate more input from the
Department of Education and that the education track of
Transition GPS be made mandatory for all transitioning
servicemembers.
We believe that part of the solution to veterans
unemployment lies in a collaboration between government
entities and the private sector. As such the American Legion as
responded by bringing Employment Workshops and hiring events to
transitioning servicemembers. Our Employment and Empowerment
Summit is a two-day event that ends with a job fair. We host
this summit in various cities and provide transportation and
lodging to servicemembers going through TAP. Servicemembers
attending our events have had the chance to learn about various
opportunities in fields ranging from the banking industry to
the trades and are able to receive some preliminary instruction
on the aforementioned soft skills needed to gain and maintain
employment. Unfortunately at some locations we are met with
resistance from contracted TAP facilitators. Contractually TAP
facilitators are evaluated based on a limited scope of
performance measures, thus there is a lack of incentive for
them to work outside the confines of their own programs.
Amending DoD contracts for TAP facilitators to include a
section regarding required collaboration with trusted private
sector actors would solve this problem fairly easily.
We recognize that one of TAP's main roles is to introduce
the employment services available to veterans and to provide a
warm handoff to the agencies that administer those programs.
However, we have become aware of an issue affecting veterans
employment services that are funded by the JVSG and
administered through DoL VETS. Last spring DoL issued a
directive creating a hard distinction between disabled veteran
outreach program representatives and the local veterans
employment representatives which are funded by the JVSG grants
and are located at DoL job centers across the country.
Essentially this disallows DVOPs from seeing non-service
disabled veterans even if they have time. DoL's self-imposed
restrictions undermine the flexibility required to best serve
veterans who are in need of employment services. These
restrictions are contrary to the federal statute and have
generated negative feedback from the field. The American Legion
is adamant that a regulatory or legislative change
reinstituting the roles of DVOP and LVERs by DoL would provide
a significant improvement to the JVSG program. The American
Legion is working with the office of Senator Pat Toomey of
Pennsylvania to introduce a bill that would make this change
explicit in the statute should DoL fail to make the regulatory
change.
Overall the American Legion believes that the new TAP
program represents an important step towards providing
transitioning servicemembers with the information that they
need to become successful. While there exists some shortcomings
that require attention the program overall appears to be
successful and implementation has been commendable. The
American Legion looks forward to continuing our work with the
agencies and with Congress to continue to improve this valuable
resource for our transitioning servicemembers.
[The prepared statement of Davy Leghorn appears in the
Appendix]
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Leghorn.
Mr. Gallucci, you are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. RYAN M. GALLUCCI
Mr. Gallucci. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Wenstrup,
Ranking Member Takano, and members of the subcommittee, thank
you for the opportunity to present the VFW's thoughts on the
Military Transition Assistance Program, or TAP.
The VFW has long recognized the need to provide
transitioning servicemembers with a quality baseline of
information with which to make informed decisions about their
post-military lives. Over the past few years this subcommittee
has driven significant change in TAP. The agencies responsible
have rebuilt the program from the ground up and worked to
foster consistency by introducing contract facilitators,
individual curriculum tracks, and access to post-service TAP.
My remarks will focus on these three areas.
First, the VFW generally agrees with the shift to contract
facilitators, freeing up local resources to serve veterans.
However, the shift has had some unintended consequences and the
VFW encourages striking a proper balance on contract
facilitation and local need. The VFW also recognizes that the
military has made a significant investment in TAP in
anticipation of the current military draw down. More
transitioning servicemembers require more staff and more
classroom space. As DoD seeks to meet this demand we must not
forget that VSOs still play a critical role in transition. To
assist in the process the VFW has professional staff on more
than a dozen military installations with plans to expand.
Our staff provides free assistance to servicemembers
seeking to file for VA disability benefits prior to separation.
To do so we rely on our military hosts and TAP for access and
support. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recognized
this in his recent memo to installation commanders, which
outlines how they should provide for VSOs that deliver VA
accredited, face-to-face services to transitioning
servicemembers. Adherence to this memo is critical to the VFW
as we see a correlation between exposure and access and the
number of servicemembers seeking representation. We see fewer
claims on installations where our access is limited, despite
the increase in those leaving the military.
Next, the VFW applauds the hard work of the contract VA
briefing facilitators, many of whom are recently transitioned
veterans. However, we question why the contract leaves such
little flexibility to adapt to local needs. We encourage VA and
the subcommittee to review the contract and offer flexibility
to reintegrate local resources like VSOs and reasonably adapt
the curriculum to suit the audience.
Next, we must ensure consistent access to the new TAP
tracks, as well as consistent delivery of timely and relevant
training. During VFW's recent visits to our staff on military
bases we spoke with those responsible for implementing TAP.
They acknowledge that the training is a marked improvement and
were grateful for the significant recent investment in the
program, however they worried that unit commanders still
struggle to see the value in allowing their personnel to
participate. Sadly, this was not an isolated issue. Though TAP
is now a commander's program the VFW worries that DoD lacks
mechanisms to hold commanders accountable. This requires a
significant cultural shift, one that is unlikely to happen
during the current draw down. So in an effort to mitigate this
concern the VFW encouraged DoD to make the curriculum
accessible online. DoD complied, allowing servicemembers to
complete the training through their secure JKO accounts.
However, transitioning servicemembers still have no reasonable
way to anticipate the specific challenges they will face after
leaving the military. The simplest solution would be for DoD to
finalize its information sharing agreement with the Department
of Labor, offering workforce agencies access to the names of
veterans returning to their communities. But the agreement is
once again delayed. This is unacceptable and we encourage
Congress to act on it.
Finally, we must continue to invest in the post-service
availability of TAP. Over the past two years DoL worked with
its contractors in West Virginia, Georgia, and Washington to
facilitate 23 workshops as part of the Off Base Transition
Training, or OBTT pilot program. Some workshops were more
successful than others, with West Virginia experiencing the
most success thanks to support from the National Guard. OBTT
was very cost effective, costing only $52,000 for the entire
pilot. Through large scale community based TAP classes, OBTT
serves veterans who otherwise would not have had access to the
material or who could only rely on the, or could only receive
the information by meeting one on one with an employment
counselor. The VFW believes it is more cost effective to
leverage the current TAP contract to facilitate large training
sessions like OBTT before veterans meet one on one with
counselors at American job centers. This way when veterans seek
out services they are prepared to have a constructive meeting
to find a job. OBTT expired this month and DoL will not have
information on outcomes for another year. As we wait for final
data on OBTT the VFW believes that Congress should at least
extend the pilot, offering cost effective services to more
veterans who need it.
Veterans can also access all the new TAP modules via a
public facing website offered in joint venture by DoD and
Department of Labor. The VFW believes this is a game changer
for veterans. However, to improve the site the VFW recommends
allowing veterans to navigate directly to modules they need and
offering links to the participant guides. DoL should also track
traffic to the site to identify trends and shortcomings in the
Transition Assistance Program. These minor improvements would
allow veterans to use the public facing site as an easy
reference guide.
TAP is undergoing an amazing revolution and the VFW thanks
everyone involved for their continued hard work on this
project. However, we know that there are places that we can
improve. With the current military draw down it is critical to
ensure the future success of our war fighters and we look
forward to working with this subcommittee on ways to make sure
that we succeed in that mission. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking
Member Takano, and members of the committee, this concludes my
testimony. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ryan Gallucci appears in the
Appendix]
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Mr. Gallucci. Ms. Dunmyer, you are
now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF VALRICA MARSHALL DUNMYER
Ms. Dunmyer. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Wenstrup,
Ranking Member Takano, and other distinguished members of the
subcommittee, thank you for calling this hearing and for
continuing to monitor efforts to successfully transition our
returning veterans out of the military and into civilian life.
My name is Valrica Dunmyer and I am the Chief of Staff and
Chief Financial Officer at Student Veterans of America. I am
also here as a veteran with 26 years of Army service. We are
honored that you have invited us to be a part of this session
today.
On behalf of SVA and its more than 400,000 student veterans
within a network of more than 1,200 chapter affiliates I am
pleased to submit our testimony on the review of a Transition
Assistance Program. SVA advocates for the rights of veterans in
higher education, rooted in the belief that investing in
America's veterans today is a smart investment for the country
tomorrow. SVA's top priorities include improving access to
higher education and scaling effective services that empower
student veterans to graduate on time with little to no student
debt and successfully transition into civilian life.
