As published in WTSP.
More than 12,000 veterans will have their debt canceled in a major update to a story 10 Tampa Bay has been covering since November.
LAKELAND, Fla. — The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is canceling pension debt incurred by thousands of low-income veterans after a data-matching error spanning a decade.
It’s a major update to a story 10 Tampa Bay first reported back in November, when a local veteran received a letter from the VA saying he was overpaid more than $100,000 of pension dating back several years and would have to pay it back.
The VA later paused collection on the debt until they determined a path forward; that path is now canceling the debt of more than 12,000 impacted veterans and survivors.
“VA has canceled the debts related to this data integrity issue for these 12,228 affected beneficiaries and no further action is required from them if their current debt balance is $0.00 (meaning there is no other debt pending from a separate issue),” the VA Public Affairs Office said in a statement Friday.
Nearly 23,000 other veterans were told they were in line to have debts established as well, but as the VA processes their claims, it says "based on current guidance issued, no debt will be collected if it resulted from the data integrity issue."
The VA provides pension payments to low-income wartime veterans based on income level, which is self-reported or verified by data matching done by the department.
Between 2011 and 2022, the VA says there was a data integrity issue in data matching between them and the Social Security Administration, so they were unable to reliably verify the income of veterans.
The issue for many started after they began collecting Social Security but were unaware of any issue — not notified until a decade later after the overpayments ticked up every year. On a fixed income, local veterans we talked to were in fear of what would happen next, unable to pay back what they were told they owed.
Back in December, 10 Tampa Bay spoke with one of those veterans, 75-year-old Richard Pierce, who showed the letter he received from the VA implied he was overpaid nearly $63,000 on his pension.
"We barely get enough as it is. So there's no way any of us could pay it back, just no way," Pierce, a Vietnam Veteran, explained.
10 Tampa Bay caught up with him Tuesday to let him know the debt would be zeroed out.
"You said that they had canceled it and so that's, that's really a big relief. That's really big, really that takes a lot of anxiety away," said Pierce, who adds it's hard enough as it is to get by on a fixed income.
The VA says they apologize “to affected Veterans and their Survivors for any distress that these pension debt notifications may have caused. For questions about debt management, we encourage these Veterans and Survivors to visit our debt management website or call us at 800-827-0648.”
The U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee has been looking into overpayments and other issues at the VA as part of its oversight. Members say they are working to make sure this doesn’t remain an issue in the future.
“As the veteran population is continuing to grow, the VA is growing with the passage of the Pact Act last year, it's been the biggest expansion in VA history, so there's a lot of new people coming on board that have to be trained, we've just got to do a better job on the front end to get these payments right.,” Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Lakeland) said.
“But it's not fair to come back to veterans after an overpayment when the money's been spent, and then try to claw it back from them,” Franklin added.
“We understand the commitment to veterans, so we fully fund the needs and the requirements. But now it's just the other half of that obligation to make good stewardship of the resources that have been committed,” Franklin said.