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Veterans' Notes

By VVAW

PRE, INTERVAL AND ADVANCE PAYMENTS

GI BILL: CUTTING THRU THE RED TAPE

THE VETERAN has carried a number of articles concerning the newest version of the GI Bill passed back in October, and including such major items as the 8% raise in GI Bill benefits and the new method of educational benefits for people enlisting in the military after the 1st of January, 1977 (where GIs must pay in $50 or $75 per month which is then matched, 2 for 1, by the Defense Department for use when the GI gets out--in effect, no GI Bill at all.

The new GI Bill (officially known as Public Law 94-502) has all kinds of built-in time bombs, however as the VA and the class of rich bosses who stand behind it, continue to use every device they can come up with to sneak in new attacks on the ability of veterans to collect the Bill and go to school. Back in November (when there was an election coming up), the only part of the Bill that was publicized was the raise in payments; not until April did vets begin to hear about the cutoff of prepayments ( checks coming at the beginning of the month to pay the vets expenses through that month) and, as time goes one, more and more of these attacks are surfacing.

PREPAYMENTS

They are now a thing of the past. Blaming vets (who supposedly "cheated" the VA out of 3.5 million dollars--probably no more than the VA wasted by having to send out a special mailing to all vets because they forgot to include prepayment information with April checks--the law now reads that vets must prove they have been in school by actually going for the month before they will be paid. That's not much help to vets who need the money to go to school in the first place. In effect it means that the VA will get through the month of June without having to send out any GI Bill checks at all; where that money is going to go has never been discussed.

INTERVAL PAYMENTS

According to the new GI Bill, vets are supposed to be paid through semester breaks--if school gets out on December 15th and the next semester starts on January 10th, and if the individual vet is enrolled for both semesters, his or her check should continue coming. However, there are more and more little red-tape restrictions that are creeping out into the open and which are making it increasingly difficult for vets to get these break payments.

Some of these restrictions include not getting break payments.

• The interval between terms is more than 30 calendar (not school) days.
• The interval between terms is also the interval between school years; if the school declares that the school year for 1977 ends in December and the year 1978 begins in January, there is no payment for the interval. This is only true for schools that don't use terms, semesters, or quarters--and is one more example of the VA trying to push all schools where vets are enrolled into a single mold rather than giving the schools, and the vets there, the freedom to set up the school year or grading systems or attendance policies in a way that best suits their educational needs.
• An interval before a change in program--that is, you can go to the same school, but if you've decided you need to take a different set of courses, there's no break payment.
• In some places we've been told that vets will have to submit a form (VA form 4138--a small version of it is reproduced on this page) to insure getting interval payments. And the VA has been wholly unable to tell us when interval checks are likely to come out.

ADVANCED PAYMENTS

This new system will begin with the fall term in 1977; according to the Department of Veterans Benefits, it will not be "appropriate" for summer school, 1977, because the letters requesting advance pay won't be in. The Department fails to go on to point out that the reason for that is no vets knew about this program until too late to do anything about it.

Advance payments will work at the beginning of the term and will amount to the vet getting his first two month's GI Bill check at or slightly before the beginning of the semester. For instance, if the fall term begins on September 5, and the vet has gone through all the red tape, he could get his September and October checks on the 1st of September; he won't get another check until November 30, a long dry spell.

There are five requirements for advance pay:

1. The vet has to go to school at least half time.
2. The school has to agree to process and get the advance payment--that means the checks will go to the school, not to the individual vet.
3. The individual vets must officially request the advance payment--the form for that is shown below.
4. Enrollment certification--forms sent in by vet reps on campus to say that the individual veterans are in fact enrolled in school, must be in to the VA at least 30 days ahead of time. As usual, the vet is dependent on the efficiency of the VA representatives on campus, something that varies a great deal from school to school.
5. School must begin more than 30 days after the last term--if the fall semester is over on Dec. 15 and the spring semester begins on January 10, there will be no advance pay. The VA cannot or will not tell us if this applies to summer school, another case of the VA making up all kinds of rules and regulations which either they have not though through or will not tell vets about until it's too late.

As if these "requirements" are not enough, there's another kicker hidden away in VA rules--that is that the VA must find "the educational institution can satisfactorily carry out the advance payment provisions of the law." In other words, the VA has built in this provision so that, by uncovering any kind of irregularity or anything else they want to, even if this comes from their own VA employees on campus, the VA will be able legally to say that vets at a particular school can't get advance payments.

These are the "rules." Built into them are all kinds of ways that the system can attack vets. Many vets will never hear about these rules--like the need for the vet to request advance payment--so of course won't follow them; a vet who is starting school for the first time in September will probably never find out what he has to do to get the advance pay he needs to get started in school. And, understanding that the class of people behind the VA want to cut back every penny they can, vets have to be constantly alert on how these rules can be used to try to push vets further down and throw us off the GI Bill.

EXTEND & EXPAND THE GI BILL

(If you want to question your vet rep about any of these regulations, they come from the Department of Veterans Benefits of the VA, Circular 20-77-24, which all vet reps have and which they should be willing to show concerned veterans.)