Mr. Chairman, as a beneficiary of the current program I
know that improvements have been made. Nevertheless,
transitional challenges still exist as evidenced through the
continuing struggle of our veterans, and more specifically our
student veterans. One of the main challenges is knowing whether
the TAP GPS program is truly working on the front end to
produce the desired outcome on the back end. As of December 2,
2013 only 72 percent of TAP locations included the higher
education track offered by the DoD. Now this may seem like a
high number to you and something to be proud of. But consider
for a moment, if you are that vet that's in the 28 percent
group, and your release date is quickly approaching, imagine
that that is you and you are thinking about getting out and you
want to pursue a degree. You have not been provided any of the
information and you have no idea where to start. For those
veterans the system is still not working.
Our Million Records Project represents the most
comprehensive examination of student veterans' post-secondary
academic success that has ever been done in decades. The
Million Records Project showed that more than a million
veterans have used educational benefits from 2002 to 2010.
Additional data indicates that there will be over five million
veterans by 2020. These facts, coupled with ongoing budgetary
constraints, prove that we can no longer hope that our brick
and mortar delivery of information is sufficient. We must be
innovative in our approach to information delivery while still
ensuring the quality of information provided to our veterans.
Most veterans frown on the current delivery method, describing
the TAP program as death by Power Point due to the lengthy and
enormous amount of information delivered. While the basic
information such as months of Post 9/11 G.I. Bill eligibility
should continue to be included, we must ensure that our entire
instructional program is informed through research, best
practices, and feedback.
As servicemembers contemplate pursuing a degree following
the military the utilization of VSOs and VSAs can be looked
upon as being a force multiplier, providing the necessary link
between departure from the military and the veteran's
introduction into civilian life. Veterans service organizations
like SVA have a proven track record of success, to both its
members, both today and its alumni, and it should have a seat
at the table in further discussions. Through research,
connection with our local SVA chapters, and advocacy, we know
that the better informed and prepared student veterans are the
greater the contributions and return on the investment for our
nation. By integrating SVA and other VSOs into the assessing
higher education track, we can ensure the same level of success
for all vets transitioning into higher education.
We thank the chairman, ranking member, and the subcommittee
members for your time, attention, and devotion to veterans and
higher learning. We look forward to continuing to work with
this subcommittee, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
and the Congress to ensure the success of all generations of
veterans. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Valrica Marshall Dunmyer appears
in the Appendix]
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Ms. Dunmyer. Colonel Sutherland,
you are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF COLONEL DAVID W. SUTHERLAND
Colonel Sutherland. Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, my name is David Sutherland. I am representing
Easter Seals Dixon Center and serve as its chairman. Easter
Seals is a national nonprofit that helps individuals reach
their potential through local services. I co-founded Easter
Seals Dixon Center to forge community partnerships and harness
local resources to more effectively serve veterans and
transitioning servicemembers at the community level. As one of
the 13 surge brigade commanders in Iraq in 2007 I observed
firsthand the greatness that exists in our formations. And I
also recognize the potential for greatness when our
servicemembers come home. Thank you for inviting me to testify
about the reintegration needs of our servicemembers and the
role of communities and public-private partnerships.
I have dedicated the last several years on this very topic,
both as a special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and now at Easter Seals Dixon Center. I am inspired by
the sea of goodwill among Americans and U.S. communities that
are ready to assist and welcome home our veterans and military
families. I have seen that there are just some things that
government cannot do that independent organizations working
together locally can. Far too many servicemembers struggle
during their transition because of missed opportunities and
disconnected communities. The solution to successful
transitions lies in American communities. My testimony today
will focus on what government and communities can do together
to improve this transition.
Let me start by saying the government is doing a better
job. Thanks to steps by Congress and changes to the Transition
Assistance Program curriculum, including the optional tracks on
education, technical training, and entrepreneurship. I did not
benefit from these changes when I attended TAP after 29 years
in the U.S. Army. That said, TAP continues to lack a mechanism
to measure outcomes and facilitate warm hand offs into
communities.
In my testimony I share the transition experience of a
Marine named Gary. He completed the new TAP, was self-
motivated, and had a plan. However, his plan quickly unraveled
when he hit a string of unfortunate events that left him
homeless and in crisis. TAP and the military supports end the
minute you walk off the base and so Gary was on his own. Gary
and other veterans like him quickly learn that the hard work of
transition begins after TAP and what typically separates the
transition success story from a story of struggle is now a
community welcomes, connects with, and responds to
transitioning servicemembers.
Luckily for Gary his home of Cincinnati was prepared to
assist him. Several months earlier I had helped organize a
coordinated community response in Cincinnati among Easter Seals
and other community groups through Operation Veterans Thrive.
Chairman Wenstrup is very familiar with this effort funded by
three local community foundations. Gary's initial call into the
community led to several warm handoffs. First, to local
organizations to address his immediate needs. Then to Easter
Seals Tri-State for employment services to help him find a job.
Gary is firmly on his path towards greatness thanks to a little
community support during transition.
The connectedness of Cincinnati was the result of
comprehensive community asset mapping and community convenings.
Not all communities are as prepared. Easter Seals Dixon Center
works across the country to build community partnerships and
share innovative approaches to assist our veterans. We are
stronger and more effective by working together.
While we have succeeded in shepherding community resources
and fostering community collaborations in places like Ohio, New
York, California, and Indiana, the need and work continues.
Congress could make a difference by funding community asset
mapping and coordination efforts through a community grant.
While this hearing focuses on initial transition into
civilian life, reintegration struggles for some can surface
several months or years after leaving the military. Congress
has supported care coordination and supportive services models
to address the most compelling needs, such as veterans
unemployment and homelessness. However, more must be done to
intervene earlier before crisis hits. I urge Congress to expand
community models focused on early intervention and support
services. Communities and groups like Easter Seals are part of
the solution in promoting successful transitions. Congress
could accelerate this effort by establishing outcome
measurements and increasing community connections within TAP,
supporting communities to more effectively serve veterans and
military families, and expanding access to care coordination
and support services to address ongoing reintegration needs.
As I alluded to throughout my testimony, we are veterans,
we are not victims. That this is not about pity but recognizing
potential, and that this generation of veterans are wired to
serve. They just need a little community based support during
transition and reintegration and they will thrive.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I will be pleased
to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Colonel David Sutherland appears
in the Appendix]
Dr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you, Colonel Sutherland. I now
yield myself five minutes for questions and first I want to say
I appreciate all of your testimonies and your lifelong concern
for our veteran and for those that have served. And certainly
we don't want this program to be death by Power Point, which we
have heard about, and we don't want it to be just a box that
you check. We are all familiar with that process and coming
away with nothing. But we also need to look for opportunities
outside of those several days where we can reach our veterans
and those that are still in uniform as they are transitioning
out of the military. Our goal here is to get it right and to
get it right as many times as we possibly can.
You know, with that in mind as you are looking at the long
term effects, I ask all of you what is your understanding of
how the VA, Department of Labor, and Department of Defense are
tracking long-term performance outcomes of TAP? And how do you
think they could improve such reporting? What are you hearing
from members on how TAP has or has not adequately prepared them
for their transition? And I will start with you, Mr. Leghorn.
Mr. Leghorn. Mr. Chairman, we had very good feedback from
our members that have gone through the TAP program. There is
obviously some small tweaking that needs to happen, but for the
most part it has been, all the feedback has been positive.
Dr. Wenstrup. What about the long term, my concern is about
the long term reporting of how people are doing through, after
this process. We know that they may go through the program and
find it beneficial. What about looking at where they are two
years from now? Five years from now? That is one of the issues
that I want to address with all of you.
Mr. Leghorn. We talked to the Department of Labor about
this in the past. And I believe we were told that they had a, a
while back they had a direct calling campaign where they were
reaching, actually reaching out to the people that have gone
through TAP. And they captured their information and they were
following up with them afterwards. So I do not know if that is
still happening, but the American Legion was in support of that
program.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you for the chairman, thank you for
the question, Mr. Chairman. A couple of items on this. Now
first, DoD is conducting exit surveys for participants in the
Transition Assistance Program. Overall the feedback has been
generally positive from what the VFW has seen. Now to do our
own due diligence we also had a survey of recently transitioned
servicemembers asking for their feedback on the Transition
Assistance Program. A little bit of what we found from our
respondents is that 65 percent reported that overall they were
very satisfied with the level of training that they received.
Only five percent reported that they were dissatisfied.
Although the response, the sampling was very small, we hit
major installations like, major combat installations like Fort
Campbell, Fort Bragg, Hood, Camp Pendleton, and so on.
