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Former U.S. Rep. and retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West, who sat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel, called the Pentagon’s pay and benefit proposals “quite disturbing” and continued, “We should not be forcing our men and women in uniform to choose between a paycheck and training.”

MOAA agrees and thinks it’s pretty clear servicemembers and their families do not support these proposals. Fortunately, the House Armed Services Committee feels the same way.

Spending Bill Passes

Bill provides funds to help eliminate VA claims backlog.

House lawmakers passed the first of 12 federal agency funding measures April 30 for the VA and military construction programs. Under two-year funding rules, H.R. 4486 provides $64.7 billion in discretionary spending for the VA in FY 2015 and another $58.7 billion in advance funding for FY 2016. Most of the funding supports veterans’ health care needs. Military construction programs were cut $1.8 billion compared to current funding levels.

Appropriators on both sides of the aisle agreed more needs to be done to eliminate the disability claims backlog in 2015 while sustaining high-quality ratings. The bill fully funds the administration’s request of $173 million for the VA’s paperless claims management system and another $20 million to convert old paper records into a digital format.

At this time last year, the backlog — initial disability claims awaiting decision for more than 125 days — was more than 600,000. As of April 26, there were 319,363 initial claims undecided within 125 days. Total first-time claims were 596,061.

Amendments approved during consideration of the spending bill would:

ban bonuses for VA senior executives (some executives received bonuses in recent years despite a ‘systemic lack of accountability’ for poor performance);
transfer $1 million from the VA administrative account to the VAInspector General to investigate alleged misconduct at the Phoenix VA Health Care System. A former staff physician alleges the existence of a secret waiting list to bypass access standards for veterans seeking care;
add $10 million for VA disability claims;
prohibit funding for a new round of base realignment and closure; and
deny funding to DoD to close any military commissary.

The Senate still needs to pass its version of the bill.

Sexual Assault Reports Spike

DoD announces a 50-percent increase in 2013.

The Pentagon announced May 1 the number of reported sexual assaults in the military jumped by 50 percent in 2013. Overall, DoD received more than 5,000 reports of sexual assault in 2013, up from almost 3,400 in 2012.

It’s unclear how many cases of sexual assault still go unreported. Many victims are reluctant to come forward and report what happened to them, and fear of retaliation has exacerbated this problem in the military.