Veterans Affairs official responsible for benefits resigns

http://hamptonroads.com/2015/10/veterans-affairs-official-responsible-benefits-resigns

Veterans Affairs official responsible for benefits resigns
The Associated Press
© October 17, 2015

WASHINGTON

The person responsible for ensuring that more than 12 million veterans get their benefits has resigned as undersecretary of the Veterans Benefits Administration.

Allison Hickey has served as an undersecretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs since June 2011. She was in charge as a backlog in disability claims pending for more than 125 days ballooned to about 611,000 in March 2013 and then fell by nearly 90 percent.

VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald says he regretfully accepted the resignation and credited Hickey for modernizing the disability claims process, moving it from a reliance on paper records to one in which records are stored on computer. McDonald said he appreciates all that Hickey has done to help transform the VA.

But Hickey was also coming under fire from veterans groups and lawmakers after a critical inspector general's report found that two other executives within the Veterans Benefits Administration received a total of about $400,000 in relocation expenses and retained their annual salaries despite a significant decrease in job responsibilities.