Now as far as the Department of Labor briefing, 72 percent
found it very useful, 26 somewhat useful. And 68 percent
reported very likely to use the resources after they separated.
Now the problem with this is that it does not capture what
happens in the out years. This is what we were talking about in
our testimony about the DoD, the importance of the Department
of Defense and Department of Labor information sharing
agreement. Department of Labor does want to track veterans once
they separate from the military and what their employment
interactions are like but they do not have consistent access to
the information from when servicemembers leave the military and
become veterans.
Also with the Off Base Transition Training Program, I think
that is why we think this is an important investment. OBTT has
the potential to reach veteran who never had an opportunity to
go through TAP, which is the majority of the veteran
population. I know when I left the military it still was not
mandatory. The mandate is only hitting people who are going
through it now. And also, that is not necessarily even the
right time to ask those questions because you do not know the
challenges you will face until after you leave.
There are some issues with the current population survey
and how the Bureau of Labor Statistics identifies veterans
within the workforce. There are some tweaks we could make there
to make it more beneficial. But there, we have a long way to go
before properly evaluating the effectiveness of TAP and the
long term employment of veterans.
Ms. Dunmyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not aware of a
formal program of tracking departing servicemembers to assess
the effectiveness of TAP. But what I can share with you is what
we are getting back from our student veterans. For the most
part they are, they have benefitted from the TAP training but
there are some instances where they are not prepared to enter
college. They did not receive the information on how to engage
the process and then what financial assistance is out there. So
as we have identified through this hearing, we have also
identified that there are still areas where we still need to
show improvements.
Colonel Sutherland. So we did from our discussions, and I
have visited over 600 communities in the past several years,
worked and spoken to veterans from all generations, but with
this particular audience that have gone through the current
transition it is, the struggle is the warm hand-off, the
connection with where they are going. The personal information
disclosure and connecting them before they get home, to
network, to assist, and knowing where to go if they have an
emergency during that time period. That is what is missing.
We have to measure the success or failure of our graduates.
And if we look at our veterans as graduates and measure their
success or failure, whether it is in full-time education, full-
time employment, or other challenges, then we can assess and
measure how we adjust TAP for the future. What are we hitting
on? What are we not hitting on? If we continue to just measure
100 percent attendance, that is not going to help us achieve
our goals. And my recommendation is that we say the goal is 100
percent of these veterans are employed, or 100 percent are in
education, or bring it down to a more realistic number based on
the staff estimate of Labor, VA, and DoD. But then we can
measure it and we can come back and not say that this group got
a better education experience or a better transition
experience, but handing them off warmly.
The lessons learned in the recent Rand study for the
100,000 jobs mission that came out discusses the significance
of the TAP program but it also more informed our transitioning
servicemembers of what resources are available in the community
they are going to, and creating that advance warning to the
local community is a benefit, and then measuring their success
or failure as graduates of the program.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you all very much. I now recognize the
ranking member for any questions he may have.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I will throw
this question out to anybody who feels they can answer it. How
is it that we can retain or engage engaging instructors? I
think part of the problem is that we have, we have got a large
trainer corps out there which has a great variety in terms of
their skill level and equality and how do we retain these folks
that are good, and how do we evaluate them?
Mr. Gallagher. Ranking Member Takano, I just had an
opportunity to visit with some of the transition facilitators
as we do our routine site visits. And just from speaking to
some of the contractors who facilitate this, I think they are
doing a good job of that already. I think the contractor is
hiring quality individuals who want to deliver quality
training. Some of them that we speak, most of them that we
speak to are veterans themselves or veteran family members, and
of those veterans most of them are recently transitioned. So
whatever they are doing to recruit these personnel they, in my
opinion they seem to be doing a good job.
Now retaining them in the long term and evaluating their
effectiveness may be a different story. One of the concerns
that we do have is the rigidity of the contract, especially
when it comes to integrating community resources like VSOs,
like DVOPs, and LVERs, who could provide the landscape around
that military installation, what the employment situation is. I
think that is why we are asking the committee to take a look at
the rigidity of the contract and whether there is any
flexibility that could be worked in to put those resources back
in where appropriate.
Mr. Takano. All right, thank you. Ms. Dunmyer, I want to
turn to a question, since you represent, your organization
represents students, how much of a factor should the type of
institution and the type of accreditation the institution has
be in a veteran's decision of where to use their G.I. benefits?
Do you think enough information about the type of accreditation
is provided in TAP? I mean, for instance many veterans may not
know that courses at a particular type of institution may not
be transferrable. The difference between regional and national
accreditation, for example. Is this information, how important
is it? And is it in your opinion delivered with enough
effectiveness?
Ms. Dunmyer. Thank you, Ranking Member Takano. What is
happening is that level of detail of information, you are
normally not going to have time to be able to hear that
information with military members as they are going through the
TAP training. And that is why I think it is so important to
have VSOs start to play an earlier role in the process. Because
specifically SVA, we have got chapters on the ground throughout
all of the 50 states. And what you would have happening there,
and let me go back to your initial comment. Yes, there is a
difference with the accreditation. Because unless your, you
explain that in detail to the student vet, they don't
understand that some of the credits may not be transferrable.
And so they are going into school and by the time they figure
out that the 10 or 12 credits that they have taken previously
are not going to be able to be transferred, now they have got
to spend additional money or potentially go into debt. And so
it is a downhill spiraling process that is going on. So what
you want to be able to do is to inform them, make them, provide
as much information to them before they actually start the
process. And so having a part of that track where it is
mandatory that they go down it if they are, they want to pursue
college, it is also important to have the VSO there to be able
to explain that process to them. And in doing so, then they
will be able to make a better informed decision about which
schools that they want to go to.
Mr. Takano. I wonder whether or not the federal government
has been able to track, or VSOs track the decisions that
students have made vis-a-vis what educational institution they
are attending, and whether we are able to measure a level of
regret that they would have made better decisions had they
known. I mean, whether we have been able to assess
retroactively among people who have used their veterans
benefits?
Ms. Dunmyer. We have been able to. The Million Records
Project that was just done, phase one, we were able to track,
and this was the first time that we have ever had research done
on that population to find out who has gone to school, what
were the degrees that they were pursuing, what were the types
of institutions that they were actually enrolled in. So that
was phase one of the Million Records Project. And what we found
out was that you had 80 percent of the student veterans that
were going or that had been enrolled in college from 2002
through 2010, 80 percent of them had attended public schools,
ten percent of them were in private schools, and then another
ten percent were in your proprietary schools. So there is
information out there.
Now that was phase one. Phase two, we are going back to
look at the institutions themselves and look at the policies
and practices of institutions. And what we want to be able to
see is how much of a role the institutions play in helping
veterans actually achieve success and attaining a degree from
that institution.
Mr. Takano. I am sorry, my time is up. Thank you. I would
be very much interested in that information. Thank you.
Ms. Dunmyer. Yes, sir.
Dr. Wenstrup. I now recognize the remaining members in
order of arrival, alternating sides. First is Ms. Radewagen.
Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member,
and members of the subcommittee, talofa. My home district of
American Samoa is an isolated group of islands about five and a
half hours by plane south of Hawaii. It's the only U.S. soil
that's south of the equator. And for a small group of islands
we have a tremendous number of our sons and daughters serving
and that have served in the armed forces. In fact, ten percent
of our entire population is made up of military veterans. I
want to make sure we cover as much as possible for our
veterans. Too often in the past, not just in this committee but
throughout the House, legislation has passed Congress that has
forgotten American Samoa and the territories and I am pleased
to see that in this bill our veterans are eligible for this
assistance just as those in the States are.
I have a question for Mr. Gallucci. I appreciate your
suggestion in your written testimony that you believe a
disabled veterans outreach program and the local veterans
employment representatives should be more involved in TAP.
Short of repealing the law mandating that contractors teach
TAP, how would you envision DVOPs and LVERs being more
involved?
Mr. Gallucci. Well, thank you for the question. I do want
to clarify one point. We support further integration of DVOPs
and LVERs in the transition process overall. However, given the
scope of the training that Department of Labor needs to deliver
or that Department of Defense needs to deliver to transitioning
servicemembers, that the way to go is through contract
facilitation. The reason behind this is because through the TAP
mandate in talking to the transition centers at major military
installations, they are constantly running classes, five days a
week, 48 to 50 weeks a year. So the problem is if you had DVOPs
and LVERs still facilitating the training they would have
absolutely no time to work in their communities to identify job
opportunities or work face to face with veterans who require
their services.
