WASHINGTON — As state officials watched the poor economy and pay freezes shut down many GI On-the-Job Training programs, temporarily eliminating required pay increases for veterans in private-sector jobs seemed like the sensible thing to do, said Chad Shatz, vice president of the National Association of State Approving Agencies.
A bill implementing this change, authored by Rep. Tom Perriello and approved by a House subcommittee in March, mirrored a similar, but permanent policy already in place for public-sector veteran on-the-job training, Shatz said.
But the bill has stalled because its costs aren’t offset, and proposed compromises with the bill’s opponents would cost even more.
“We’re looking to help people in the private sector who have suffered from the hurting economy,” said Shatzand, director of the Missouri State Approving Agency, which oversees GI Bill programs. “And this is a sunsetting measure – hopefully the economy will turn around in three to five years.”
Traditionally, for up to two years, authorized employers have agreed to incrementally pay more towards the salary of a job-training veteran while the VA decreases its financial benefits. This pay schedule was meant to keep the veteran’s income stable while transferring the salary burden from VA to employer as the veteran became more skilled at the new job. From the start, OJT requires the employer pay the veteran the same amount paid to a similarly skilled worker, a stipulation that would remain.
But today’s tough economic conditions mean employers can’t agree to increase that pay, Shatz said.
As a result, OJT employees are not only being stripped of potential raises, they are also losing their VA benefits, Shatz said.
Billy Fitzsimmons is an OJT participant who previously moved from one training job to another not knowing his benefits couldn’t follow him because the new employer was under a pay freeze. Though the job paid more money than his old one, the employer could not agree to the obligatory raises, so Fitzsimmons couldn’t get his benefits. Now at a new job, training for management at Big O Tires in Rolla, Mo., Fitzsimmons finds his VA benefit check in the mail every month, an arrangement that couldn’t make Dave Watkins, his boss, happier.
“There’s no necessary advantage in this program as far as the employer is concerned beyond having a phenomenal employee,” Watkins said. “But the true advantage of what we’re doing here is worth its weight in gold.”
Though operating under the requirement of the traditional pay scale increase, Watkins said Fitzsimmons would qualify for a raise just like any other employee who becomes more skilled and valuable in the workplace.
Some veterans participating in the OJT program haven’t been as lucky as Fitzsimmons in finding employer support, though.
Nick Spainhour has held a unionized job at a cable-making factory in Chillicothe, Mo., for three years. In his one year of qualified on-the-job training, he made about $13.45 an hour plus about $1,000 a month in VA benefits. After six months, he estimated the benefit amount was tapered down to $900 a month. At the beginning of the year, the benefits were cut to nothing when the employer was no longer authorized for the program: Because of the bad economy, the union was not giving raises.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve had to ask family for money,” Spainhour said.
“I’m responsible for guys like Billy Fitzsimmons and Nick Spainhour,” Shatz said. “They’re hurting when all of a sudden they don’t get benefits because they don’t get a wage increase. If we can’t approve these programs then they’ll get nothing.”
But some veteran groups oppose the temporary bill on the basis that it would result in lower wages for those who participate.
“If wages remain stagnant throughout a veteran’s training program, they will receive progressively less money every six months due to the drop in GI Bill rates. This is unacceptable,” Tim Embree of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said in his prepared statement for the February hearing.
There is some dispute as to exactly what this bill would mean for veteran participants in terms of salary, but most agree that it would increase the number of OJT opportunities. For Bill Stephens, president of NASAA, that’s enough for now.
“The veteran knows the wages going into the job. It should be up to them,” he said.
Shatz agreed. “Isn’t some money better than none?”
The IAVA is OK with the temporary removal of the wage increase if OJT benefits are not decreased after six months. However, this is a compromise that will add to what might already be crippling budgetary concerns.
The new allowances are expected to increase the number of OJT programs, thus costing more money. The Congressional Budget Office estimated an additional 260 veterans receiving $7,000 in benefits annually from 2011 to 2015, adding an increase of $9 million to spending over the next decade.
Perriello will continue to work with the committee to urge the passage of the bill, said Perrillo spokeswoman Jessica Barba. In its original form, the bill was to be implemented by Oct. 1.