Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew told agency managers earlier this week that he could not rule out the possibility that federal employees could be called upon to sacrifice further in the name of deficit reduction. But some folks who serve the country are gaining benefits during these austere times: veterans.
Veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan after Sept. 10, 2001, will be eligible to receive education benefits for noncollege degree programs beginning Oct. 1. The benefit, already available to those under the Montgomery (pre-9/11) GI Bill, allows students to receive federal money for on-the-job training, correspondence courses, apprenticeship training and other types of certification offered at noncollege degree schools. Also on Oct. 1, nonactive-duty students enrolled in distance-learning programs can begin receive monthly housing stipends. Starting on that date, students attending school on active duty can receive a books and supplies stipend as well.
The Veterans Affairs Department expects more than 40,000 veterans to take advantage of the newly expanded benefit under the Post-9/11 GI Bill in the next year. As of September, VA has issued approximately $13 billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments to more than 600,000 individuals and their educational institutions since the program began. VA has received fall enrollments from 329,420 individuals. The expanded benefit will not add to the deficit over the next decade, said Josh Taylor, VA press secretary.
Building on the Montgomery GI Bill, the 2008 law known as the Post-9/11 GI Bill provides a range of education benefits to veterans serving after Sept. 10, 2001. Congress passed two subsequent laws in January and July 2011 that expanded eligibility to active-duty members of the National Guard and increased the type of programs available to veterans under the education benefit.
VA has been rolling out the expanded benefits over the past several months. As of Aug. 1, a national annual maximum tuition of $17,500 during the academic year for training at private and foreign institutions took effect and the department simplified tuition and fee payments for those attending public schools. Click here for more information on the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
Domestic Definitions
As the saying goes, words matter. The General Services Administration on Wednesday issued its final rule amending the Federal Travel Regulation, changing the definitions of the terms "immediate family" and "dependent" to include same-sex partners and their children for the purposes of receiving certain travel and relocation benefits. In June 2010, President Obama ordered federal agencies to extend a range of benefits to same-sex domestic partners of their employees, including those related to travel. Since it published the interim rule nearly a year ago, GSA received 13 comments, including a few suggesting that opposite-sex domestic partners be included in the benefit. No dice, said Uncle Sam.
"As the presidential memoranda of June 17, 2009, and June 2, 2010, do not specifically address opposite-sex domestic partners, opposite-sex domestic partners have not been included within the definition of 'immediate family,' " the final rule stated.
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