On May 12, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a preliminary report on its findings for the Disabled Veteran Outreach Program (DVOP) and the Local Veterans Employment Representative (LVER) programs. The preliminary report, titled Preliminary Observation on Changes to Veterans' Employment Programs, was released as GAO testimony at the House Committee on Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity held on May 12.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to talk about our preliminary observations
on the status of implementation of some key provisions of the Jobs for
Veterans Act (JVA).1 This legislation was passed in 2002 to improve
various aspects of employment, training, and placement services provided
to veterans. The need for such services is growing, given that roughly
700,000 veterans are unemployed in any given month and the number of
service members leaving active duty—estimated by the Department of
Labor (Labor) at 200,000 yearly—is anticipated to rise with more troops
returning to civilian life. Viewing employment services for veterans as a
national responsibility, Congress established the Veterans’ Employment
and Training Service (VETS) within Labor to carry out national policy that
veterans receive priority in employment and training opportunities.
Among the programs that VETS administers as part of its responsibilities
to help veterans find employment are the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach
Program (DVOP) and the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative
(LVER) program. Nationwide, there are more than 2,000 DVOP and LVER
staff. The DVOP staff are responsible for providing outreach to veterans
needing VETS employment services and in offering them a variety of
intensive services, such as career guidance and provision of job
development contacts. The DVOP staff are to give priority of service to
veterans who are disabled. The LVER staff are focused on establishing
relationships with area employers and on facilitating employment,
training, and placement services for veterans. The DVOP and LVER staff
are also mandatory partners in the one-stop center system created in 1998
by the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) where services provided by
numerous employment and training programs are made available through
a single network.
My testimony today addresses the current implementation status of three
aspects of the DVOP and LVER programs that have changed as a result of
JVA: (1) The separation of DVOP’s and LVER’s roles and responsibilities;
(2) VETS performance accountability system for DVOP and LVER staff;
and (3) VETS system for monitoring DVOP and LVER performance. My
testimony is based on our past reports and ongoing work for this
subcommittee and other congressional committees. We will report on our
ongoing work at the end of the year, as mandated.
We recently held discussions with national and regional VETS officials and
visited two judgmentally selected states, Washington and Colorado. In
Colorado, we interviewed state VETS officials, and visited the National
Veterans’ Training Institute (NVTI) where we interviewed NVTI officials as
well as DVOP and LVER staff from 24 states who were attending training
classes. We also met with officials from various veterans’ service
organizations and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.
We started this work in January 2005, and it is ongoing. Our work is being
conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards.
In summary, VETS has established newly defined roles for DVOP and
LVER staff and has provided this information by issuing policy guidance
letters and conducting ongoing training at NVTI. States have been using
the flexibility that these programs now provide, such as being able to
determine how many DVOP and LVER staff are sufficient to meet their
needs, where to place them within the local workforce area, and how to
more effectively use them to serve local veteran job seekers. Almost half
of the states plan to use JVA’s authority to assign DVOP staff on a parttime
basis. However, integrating DVOP and LVER staff into one-stop
centers remains a long-standing challenge. While VETS has issued
guidance on the new incentive program to recognize exemplary service
delivery by DVOPs and LVER staff, 11 states do not plan to participate due
to reasons such as state laws or other policies that prevent individuals
from receiving awards.
VETS has implemented employment measures for DVOP and LVER staff.
However, VETS estimated that it will be at least until 2007 before it has the
trend data needed to establish the minimum standard that all states must
meet for the rate at which veterans enter employment. Using goals
negotiated with the states in the interim, VETS reported that DVOP and
LVER programs, as a whole, met Labor’s goal of achieving a 58-percent
employment rate for all veteran job seekers during program year 2003,
although the programs fell somewhat short in reaching a 60-percent
employment goal for disabled veterans. However, assessing how well
DVOP and LVER programs are serving veterans may continue to be
difficult due to VETS’ ongoing concerns about the reliability of servicerelated
data.
VETS has implemented changes to its system for monitoring state
compliance with the DVOP and LVER programs, and work continues to
determine how best to use the monitoring information to improve program
performance. VETS staff completed their first round of reviewing state
plans and self-assessments of performance in program year 2004. In
addition, VETS staff performed their first round of on-site reviews. It is
unclear, however, how VETS staff at the state, regional, and national levels
will use this information to consistently guide or improve the DVOP and
LVER programs. VETS and the Employment and Training Administration
(ETA) are working together to coordinate monitoring and enforcement
efforts.
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