Post by RHMorgan on Apr 28, 2007 22:04:33 GMT -5
100,000 Disabled Retirees Due Retroactive Pay
Tom Philpott | July 14, 2006
Tom Philpott | July 14, 2006
Retired Army SSgt. Daniel F. Purinton, 71, has argued for almost two years that the Department of Veterans Affairs owes him an additional $8044.
Purinton said the underpayment occurred as DoD and VA officials implemented a complex series of laws, starting in 2003, to end for many retirees the ban on "concurrent receipt" of both military retirement and VA disability compensation.
Purinton is right, but he also is far from alone. Back pay is owed to roughly 20,000 recipients of Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) and 78,000 recipients of Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP). Total back pay owed is said to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Most of the payments have to be calculated manually, rather than by computer, so it could take six months for retirees to be fully compensated, officials explained in draft press release recently shared with Purinton.
Those eligible for back pay have combat-related injuries and illnesses, or service-connected disabilities that the VA rates as at least 50 percent disabling. All of them also had military careers of lasting 20 years or longer.
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The ban requires that retirees who receive tax-free VA disability compensation accept a matching reduction in taxable retired pay. The dollar-for-dollar offset remains in effect today for retirees with non-combat disabilities of 40 percent or less. Also left out of recent law changes are veterans forced by their disabilities to retire short of 20-year careers.
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The VA, however, withheld some of the retroactive payment, enough to equal military retired pay Purinton had received since July. That made sense, Purinton said, because the ban on concurrent receipt still applied.
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"I'm due that money because anytime you're eligible for CRSC and VA 100 percent [compensation] you're supposed to get both, and with no deduction," Purinton said.
When VA officials rejected the claim, Purinton turned to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) who asked the Defense Department for an explanation. In November 2004, Air Force Col. Virginia Penrod, director of DoD military compensation, said DFAS was working with the VA to "rewrite" procedures so retirees are paid in full. Eighteen months later -- more than three years after CRSC began -- the process of payment is almost ready, an official said.
In making his case to DoD and the VA, Purinton said he got help from fellow retirees, including Army Lt. Col. Jerry Fleming, another victim of Agent Orange, and Air Force Col. Win Reiter, a founder of VetsPac.com, a lobby group that helps retirees through the labyrinth of concurrent receipt law.
Fleming, who has led online discussions of the CRSC back-pay issue for years, said some combat-disabled retirees, sadly, will not live to see the money. Others, when paid, will have waited nearly four years, he said.