That being said, when we spoke to some of those responsible
for transition management, their concern was that the contract
facilitators did not necessarily integrate local resources into
the Transition Assistance Program at all. So there was not
really an opportunity for an LVER or a DVOP to come in and
brief military personnel or make themselves available. These
may have been isolated to a handful of military installations
but it is something that we would want to look into to make
sure that we are not losing that community connection that
Colonel Sutherland stressed is so important.
Dr. Wenstrup. Next Miss Rice, you have five minutes.
Ms Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This question is for Ms.
Dunmyer. What kind of training innovations would you suggest to
improve the delivery of benefits information to avoid what you
refer to and others have referred to as the death by Power
Point situation?
Ms. Dunmyer. My first suggestion would be that we advance
with advancements in technology. There is quite a few
universities out there that are using distance learning and e-
learning types of venues. And I would recommend that that is
one option, even though I know it has been previously
discussed. I think that is more of a viable option than the
current one that we have where you are sitting in a classroom.
And I was a part of that. And while my first week of it, at
least the first two days, I thought were very beneficial, I was
very attentive. But after about two or three days and you are
sitting in a classroom for eight hours and the information is
coming at your nonstop, it tends to be repetitious and it
starts to be boring even though it is beneficial information.
So I would say that we start to look at other types of venues
to present the information so that you alleviate some of the
boredom and monotony that comes with that classroom
environment.
Ms Rice. One other question. For Mr. Gallucci, I am going
to ask you this question. You spoke about the DoD and DoL
formalizing their information sharing agreement. Does not, I
would assume that DoL already has the names of veterans who are
transitioning to civilian life as part of their own Employment
Workshop? Is that true? I mean, it seems like the information
is already----
Mr. Gallucci. Our understanding is they do not readily have
that information at the moment. And that this is, this is being
able to gather the information from these transition points and
then distribute it to workforce development agencies that have,
DVOPs and LVERs that have employment counselors who are able to
deliver services directly to the veterans. This is something
that Department of Labor first brought to our attention in
2012, that they were working to codify a formal agreement with
Department of Defense. There have been several implementation
points that have been missed. The most recent that I am aware
of is September of 2014, they were supposed to have an
agreement implemented by, well like end of September, October
1, 2014. And that time lapsed and so that is really where we
are at the moment.
Ms Rice. What are, so what would you think is the reason
for the lack of desire to use contract facilitators that you
were referring to before, given the limited ability of DVOP and
LVERs?
Mr. Gallucci. As far as a reluctance to use contract----
Ms Rice. Well is there, what is the issue?
Mr. Gallucci. I do not think there is. I think there is a
concern, though, that local resources may not have as much of a
presence in the Transition Assistance Program that they had
before. So before they went to, before Department of Labor went
to contract facilitators it was usually DVOPs or LVERs who
conducted the training, who conducted the Department of Labor
briefing for the TAP program. When they went to contract
facilitation a lot of the DVOPs and LVERs were not able to
participate in the TAP program at the level they used to and it
was contract facilitation on all military installations so they
are delivering the three-day Employment Workshop and DVOPs and
LVERs would be integrated in other ways into the program. So
that is the concern that we have heard from some DVOPs and
LVERs.
Our stance, from the VFW's perspective, contract
facilitation has to be the way to go given the scalability of
the task of training everyone who is leaving the military.
There would be, there is no reasonable way to expect JVSG grant
recipients to continue to deliver that training given the scope
of investment that we have made in the program.
Ms Rice. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Wenstrup. Mr. Costello, you are recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
each of you for your testimony. I believe I can generalize that
each of you has said that TAP is an improvement but that TAP
itself can be improved. And I think that it is refreshing for
all of us to hear that TAP is an improvement.
My question is directly oriented to Colonel Sutherland,
although I invite anyone else to offer their comments. Colonel,
I am just going to read a couple pieces of your testimony and
then ask a question to provide the context. This is you
speaking. I have found what typically separates a transition
success story from a transition story of struggle and crisis
lies in how a community welcomes, connects with, and responds
to servicemembers leaving the military. We do not need more
organizations but rather we need to harness existing community
based programs and get organizations from across society to be
inclusive of those touched by military service, to use our
leadership locally to bring these organizations together to
achieve collective impact. On page four you note, more needs to
be done to localize the TAP training for transitioning
servicemembers. And then to page seven you state that, you
speak about the warm hand off between TAP and community as
being lacking and there needs to be a more effective way of
connecting the separating servicemember to the community he or
she is planning to either prior to or during their transition.
The DoD, for example, is not designed to provide these follow
along community supports but some type of hand off within the
community to the state director of veterans services, American
Job Center staff, or local veterans service organization could
help promote smoother transitions.
The question is, and it need not necessarily be an economic
development agency although being a county commissioner, I
mean, I am aware that every region has an economic development
agency that handles workforce development programs. My question
is because it is necessarily something very local, and because
each community is a little bit different, do you envision sort
of a unified delivery model for dealing with that warm hand off
and for dealing with that ongoing issue of reintegration? Or is
it something that really falls outside of government and is
much more to use the term community based? I am curious if you
could reflect on that a little bit further. Because I find it
very interesting. And it really hits to the nexus of what the
focus is, which is how do you transform TAP into its next
iteration?
Colonel Sutherland. It does, and I understand exactly the
challenge. The institutions need to err on the side of the
veterans as opposed to err on the side of the institution, and
to do that we have to understand if you have met a
servicemember you have met a servicemember. If you have met a
veteran, you have met a veteran. And if you are going to a
community, you are going to a community. Each community has
different resources, different capacity. And then what we have
seen though in those communities, those local communities, is
organizations that have stood up over the past several years
because of this desire to want to connect and enable this
generation of veterans.
We have seen whole of society approaches take place,
whether it is in Wilkes-Barre or whether it is in Cincinnati or
Boise, Idaho with the Wyakin Warrior Program. But what we have
seen is that as the veterans transition, a more personalized
approach to connect them to what are their desires as opposed
to what do we think they should do. And what we have seen is
over the past year some great advancement as far as
apprenticeships and internships through Skills Bridge, with DoD
working with the VA, as well as with teamster organizations.
Trade and local organizations are phenomenal at not only
recognizing the skill sets of the veterans but then tying them
to what do the veterans want to do? What does the servicemember
want to do? And now with the opportunities with the changes in
DoD regulations that took place last January, or instructions
that have taken place last January, we are now doing
internships on installations. We just kicked off in Fort Sill
with the teamsters doing truck driver training with a large
group that want to drive trucks, commercial rigs. And so
understanding that it is a whole of society approach but
tailoring it after the institutionalized training that they go
through in the TAP program as they get closer.
Because honestly when you are at 180 days out, I am
thinking 180, 179, 178, I am counting down. As you get closer
to the end and having a follow up, a care coordination effort,
but connecting them to some sort of network in their local
community. And that is what the state directors of veterans
services have been talking about as well. Because we have been
leaving them out of the conversations in some cases. Including
them and then understanding that another part of this is
building public awareness. The American people know what we
are. They may not know us. They know we served in Iraq and
Afghanistan, they know we served on a ship or an aircraft, we
need to bring it down to a personal level once we connect with
them in the local community. And that is why that network is
so, so important. And having, harnessing community based
programs. That is how J.P. Morgan has hired over 100,000, UBS
has hired several thousand veterans. And through the work of
local organizations coming together, what we have seen in
Cincinnati that has reduced the unemployment. It is the public
and private partnership that really takes place after that
institutional training. Does that answer your question, sir?
Mr. Costello. It does. I appreciate that.
Colonel Sutherland. Thank you.
Dr. Wenstrup. Ms. Titus, you are recognized for five
minutes.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First I would like to
say to Mr. Leghorn, I appreciated your observation and comment
that the education track should be a mandatory part of the
program. Because even if our servicemen and women are not
thinking about going directly on to college, they need to have
that information so they know what their options are down the
road. Because many times they may get out for a year or two and
then want to come back. And that brings me to my question to
Ms. Dunmyer, I recently met with the student veterans at UNLV.
And they like to go out to Nellis or to Creech and recruit some
folks to come to UNLV. But they tell me that they have a hard
time getting onto the bases, getting in touch with these young
people. And they wonder how, what they can do to make it
better. Because they believe if these folks heard from fellow
students maybe as part of the TAP program it would be less
boring than sitting in the classroom, as you referenced, and
have some relevant information. I just wonder is this a problem
across campuses? Is it just UNLV? Is there something we can do
to maybe facilitate that relationship earlier in the process?
