WACO -- Perhaps no criticism of the Veterans Affairs Department has been more biting, or true, in recent years than that the agency takes too long to rule on disability claims.
Numerous VA secretaries have promised to reduce the backlog, but it stubbornly remained in the tens of thousands and often only grew, particularly as a new generation of combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan entered the system.
On Thursday, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, himself a disabled combat veteran and former Army chief of staff, joined with U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, to announce the hiring of 100 employees at the VA's regional office to try to make headway on the Texas claims.
The money for the hires, it was noted frequently from the dais, came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the stimulus package, which President Barack Obama has defended in recent days as instrumental in helping the economy.
"Our veterans have earned this support," said Edwards, a key Democrat for the VA who faces re-election this year. "They deserve this commitment. This isn't a gift. It is giving our veterans what they have already earned."
The Waco regional office handles disability claims from a wide swath of Texas, from Austin to the Red River, Texarkana to El Paso, for issues as varied as hearing loss, back injuries, traumatic brain injury, psychiatric problems and cancer. Last year, the center processed 126,000 claims for VA benefits, a 19 percent increase over 2007.
The additional hires, some of whom will start March 1, are part of a major expansion that began two years ago with a dramatic increase in VA funding, some of it earmarked specifically for handling claims. The office in downtown Waco has added 259 employees in those two years, not including the 100 announced Thursday.
The new employees, who officials said will include more than 30 disabled veterans, will work a new shift of 3:30 p.m. to midnight, according to the center's director, Carl Lowe.
"That is the goal -- do them quicker and do them better," he said.
Last autumn, about 20 percent of the 19,000 pending claims at the Waco office had been in the system for more than 125 days, the VA's goal for handling a claim.
On average, Shinseki said, the VA is taking about 160 days to process a claim. He called that an improvement from a few years ago but said it is hardly worth celebrating.
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