Servicemembers Improved Transition Through Reforms for Ensuring Progress Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Dunn, my fellow Floridian, a great Member of Congress, and also my good friend Mr. Walz, who has done an outstanding job over the years supporting our veterans. I also thank Mr. Walz for his service.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 4830, the Servicemembers Improved Transition through Reforms for Ensuring Progress Act, or the SIT-REP Act, which will hold student veterans harmless from bureaucratic red tape and delays at higher education institutions at the VA.

I am proud of the work my colleagues and I conducted on the Veterans' Affairs Committee last year to pass the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Education Assistance Act, or the Forever GI Bill. This historic legislation expanded access to education and improves and modernizes the GI Bill for our veterans.

This is one of the reasons, Mr. Speaker, we came to Congress: to do something like this, to help our veterans get their education.

In our committee hearings on implementation of the Forever GI Bill, we heard concerns about the delays in processing of tuition payments between the schools and the VA. I also had roundtables in my district with veterans, and this was a concern of theirs.

So while the average timelines for processing these benefits are 25 days for new claims and 9 days for supplemental claims, oftentimes the processing timelines spike higher at the beginning of each school year upon a surge in claims.

We heard concerns from our VSO stakeholders--I thank them--regarding delayed payments resulting from either slow VA processing or a mistake or tardiness by the school certifying official. In some cases, the delays meant schools putting a hold on a student's account or forcing the student to begin payment of tuition and fees on a payment plan until they received money from VA.

My bill, the SIT-REP Act, would give the Secretary the authority to disapprove courses of education for the GI Bill unless the educational institution adopts a policy ensuring that it will not impose a fee on the veteran or deny the veteran's access to education. This policy would be applied for the first 90 days of the school term.

The SIT-REP Act is a commonsense bill that protects student veterans and their families who, through no fault of their own, are denied access to education because the school made a mistake or the VA made a late payment. It is not the veteran's fault, and they should not be punished for the actions of others.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to join me in support of my practical and bipartisan legislation, which will help ensure our student veterans have full access to the educational benefits they have earned and deserve. I hope that the Senate takes up this bill quickly.

Again, I urge passage of this great bill. We have got to get it to the President's desk as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the committee staff as well. They did a great job on this bill.

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