Ms. Dunmyer. Well ma'am, I am not aware that that is a
problem. I know access requirements or access standards are
different for different installations. So it is something that
we can go back and look at. But it should not be, their access
onto the installation should not be a problem. I think the new
policy for most installations is as long as you have got an ID
normally you can gain access into the installation.
Ms. Titus. Well I do not think they had a problem getting
onto the base. I am talking about access to the TAP program and
being a part of maybe that transition in a formal way before
people get out of the service, and then kind of disappear
before they come back to UNLV.
Ms. Dunmyer. Well, we do not. There is not a formal----
Ms. Titus. That is my point.
Ms. Dunmyer. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Titus. Is there something we could do too, or do you
not think that would be a good idea?
Ms. Dunmyer. That is what we are hoping to accomplish
today. That is what we are hoping that will happen, will come
out of this. That we are able to be, that SVA, the VSOs are
able to be on the front end of the process instead of the back
end. That we can be there when the decisions are made, we are a
part of the discussions that are going on, and we can add to
it. That is what we are trying to do here today.
Ms. Titus. I know that. I guess I was just looking for
something a little more specific that we could be doing. But I,
I appreciate the general sentiment and I share it. So maybe we
will just go beyond students. We also have in Las Vegas gaming
companies, like MGM and Harrah's, have very active job fairs
for veterans. But that is, again, after the fact. They are not
at the front end, they are not on the facilities, they are not
talking to the soldiers so to speak before they become
veterans. Tell me how we can make that better, anybody who
would address. Give me something specific.
Mr. Gallucci. Madam Titus, thank you for the question. I
think we can--there is a little bit of insight that the VFW has
on this issue. So, first, there were a couple of memoranda that
the Department of Defense put out very recently, the outgoing
Secretary of Defense Hagel put out, about base access for
nonprofit organizations, organizations that serve veterans. One
was for organizations like The American Legion and the VFW who
provide VA accredited disability claim service. The other is
for organizations to conduct events on the installation. What
that was is to clarify how you can make that happen. This may
be something that UNLV can take a look at if they are having
problems integrating into that system.
We heard these issues a lot from who has access and who
doesn't have access to the TAP program, but I do want to say
that there is a lot of innovation going on out there from what
I have seen from the transition managers. The Department of
Defense deserves a lot of credit for the men and women that
they hire to manage their Transition Assistance Programs. They
do integrate a lot of community resources beyond the scope of
what we have mandated through the mandatory portion of TAP.
For instance, out at Fort Lewis they have a lot of local
employers that they integrate into the transition process. Fort
Bragg has hiring events that are beyond hiring affairs; it is
prescreened servicemembers who have resumes ready to go who
have met with employers and then they just do interviews and
they find jobs on the spot. There has been a lot of innovation,
but I think one of the problems is consistency across the board
or sharing of these good ideas; they are not identifying
resources in those communities.
Beyond that, as far as preparing servicemembers to make
educational choices, there is something that I hit on in my
testimony about the career technical track and the higher
education track, and this actually speaks to what Ranking
Member Takano was concerned about. In the career technical
track there is an in-depth discussion about the difference in
accreditation, what the model of a school is: for profit,
nonprofit, career, education, and so on. There is not much of
that in the higher education track and in many ways, they are
complimentary, but a servicemember who doesn't have reasonable
access to all the tracks or knows where to look for this
information may not find it.
And I think that speaks to what Chairman Wenstrup wants to
see with mandating the education track and mandating other
components of TAP.
Ms. Titus. Maybe we need an inventory of what is happening
in different places so we can come up with best practices and
have some consistency across the board.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Mr. Gallucci, can you expand on suggestions for expanding
the off-base TAP pilot program and do you believe that we are
doing as best we can or what are your thoughts of that?
Mr. Gallucci. That is an interesting question. OBTT was
something the VFW and our partners in the veterans community
really pushed for back in 2012 and we were happy to see it
pass. But when it was implemented it probably could have been
done with better community coordination. Now, recognizing the
Department of Labor had very scant resources with which to
implement the program, but I think the philosophy the VFW has
behind supporting this is that when a veteran goes to an
American Job Center to meet one-on-one with either an
employment counselor or a DVOP, that is not the time to answer
your general questions; it is a better use of that advisor's
time if you are ready to seek out a job.
So if you have large-scale briefings like we do with the
Transition Assistance Program on bases, you get a good baseline
of information and then when you are ready for that one-on-one
meeting, you go to that one-on-one meeting prepared to do work.
We do the same thing with our disability claims assistance on
military installations. So we rely on the contracted staff that
VA provides to deliver the framework that you would need to
know about the disability claims process. Where we fall into it
is you schedule an appointment with one of our disability
claims representatives and they go through your medical
records; they help you fill out the paperwork; they take your
power of attorney; and you file the claim from there.
So that is the kind of interaction that we think could be
fostered through OBTT is delivering resources at the right time
in the community to the veterans and then when they seek out
services, one-on-one services in an American Job Center, they
are ready to find a job.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Mr. Takano, you are recognized.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Titus, I mean I share your concern about trying to
bring some of these job resources up to the front. Congressman
Cook and I had cosponsored legislation for a pilot, Work for
Warriors, which was not for veterans, but was for our
guardsmen, but which directly placed people in the job. So we
had employees that have jobs, we should be able to not just
teach people how to get the jobs with the resums, but maybe
find some direct placement.
But the question I have--and I in no way want to denigrate
technical or other tracks--but, Ms. Dunmyer, do you have any
idea how many of our servicemembers who are transitioning have
issues with remediation? Because as I understand it,
remediation education--remedial education is not currently
covered as a funded part of their benefits, and I have a
suspicion that it cannot be too far off of what the community
colleges in California face. I mean up to 80 percent of our
community college students who come to us are not really
college-ready, and I know many of our servicemembers who are
not attending the non-mandatory education track may not fully
partake of their education benefits because they may be
insecure about their readiness for college. But I want to get a
handle on, you know, just the student success or non-student
success that is tied to this college readiness issue. How many
more of our veterans would maybe take on higher education if
remediation were maybe funded by their veterans benefits?
And if you don't have the answer, maybe some others of you
might step forward.
Ms. Dunmyer. I don't have an exact number, but it is about
50, 53 percent, and, of course, it is not funded and we have
identified that, especially with some of the stem majors, that
math is one of the biggest challenges for our student veterans
going back because they have been out of the classroom for
years and so a lot of that training that they received going--
you know, coming through high school, they have lost that
skill.
Mr. Takano. So you are saying that up to 50 percent of our
veterans who actually have--are interested in seeking higher
education--we are not even talking about those veterans who may
have been maybe----
Ms. Dunmyer. Graduating.
Mr. Takano [continuing]. That our veterans who are going
the higher education, using their benefits, up to 50 percent of
them are sort of not college-ready at the outset, is that what
you are saying? I mean it would seem to be a number that would
be reasonable, given the generates that I have seen at
community colleges.
Colonel Sutherland. Sir, if I can help?
We have seen the graduation rate is what Student Veterans
of America was talking about. How many are college-ready is
difficult to assess because our veterans may not complete for
different reasons. They may not complete graduation or get to
graduation because 50 percent of them are married. They may not
get--and they have to take care of their families, so----
Mr. Takano. So we are not able to tease out, just aggregate
out how many of those students may have started college not
completely ready and may have even gotten discouraged because
they couldn't complete their first year math or English class?
Ms. Dunmyer. No, we are not able to give you an exact
percentage of that, no, sir. But we can give you--it is, for
the most part, I would say you still have a high percentage of
graduates that are able to achieve their degree. Our
percentages are similar to what your traditional student would
complete their degree--time frame that they would complete
their degree in, as well.
Mr. Takano. And I recognize there are other challenges
beyond maybe the college-readiness which may impact our
graduation rates at the colleges, but, specifically, because we
don't fund remediation, remedial education, whether it is a
semester, a year that we need to boost up that student's
skills, this is an area that I am concerned with and trying to
get a handle on the quantification of how many students may be
involved.
Ms. Dunmyer. Well, I can't give you an exact percentage;
what I can tell you is that that is an area that we have
identified as a problem. And to go back to math--and what we
started is we did a pilot program a couple of months ago and it
was to focus on math because our student veterans identified
that they were having problems with math and that they are
having--that the universities are requiring that they take a
preparatory course in order to be able to start their core math
courses for a particular degree.
