The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has required more than 120,000 disabled veterans to repay special lump-sum separation payments given over the past 12 years, a new report reveals.
The claims, issued from 2013 until now, stem from a law designed to prevent veterans from receiving both disability pay and special separation pay.
“Clawback,” when the government recoups payments sometimes years later, has put some in a bind, with veterans sometimes having to pay back tens of thousands of dollars. NBC News reported.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has required more than 120,000 disabled veterans to repay special lump-sum severance payments paid over the past 12 years, a new report from NBC News reveals.
“That’s wrong,” said Vernon Reffitt, 62. NBC News The final month of this little-known practice: “You can’t just get up and take it back.”
Reffitt, who lives in Georgia, is one of four former military personnel who have spoken out about the controversy in statements to the media.
He must pay $30,000, a sum given to him by the US military in 1992.
In May, the VA realized its mistake and began correcting it by withholding his monthly disability compensation.
In a statement to NBC, the agency said it was “unaware of the amount” of Reffitt’s special severance package when he began receiving disability compensation later that year.
Reffitt served in Panama and Honduras and did two tours in Germany during his tenure as a military policeman from 1979 to 1992.
Another disabled Army veteran, Daphne Young, 36, is in a similar situation, after accepting a lump sum settlement of $15,000 when she left the branch in 2016.
Vernon Reffitt, now 62, is owed $30,000, a sum provided to him by the U.S. Army in 1992. He is shown here during his tenure as a military policeman around 1980.
Another disabled Army veteran, Daphne Young, 36, is in a similar situation, after accepting a $15,000 lump sum settlement when she left the military in 2016.
In April, nearly a decade later, she was told she would have to pay back the entire amount if she wanted to continue receiving her untaxed disability payment of about $3,700.
“It was agony,” Young, a former Army munitions specialist and combat medic who was left totally disabled after being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, recalled of receiving the letter.
Shane Collins, 41, added that it took him the better part of three years to pay back the roughly $33,000 he was offered in 2014 to leave the Marine Corps, telling the outlet, “It took my legs away.”
The Idaho father, who also worked at the Pentagon, added that even he never knew he would have to pay back his severance pay if he was granted disability, despite his familiarity with different facets of government.
“I thought they were completely different things,” he said last month. “And that’s what they explained to me, too.”
Such was the case for Shawn Teller, 55, who began receiving monthly disability for an old knee injury in 2012.
That was after he had already accepted a one-time payment of about $10,700 to leave the Army in 1996, after serving for about eight years in operations like Desert Storm and Desert Shield.
“It was agony,” said Young, a former Army munitions specialist and combat medic who was completely disabled after being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It was something that somebody missed at the time, and then they caught it now,” the California resident told NBC News after being told in July that the VA would begin holding his $586 monthly disability check until he paid it.
“I depend on this salary every month,” he said. “It’s not good.”
Two years earlier, Stephanie Rennane of the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research group, found that at least 79,000 veterans had to repay different types of severance benefits between 2013 and 2020.
Speaking to NBC News last month, he said: “I think we’re probably short a fair number of people.”
“We have no way of knowing how big it is.”
On Saturday, the news station seemed to confirm these fears when it published a new report based on data reported by VA that puts the actual number, from 2013 to today, at around 122,000.
The outlet added that it had spoken to several veterans whose debt now amounts to tens of thousands of dollars.
One of them reportedly complained that it would take him almost 15 years to pay off what he owes, while another said he had been forced to cut back on all unnecessary expenses and consider taking on a second job to cope with the invisible expense.
The Department of Veterans Affairs sign is seen in front of the headquarters building in Washington.
The outlet also provided a breakdown of the number of recoveries, starting with the earliest available year, fiscal year 2013.
Back then, the VA reportedly cut separation pay for about 6,700 veterans, followed by another 7,500 in 2014.
Between 2015 and 2017, the agency sought lump sum refunds from about 12,000 people receiving disability benefits each year, before that number skyrocketed to 17,000 in fiscal year 2018.
The number continued to decline to fewer than 10,000 the following year, before dipping again to about 8,130 veterans in fiscal year 2020 and 8,550 in 2021, NBC News reported.
The number of recoveries fell again in 2022, to around 7,940, and in 2023 to almost 10,000.
As of this year, by the end of June, the VA had reportedly initiated recoveries of another 8,920.
The falls and rises come amid a rise in disability claims over the years, with around 2.3 million claims for compensation registered last year.
This represents an increase of 42% compared to 2022.
The recoveries come amid a surge in disability claims over the years, with about 2.3 million claims filed last year. Citing those numbers, VA press secretary Terrence Hayes said, “There is no concerted effort to increase recovery.”
Citing those figures, VA press secretary Terrence Hayes told NBC News on Saturday: “There is no concerted effort to ramp up recovery.
“Instead, it is part of the normal, legally required process during the initial claim application completion that asks applicants whether they received a severance bonus and the amount received,” he said.
DailyMail.com has contacted the VA for comment.