VETERANS SERVICE OFFICE Stearns County Service Center 3301 County Road 138 Waite Park, MN 56387 Phone: (320) 656-6176 Fax: (320) 656-6257 January 1, 2014 Dear Commanders, Happy New Year. As we start the year we must welcome back 130 Minnesota National Guard members who returned from Afghanistan this past month. I am sure they are excited to be home with loved ones. If you happen to have a returnee in your community please watch out for him/her and family. With the New Year those individuals both veterans and widows who are on a Non Service Connected Pension the VA is no longer sending out Eligibility Verification Reports (EVR) or Medical Expense Reports MER s reminders. It is extremely important you contact us if there is a change in your income and to submit your medical expenses for 2013. If you are on compensation MER s are not needed. Starting this month the office is starting an additional location for outreach in Holdingford. On the first Tuesday of each month from 1:00 PM 3:00 PM, Erv Karasch will be at City Hall there conducting business. No appointments necessary as it will be first come first serve. For those of you who have submitted claims for compensation they are still taking an extra long time to get processed. The VA Regional Office in St Paul was required to take on additional claims from Atlanta this past month. We are seeing the average claim now take on 200 plus days to be completed. There is nothing we can do to expedite it. We have tried use financial hardship to see if that works but it didn t appear to go any faster. Sometimes there are exceptions of course but it is usually if severe cancer is involved. For those veterans who are 70 percent service connected or higher and have to apply for the tax exclusion it is a good idea to do it when file your income tax. I know July is a long way off but don t forget to apply for your benefit early so you don t forget. I have attached general information for the general membership. Sincerely, Terry L. Ferdinandt Stearns County Veterans Service Officer
VA Loans Update VA Amount Actually Guaranteed The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs guarantees a generous portion of each VA loan. How much the VA guarantee ends up being depends on the loan amount. The VA guarantees a portion of these loans for a lender. This is not money paid to a veteran, or for their benefit. Instead, the VA guarantees a portion of these loans to help lenders offset the risk of loans. By doing so, it encourages lenders to make loans available to veterans on competitive terms. Also, regardless of how much the VA will guarantee, or how high the VA loan limit is in a particular county, a veteran will have to qualify for the loan based upon income, credit, and other requirements. VA-eligible borrowers may be interested to know how much the VA guarantees on mortgages obtained through military home loan benefits. To understand the VA guarantee, one might think of VA loans in terms of small, medium and large. This table shows the maximum guarantee amounts for loans ranging from small to jumbo: VA Loan Amount Up to $45,000 $45,001 - $56,250 $56,251 - $144,000 $144,000 or more Maximum Guaranttee 50% of loan amount Special Provisions 25% of Streamline Loans $22,500 Same as above 40% of the loan amount, with a maximum of $36,000 Up to an amount equal to 25% of the county loan limit Same as above Same as above Small VA loans under $144,000 may have a larger guarantee - Proportionately speaking, loans under $144,000 can get a larger guarantee. As much as half of a VA loan under $45,000 can be guaranteed. The proportion of VA guarantee goes down as the amount of the loan goes up. When you obtain a Certificate of Eligibility (COE) for the first time, you may notice that your available entitlement is $36,000. This amount only refers to loans up to $144,000. Medium VA mortgages between $144,000 and $417,000 have up to 25% government backing - Realistically speaking, most VA loans are for larger than $144,000. The average VA loan is around $210,000. The VA guarantees up to 25% of loans over $144,000. The percentage depends on whether a borrower makes a down payment. Most VA loans are obtained without a down payment; therefore, most VA loans receive 25% backing by the federal government. The conforming loan limit for most U.S. counties is $417,000. And, the VA is willing to back up to 25% of all VA loans up to this limit. Many borrowers get their COEs and scratch their heads because it says that their entitlement is only $36,000. Remember this is only for loans up to $144,000. An experienced VA loan officer can calculate your entitlement for loans above this amount. Most borrowers with full entitlement intact will have an additional $68,250 of VA backing available. Large VA home loans over $417,000 and up to conforming loan limits also get 25% VA guarantee - A larger category of VA loans exists and is named so for its size ---Jumbo. Jumbo VA loans are those over VA conforming loan limits. For most counties, that limit is $417,000. However, certain high cost counties can have conforming limits higher than $417,000. This is to adjust for the higher cost of real estate in some areas. It s rare, but some counties have VA loan limits that exceed $1 million, other counties have limits above $417,000 but less than $1 million. VA borrowers in counties where the conforming limit is higher than $417,000 can expect VA backing of 25% up to the limit. Therefore, it s possible for qualified borrowers to obtain large VA loans with no down payment. However, Jumbo loans over the conforming limit will require a down payment to cover the amount not guaranteed by the VA. To find out how much the guarantee will be on your VA loan, contact an approved lender.