So we started a pilot program with math. When we started
out, we had--our hopes were that we would have at least 30
people that would enroll. To our surprise, it ended up being a
little over a hundred--300 people that actually ended up
enrolling in the course, and so from all measures, that was
extremely successful.
Now, because of that, what we started to do is to look at
other areas that veterans are having problems with, as well,
and we plan to do other pilots like that to address other areas
that veterans are challenged in before they actually start
their degree for studied.
Mr. Takano. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
the extra questioning time.
Dr. Wenstrup. Sure. With votes coming up, if there is a
second round of questions, if you could make them brief, I
would appreciate it.
Ms. Radewagen, you are recognized if you have another
question.
Ms. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to express my proceedings to the entire panel.
Colonel Sutherland, Dixon Center, I would like to thank you
for sharing in your written statement the heartwarming story of
the U.S. Marine Corps veteran named Gary which illustrates the
efforts and positive effects that local nonprofits can provide
to servicemembers. How can Congress and the Administration
better assist nonprofits connect to servicemembers in need?
Colonel Sutherland. Yes, ma'am.
It is a great question; I appreciate you asking. And I am
happy to give you a more detailed answer, as well. What has
taken place recently with the change in instructions from
Secretary Hagel for access for VSOs needs to go further. It
needs to broaden the definition of those that can have access.
With the number of nonprofits that exist, every single one
of them does a good job, but making sure that locally--I fought
for my family, my neighbor and my community, and I come home to
my family, my neighbor and my community, and so encouraging
their participation through--and through expanding the efforts
of SSVF, expanding the efforts of the Supportive Services for
Veteran Families, as well as HVRP, and other efforts to locally
connect those services and expanding the definition of in your
community of asking other nonprofits just be inclusive.
Easter Seals is an organization that has been inclusive of
veterans since World War II and provides direct services to
165,000. We don't market. We don't spend a lot of money
marketing. So it is build public awareness, encourage community
involvement and promote community-based services, and I am
happy to give you a much more expansive answer, as well.
And we appreciate our American Samoans that have fought
with us, as well. I had a large number in my brigade combat
team.
Ms. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Wenstrup. Well, if there are no other questions, I want
to thank the first panel for being here today. You are now
excused, but thank you for your dedication to our country and
to our servicemembers.
I now invite our second panel to the witness table. Joining
us is Mr. Curt Coy, Deputy Under Secretary for Economic
Opportunity at the Department of Veterans Affairs; Ms. Teresa
Gerton, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Veterans' Employment
and Training Service at the Department of Labor; and Dr. Susan
Kelly, Director of the Transition to Veterans Program Office at
the Department of Defense.
I thank you for being with us today and for your service to
our nation's veterans.
Mr. Coy, let's begin with you; you are now recognized for
five minutes, sir.
STATEMENT OF CURTIS L. COY
Mr. Coy. Well, thank you, Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member
Takano, and other members of the subcommittee.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss the current status of VA's Transition Assistance
Program. Accompanying me today is Ms. Rosye Cloud, our senior
advisor for veteran employment and the acting director of the
VBA/DoD Program Office, the organization in my office that
managing the day-to-day operations of TAP.
We all believe that it is critical for today's
servicemembers are prepared to transition to civilian life. We
have been working collaboratively with all of our partners to
deliver transition tools to help them and their families. It's
been a whirlwind time frame, and for the most part, a
successful journey.
In November 2011, Congress passed and the President signed
the VOW to Hire Heroes Act which made participation in TAP
mandatory for all servicemembers. The following month a joint
Veterans Employment Initiative Task Force delivered its
principal recommendations, all of which have been incorporated
into TAP.
The new VA curriculum now consists of two briefings broken
into four and two-hour sessions. Additionally, last year, VA
fully deployed the career technical training track, a course
designed for servicemembers wishing to transition into
technical fields that may not require--that may require
additional credentials, but certainly not a four-year degree. A
contract vehicle was put into place to provide the resources
and expertise to deliver TAP worldwide.
Our contractors share VA's commitment to veteran
employment. Ninety-five percent of our benefits advisors are
veterans. Four percent are military spouses. We currently have
over 300 VA benefits advisors permanently stationed at 107
military installations who also provide itinerant support to an
additional 189 military installations worldwide. We are
reaching out to those communities outside the gates of those
installations as well changing the way servicemembers view us.
Between our 300 benefits advisors and our 400 IDES staff,
we are now permanently stationed in hundreds of locations. We
consider reaching out to servicemembers while they are still in
uniform and where they work is critical. TAP GPS is the key
front door to the VA.
To meet the needs of the National Guard and Reserve
component members, VA deployed benefits advisors at all formal
demobilization locations, as well as we remain flexible for
Yellow Ribbon and community-based events. In just over the last
15 months, through the middle of this month, VA has conducted
over 10,000 benefits briefings to over 280,000 servicemembers.
VA and our partner agencies have also developed an online--
developed a virtual curriculum hosted on the Joint Knowledge
Online Web site, providing access from remote sites. We have
also posted the complete curriculum on our eBenefits portal.
VA has developed and implemented a comprehensive approach
to quality assurance. Benefits advisors complete a rigorous
training program before being placed in the field and we follow
up that training with intensive site visits.
VA has worked hard to develop a number of tools to help and
assist transitioning servicemembers do everything possible to
help them become informed consumers of their benefits ranging
from career scope, GI Bill comparison tool, feedback tools,
choosing the right school, and most recently, the Veterans
Employment Center or VEC.
The VEC is the federal government's single authoritative
Internet source for connecting transitioning servicemembers,
veterans and their families to meaningful career opportunities.
It is the first government-wide product that brings together a
cadre of public and private employers with real job
opportunities. Currently, 1.7 million posted on the VEC, thanks
in large part to our Department of Labor partners. It also
provides tools to translate military skills into language that
civilian employers can understand. Job seekers can also build a
profile to share with employers. Since its launch nine months
ago, we have seen the VEC have over nine million visitors.
The VA has incorporated all of these tools into our
briefings and all benefits advisors have been fully trained.
Finally, it is important to note and acknowledge our veteran
service organizations who are often included in our TAP
sessions. VA collaboratively works with our partner agencies to
continually improve the quality and breadth of our TAP program.
We have come a long way, but also know there is more to do.
Mr. Chairman, we are rowing hard and we will continue to do
so. This concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer
any questions you or other members of the subcommittee may
have.
[The prepared statement of Curtis L. Coy appears in the
Appendix]
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Mr. Coy.
Ms. Gerton, you are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF TERESA W. GERTON
Ms. Gerton. Good afternoon, Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking
Member Takano and distinguished members of the Subcommittee.
My name is Teresa Gerton and I am the Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Policy at the Veterans' Employment and Training
Service in the Department of Labor.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's
hearing to discuss the implementation of the revised Transition
Assistance Program, Transition Goals, Plans, Success, also
known as GPS. Since the inception of TAP over 20 years ago, the
Department of Labor has provided training and services through
the Employment Workshop to over 2.6 million separating or
retiring servicemembers and their spouses. Last year alone, DoL
conducted more than 6,600 Employment Workshops for over 207,000
participants at 206 military installations worldwide.
The VOW Act of 2011 required that DoL use contract
facilitators to deliver its Employment Workshops, to ensure a
standardized, high-quality professional cadre of facilitators.
DoL awarded a contract to GBX Consultants, Incorporated, a
Service Disabled-Veteran-Owned Small Business in August of 2012
for the facilitation of all DoL Employment Workshops.
In fiscal year 2013 we unveiled an entirely new Employment
Workshop that provides a highly effective training experience
and prepares servicemembers for a successful transition to the
civilian workplace at all military installations worldwide.
This three-day program uses modern adult learning techniques to
actively engage transitioning servicemembers in critical
transition skills.
Along with the synchronous virtual workshop, DoL worked
with DoD Joint Knowledge Online to convert the Employment
Workshop instructor-led classroom curriculum into an
asynchronous online distance learning format. This is a self-
paced online version of the Employment Workshop that
servicemembers can use to reinforce and refresh what they have
learned in the classroom.
On day one, participants develop their Change Management
Plan And identify overall strategies for transitioning into the
civilian workforce. On day two, participants learn how to
analyze the job market and use social media in job searches and
networking. On day three, instructors impart critical
information about special veterans' hiring authorities and how
the federal job application process differs from the private
sector.
