Tardy Bennies -- Some Numbers

In July, House investigators reported that five years after Congress decided that veterans with disabilities ought to be given retroactive pay some 60,000 veterans had still not been told whether they were eligible for the pay.

The reason cited: Contractor Lockheed Martin had decided to do the calculations by hand.

"Together with our customer, we recognized that most cases would have to be processed manually, and we began an accelerated hiring initiative with a goal of completing the original cases by the end of April 2008. We were successful in completing all original cases on June 6, 2008," Joseph R. Cipriano, president of Lockheed Martin Business Process Solutions, said in written testimony during a hearing about the report.

Now, the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is following through on the bottom line. In a letter to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the subcommittee's investigators estimate that between "1,782 and 1,985 severely disabled veterans were wrongly denied a VA Retro payment, while as many as 2,514 such veterans received inaccurate payments in excess of $2,500."

The total cost of these errors is almost $12 million, the subcommittee investigation found. Under yesterday, the committee thought the cost of the errors was as high as $20 million.

"Errors of that magnitude are disgraceful," subcommittee Chairman Dennis Kucinich said in a statement. "Each and every one of those veterans devoted his career to the Armed Services of the United States and received his disabling injuries in combat or military service. Over the course of its cost-plus contract with the Government, Lockheed miscomputed and mishandled the VA Retro pay awards of the equivalent of a whole Combat Brigade."

Kucinich is calling for a "l00 percent recalculation of all No Pay Due determinations and payments in excess of $2,500 made after suspension of government quality assurance."

This may not seem like a lot of money, given the vast amount spents on federal procurement -- unless you're a disabled veteran who needs a little extra help.

By Robert O'Harrow |  October 23, 2008; 2:51 PM ET
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