VA Burial Benefit Update New Monetary Burial Award Rules The VA has proposed to change and simplify the rules for a surviving spouse to receive the basic monetary burial award. Basically it is recognizing that any funeral will cost more than the allotted benefit. Thus to make it easier on the survivor they will not require a written application with attached receipts. They also say that they will be simplifying the descriptions and regulations to make it easier for the survivor to understand. Following are the VA s proposed guidelines for the benefits for a non service related death: Non-service-Related Death. For deaths on or after October 1, 2011, VA will pay up to $700.00 toward burial and funeral expenses (if hospitalized by VA at time of death), or $300 toward burial and funeral expenses (if not hospitalized by VA at time of death), and a $700.00 plot-interment allowance (if not buried in a national cemetery). For deaths on or after December 1, 2001, but before October 1, 2011, VA will pay up to $300.00 toward burial and funeral expenses and a $300.00 plot-interment allowance. The plot-interment allowance is $150.00 for deaths prior to December 1, 2001. If the death happened while the Veteran was in a VA hospital or under VA contracted nursing home care, some of all of the costs for transporting the Veteran s remains may be reimbursed. An annual increase in burial and plot allowances, for deaths occurring after October 1, 2011, begins in fiscal year 2013 based on the Consumer Price Index for the preceding 12-month period. Monetary Burial Benefits Regulation Change VA is proposing to change its monetary burial benefits regulations to pay eligible survivors more quickly and efficiently. If approved, these regulations would authorize VA to pay, without a written application, eligible surviving spouses basic monetary burial benefits at the maximum amount authorized in law through automated systems rather than reimbursing them for actual costs incurred. Under current rules, VA pays burial benefits for burial and funeral expenses on a reimbursement basis, which requires survivors to submit receipts for relatively small one-time payments that VA generally pays at the maximum amount permitted by law. The proposed amendments to the burial regulations will permit VA to pay, at a flat rate, burial and plot or interment allowances thereby enabling VA to automate payment of burial benefits to eligible surviving spouses. The changes are intended to help survivors of Veterans bear the cost of funerals by changing regulations to get them the benefits they deserve more quickly The proposed regulation, if approved, would do the following: Restructure, consolidate, and clarify VA s current monetary burial benefits rules to make them easier to understand by Veterans, their survivors, and other stakeholders; Clearly establish VA s priority of payments and enable automated payment to eligible surviving spouses; Remove the requirement for eligible surviving spouses to file a claim for basic burial allowances and simplify the burial claims process for all beneficiaries; Establish in regulations a presumption that VA will pay the service-connected (SC) burial allowance for Veterans that were rated totally disabled from service-connected conditions at the date of death; and Implement portions of Public Law 112-260, authorizing monetary burial benefits for Veterans without wartime service whose remains are unclaimed. Statement: VA is committed to improving the speed and ease of delivery of monetary burial benefits to Veterans survivors during their time of need. The proposed changes will permit VA to automatically pay the basic burial or interment allowances to eligible surviving spouses, without the need for a written application. VA wants to help survivors of Veterans bear the cost of funerals by changing regulations to get them the benefits they deserve more quickly.
THE SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS WASHINGTON October 7, 2013 The Honorable AI Franken United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Franken: Thank you for your letter regarding Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claims processing for Veterans in Minnesota and nationwide. I regret the delay in responding. VA is committed to providing excellent service and timely benefits to our Nation's Veterans. We are concerned about the length of time that many Veterans currently wait for decisions on their disability compensation claims. On April19, 2013, VA announced an initiative to expedite claims decisions for Veterans who have waited the longest. To accomplish this initiative, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) deployed a national brokering strategy to distribute claims across regional offices (RO), regardless of jurisdiction, to ensure that the oldest claims are completed. This strategy allows VBA to utilize resources more efficiently to serve Veterans nationwide. VBA initially focused on the claims pending more than 2 years and, after completing the 2-year initiative, is now prioritizing claims pending more than 1 year. The St. Paul RO received 9,885 claims pending more than 1 year from the Chicago RO (3,500 claims), Waco RO (3,000 claims), and Phoenix RO (3,385 claims) to process. Nationally, VBA brokered approximately 99,500 claims pending more than 1 year to ROs throughout the country. The average age of claims pending at the St. Paul RO is 96.9 days as of the end of August 2013, significantly below the national target of 180 days and less than half of the national average of 203 days. The RO's processing time for completed claims also remains among the best in the Nation at 112.5 days in August 2013. With an exemplary leadership team and a dedicated workforce, it is expected that the St. Paul RO will continue to expeditiously process claims. Consistent with our approach on the oldest claims initiative, VBA continues to move toward a national workforce. In June 2013, VA completed the deployment of the first generation of our new paperless claims processing system, the Veterans Benefits Management System. Nearly 50 percent of the current claims inventory is now being processed in the paperless environment. As we achieve a fully paperless environment, work will move effortlessly across jurisdictional lines to ROs, based on production capacity.
Page 2. The Honorable AI Franken The national workload management approach ensures that Veterans who have waited the longest receive a decision as soon as possible, regardless of the state in which they reside. Distributing the oldest claims on a national level allows VBA to leverage its resources to provide the best service to our Veterans. Thank you for your continued support of our mission. Sincerely, t