Throughout the Employment Workshop, participants work
extensively on their master job application, targeted resums,
and interviewing skills, and finish with a mock interview
exercise. Instructors also discuss relevant employment
services, including benefits available to dislocated workers
that are available to assist transitioning servicemembers,
veterans, and their families before, during, and after their
separation from the military.
All veterans, including recently separated servicemembers
receive priority service in DoL-funded employment and training
programs. Many of these programs and services are available
through the nationwide network of nearly 2,500 American Job
Centers. During the DoL-Employment Workshop, servicemembers
learn that they are entitled to intensive services for up to
six months at an American Job Center.
DoL is pleased to report that the new Employment Workshop
curriculum has been well received. Of the 11,000 participants
who responded to the most recent survey, 91 percent reported
that they would use what they learned in their own transition
planning and 89 percent reported that the DoL Employment
Workshop enhanced their confidence in transition planning. DoL
will continue to review feedback and evaluate the program to
ensure that the curriculum remains relevant, that meaningful
learning is taking place, and that servicemembers feel prepared
to transition from military service and pursue other career
goals.
Joining my colleagues from the other agencies, I want to
remark on the strong partnership we have across the federal
government in executing this program. We meet regularly to
administer and update the program and we are proud of our
collaboration on numerous initiatives including the Veterans
Employment Center, the DoD SkillBridge Program, and our joint
participation with the Chamber of Commerces' Hiring Our Heroes
job summits at installations around the country. The Department
looks forward to working with the Subcommittee to ensure that
our separating servicemembers have the resources and training
they need to successfully transition to the civilian workforce.
Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Takano, and distinguished
members of the committee, that concludes my oral statement.
Thank you for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Teresa W. Gerton appears in the
Appendix]
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Ms. Gerton.
Dr. Kelly, you are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF DR. SUSAN KELLY
Ms. Kelly. Good afternoon, Chairman Wenstrup and Ranking
Member Takano and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today joined by
my colleagues from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the
Department of Labor to discuss the status of implementing the
redesigned TAP.
Redesigning TAP in collaboration are our interagency
partners brings together a unique set of capabilities
benefitting approximately one million servicemembers separating
from active duty over the next four years. The foundation of
the redesigned TAP is a set of career-readiness standards that
are verified for all transitioning servicemembers during a
Capstone event no later than 90 days prior to separation. If
career readiness standards are not met, the servicemembers are
provided further training or a warm hand-over to interagency
partners who ensure servicemembers receive post-separation
assistance.
Part of the redesign includes the robust transition GPS
curriculum, goals, plan, success. It builds the skills that
transitioning servicemembers will need to meet career-readiness
standards and it is now fully implemented at 206 military sites
in the United States and overseas. In addition to VOW Act
mandated requirements, transition GPS includes modules for
financial planning and a military occupational code crosswalk
to civilian workforce skills. It also includes three supplement
training tracks, accessing higher education, career technical
training and entrepreneurship. To ensure that all
servicemembers have access to the transition GPS regardless of
their duty, station or location, we have made it available
virtually on DoD's Joint Knowledge Online platform.
Another area of substantial progress is within our
evaluation and assessment of TAP. DoD, in collaboration with
our partners developed a TAP-evaluation strategy to address
three overarching goals, accountability, customer satisfaction,
and program effectiveness with long-term measures being
developed by VA, DoL, and the Small Business Administration.
Outcome measures are a priority for the TAP evaluations
strategy, beginning with VOW Act and career-readiness standards
compliance.
Based on the Defense Manpower Data Center, verified data
for fiscal year to date 2015 across the services, that
compliance for their active-duty servicemembers ranged from 91
to 97 percent. These results account for three-quarters of the
members who are separated from active duty. We realize,
however, that we must work hard to close the remaining
reporting gap.
In fiscal year 2014, we also focused an commune indicating
our redesigned TAP to servicemembers. Throughout the month of
September, 2014, we conducted a comprehensive communications
campaign. For your reference, we have provided materials to
each one of the members of the subcommittee. This year we
shifted our focus to implementation of the Military Life Cycle
TAP Transition Model. This marks a major cultural shift for the
Department. In December, 2014, the military services reported
to the White House that Military Life Cycle Transition
preparation was fully implemented at their installations, which
the new TAP interagency governing structure will continue to
monitor and improve.
Your continued support is greatly appreciated and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Susan Kelly appears in the
Appendix]
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you. I thank you all for your remarks
and I now yield myself five minutes for questioning.
One of the things we discussed with the first panel is
looking at long-term outcomes, you know, long-term outcomes
beyond just instructor surveys that immediately follow going to
TAP. We all know that in human nature we can sometimes lead a
horse to water, but we can't make them drink, and there are
times where we have to be careful that we are not setting
someone up for failure in engaging in something where they are
not going to succeed.
But my question of you is what can we, here, what can we do
to help you track these outcomes more successfully down the
road to see where we are and make adjustments as we go? And I
will go down the line.
Mr. Coy. I will go ahead and start off, Mr. Chairman.
I think tracking long-term outcomes is an incredibly
valuable tool as we go forward. We have discussed with our
partners a number of different things. One thing that we are
doing and we are putting together is putting in our voice of
the veteran survey TAP and making sure we are working with our
partners to make sure that we ask the right questions and the
right amount of questions as well. We also are looking at ways
that we could possibly do longitudinal approaches. We do
longitudinal studies in both VRE and education, and we are
looking at ways that we could add TAP to that mix. And then
most certainly, I think, Mr. Chairman, you referenced it in
your opening statement, we recently released our economic
opportunity report. It is the first that we have ever done and
we plan on making TAP also a part of future economic
opportunity reports, as well.
Ms. Gerton. DoL does track the long-term outcomes of
individuals who receive services at an American Job Center. We
track three particular metrics, entered employment, retained
employment, and average six-month salary.
Beginning in 2013 we added a field that asked incoming
veterans for services at American Job Centers whether or not
they had participated in the TAP program within the last three
years. As states implement that new data element in their
reporting systems, we are beginning to gather information about
the outcomes of TAP participants, as distinguished from other
veterans who may not have gone through that. As that reporting
process matures, we will have better outcome-related data to
TAP participants who do get services through an American Job
Center.
We are also working very closely with our colleagues in DoD
to create an opt-in field for servicemembers when they go
through the Capstone counseling that will allow them to provide
personal contact information for eventual follow-up by DoD
counselors so that we can have a better long-term picture of
what is going on with them as they transition. As we mature
that collection process with DoD, we will keep you informed.
Dr. Wenstrup. Well, that is one of my questions you
mentioned there, is how you are maintaining that communication,
and is it by email? Is it by telephone? Are they coming in to
meet with you? Are they coming in six months later? A year
later? Two years later? What is the timeline and how are you
maintaining that communication?
Ms. Gerton. Right now our maintenance records track
individuals who are receiving services at the job centers and
then they become part of our long-term record. We don't, at
this point, have the means of communicating with individuals
who haven't opted to provide their personal contact information
to our job centers, so that is what we are working on with DoD.
Once we do that, then we will have the data transmission
and sharing agreement with DoD that will allow us to maintain
that contact. We hope to contact that local outreach push that
out through our job centers.
Dr. Wenstrup. So in that vein, is there something that we
need to be doing here?
Ms. Gerton. I think in terms of getting that communication
and data sharing underway, we have all the support that we
need. In the longer term, there may be issues relating to DoL's
ability to track individuals to their long-term wage records
that would allow us to have a better long-term perspective on
an individual's outcomes over their life cycle.
Dr. Wenstrup. Currently, what is your timeline? For those
that you do have that communication set up, what is your
timeline? Are you checking with them again after they get a
job? Are you checking with them again in six months? Are they
still there? Are you checking with them in a year?
Ms. Gerton. We track their outcomes for the three quarters
after they have received their last service. So did they enter
employment in the quarter following their last American Job
Center service? Then we look to see if they had wage records in
the next two quarters. And we follow that through until there
was some reason that they needed American Job Center services
again, they would come back into the survey.
Dr. Wenstrup. Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Kelly.
Ms. Kelly. Well, we recognize that data tracking and the
tracking of our servicemembers as they went through the
redesigned TAP would be a concern, so what we have done is we
developed, through the Capstone process, which is part of the
TAP redesign, is a completion of a new defense form. So every
single servicemember who is transitioning and separates, just
like they get a DD214 also gets a new copy of this form. That
data is fed to the Defense Management Data Center and we have
established a web service that will allow our partners to tap
into that data and track those servicemembers. That IT
architecture and those business cases and those approvals are
still going through the processes right now.
But what we are also doing through DMDC, again, it is the
Defense Manpower Data Center, is to actually pilot with eight
states the flow of the data from the DD214 on every
servicemember to each of those states. We are piloting that
because as you go to each state, the ability of the states and
the local communities to capture that data and to secure that
data varies from one state to the next. So it is an IT
architecture issue within each one of the states that has to be
addressed. But we started that pilot in January and we will see
how that progresses and report out to you the results of that
once that pilot is completed.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Ranking Member Takano for five minutes.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Gerton, you mentioned that servicemembers must meet
career-readiness standards. Can you--what does that mean?
Ms. Gerton. These are established in a partnership with
both the Veterans Affairs agency and the Department of Defense
in terms of what the servicemembers must be prepared to
demonstrate in terms of which career track they plan to take.
For example, if they are going to go to higher education, there
is a checklist of things that they need to demonstrate.
If they are looking to get a job, from our perspective,
they have to demonstrate that they have completed the basics of
the exercises in the TAP class. They have to present a resumes
and a cover letter. They have to provide the results of their
skills assessment. They have to show that they have done a
local market job survey so that they have assessed whether or
not the positions that they are interested in are available in
the community that they would like to go back to and an
understanding of the salary range that might be appropriate for
them. And then they have to demonstrate that they have looked
for or have made progress towards getting some job interviews.
If they haven't, then they go back through for remediation
processes, either back through TAP, back through additional
counseling, or in our case, they may be referred to the local
American Job Center for additional intervention.
Mr. Takano. Can you incorporate the concerns about soft
skills mentioned by the earlier panel into the career-readiness
section?
Ms. Gerton. We take all the input from our stakeholders
very seriously. We are sort of limited in the amount of time we
have to communicate the material in the TAP class. We have
basically three days, eight hours a day to get them all the way
through all the basic fundamentals of how to do a job search.
We do an annual curriculum review; in fact, just this week, we
are rolling out our new curriculum that replaced some outdated
information, adds in information about disability,
entitlements, education about the Veterans Employment Center,
and some of the other new tools that are available. We do that
on an annual cycle and we are getting ready to kick off another
annual curriculum review here in the next couple of months, so
we will certainly take that under advisement.
Mr. Takano. This might not be under your purview, it might
be under Mr. Coy's, but is there any point, you know, an
emphasis on this career-readiness standards, assessing whether
or not--what about the college-readiness, I mean, in terms of
whether--obviously we don't do enough of the assessment of
whether students are ready actually to go to college, but can
you comment on that Mr. Coy.
Mr. Coy. Absolutely, Congressman Takano.
As you know from past years, this is also a subject that I
am passionate about as well. What is interesting with the
students that we see coming out, we don't know how many of
those students require remedial training or not, but often
times as we go through this process, I tell folks that 36
months of Post-9/11 G.I. Bill benefits is two semesters for
four years and there is not much room for do-overs that are in
there.
So we share your concern as well about remediation. It is
one of those things that we saw in our public-private
partnership strategy that Ms. Cloud has been working on. We,
right now, have an organization called Coursera and they are
offering a free online remedial-type course on the Veterans
Employment Center. So we are doing those kinds of things.
Interestingly, as well, SVA has come out with a mentor-type
program where they also provide those kinds of things.
And then the other final thing is we currently have a
VetsSuccess on campus counselor on 94 campuses across the
country. We are hoping to expand that, as well, where we have
VR counselors literally on campus full-time.
Mr. Takano. That is wonderful.
Dr. Kelly [continuing]. I want to thank you, Mr. Coy, Dr.
Kelly, I want to commend the Department of Defense for it is
Military Life Cycle concept. I am just wondering if there is an
opportunity for you all to think about when a servicemember
might identify an interest in a higher education, and if there
is a possibility of being able to assess that student or that
servicemember in terms of their college-readiness and then find
ways to encourage that student years before, sometime before
they exit to begin to address any readiness issues they might
have, and even if the Defense Department could encourage that
to happen?
Ms. Kelly. Well, I wish the DoD could take credit for the
Military Life Cycle TAP singularly, but that was a concept that
was developed by the Task Force and was the bedrock of the TAP
redesign. We developed the transitioning GPS curriculum,
reverse engineered it to build the career-readiness standards,
but all along, the fourth recommendation to the president was
to embed that entire curriculum across Military Life Cycle
touch points.
So, for instance, to your point about assessments, one of
the career-readiness standards is an educational assessment and
that is to be done at the first duty site of the
servicemembers, so that is a career-readiness standard.
Mr. Takano. I would love to get hold of that material from
the DoD.
Ms. Kelly. Sure.
Mr. Takano. Wonderful. I commend you all for doing that.
Ms. Kelly. Happy to provide it.
Dr. Wenstrup. They are going to be calling the votes in
about five minutes. Hopefully we can get through the members'
questions before we have to go, and with that, I recognize Ms.
Radewagen for five minutes.
Ms. Radewagen. My pleasure.
As part of the Capstone event, the TAP MOU requires that a
commander sign off if the servicemember meets the career-
readiness standards. What type of training are commanders, or
really their designees, being given to ensure that they are
qualified to make such a distinction, and what happens if the
commander does not sign his paperwork?
Ms. Kelly. Actually, each one of the services was required
to provide their plan on how they were going to educate the
commanders for their new responsibilities for the entire
transition GPS, as well as that Capstone. So that is taking
place in the service schoolhouses, commanders' and leadership
courses right now. The commanders, or someone in the chain of
command, it is a mandate to have those career-readiness
standards reviewed and signed off by the commander or the
commander's designee, as well as the transition staff because
commanders may or may not have the expertise in all of the
career-readiness standards. So the review is first conducted by
the transition staff. It's also signed off by the
servicemember.
If a career-readiness standard is not met in the
servicemember's personal goal pathway, if you allow me that
word, the warm handoff to one of our partner agencies is also
documented. So the staff member to whom that warm hand-over is
given is actually documented again on that DD form.
We are not seeing a problem with either the commanders or
the commander's designee signing off on those DD forms.
Ms. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Ms. Rice.
Ms. Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is for Ms. Gerton. During the DoL's Employment
Workshops, are private sector employers brought in to do mock
interviews, and if so, are you getting feedback to the
servicemembers on their interview performance? I mean is there
any aspect of private sector involvement?
Ms. Gerton. So, actually during the eight hours a day for
the three days, we do not have private sector involvement. The
mock interviews are managed within the classroom itself and
individuals are provided feedback on their performance through
the instructor staff, the facilitators; however, at the
discretion of the individual TAP managers on the bases, they
may be able to bring in private sector folks around the
curriculum to have additional conversations with the
servicemembers, especially those that are in the practice of
hiring veterans, I think that would be----
Ms. Rice. Thank you. I yield back my time. Thank you.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
Ms. Titus, you are recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to ask you, Mr. Coy, a question about how you
explain VBA benefits to separating servicemembers as part of
the TAP program, especially benefits for same-sex couples. As
you know, the Department of Defense recognizes marriage
equality and provides marriage benefits to all families of
active duty members of the armed services; unfortunately, due
to an outdated law, the VA is unable to provide benefits to
married couples in a few states that are home to a large number
of veterans.
So that means that an active-duty member can have access to
certain benefits on Monday and lose them on Tuesday as he or
she separates from the armed services. Now, I don't think that
is fair, but this committee last year voted to continue the
injustice.
Now, you said that TAP is the front door to the VA, but
apparently there is no welcome mat in front of that door for
some of our veterans. So how do you explain to them that these
are the benefits that they will or will not be getting when
they go through the TAP program?
Mr. Coy. Congresswoman, I couldn't agree more that we need
to get better at explaining the same-sex benefits. We do the VA
benefits, and as I mentioned, a four-hour course and a two-hour
course. VA has fully embraced the same-sex marriage provisions.
There are statutory things that are in the way of that, and so
we are sometimes caught in the middle of that, if you will,
from that perspective, but we try to explain as best we can to
our servicemembers as they are going through their VA benefits
briefs.
Ms. Titus. Thank you.
I yield back.
Dr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you.
If there are no further questions, I want to thank everyone
here today for taking time to come to share your views on this
critical program. As I have said before, I believe that if we
can get TAP right and effectively prepare our transitioning
servicemembers for life after active duty, we can probably
mitigate a lot of the problems and issues that our veterans
face.
Finally, I ask unanimous consent that all members have five
legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous material.
Without objection, so ordered.
The hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]