The hearing will come to order. We are here to discuss the president s fiscal year 2016 budget request for the department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the committee. Understand that your testimony will be a little bit different today than what we are accustomed to with reference to chart to help us better understand what you are seeing in terms of the challenges that lay ahead and i would say that is indeed a welcome change. So too is the open as you have had with me with members of this committee and this congress about your plans to change the culture at the va. As your testimony illustrates you have been extremely active in visiting va facilities. I think its well over 90 at this point, talking with employees veteran groups in your private sector colleagues with one aim in mind, putting everyones focus squarely on the needs of veterans. Thank you for your willingness to take the job of secretary and thank you for putting everything you have into that job. Turning t
The clerk the speakers room washington, d. C. , february 11 2015. I hereby appoint the honorable david w. Jolly to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the chair will receive a message. The messenger mr. Speaker a message from the president of the United States. The secretary mr. Speaker, im directed by the president of the United States to deliver to the house a message in writer. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2015, the chair will now recognize members fromis smiedy the mority a mority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the jotyndinit leaders d the noty whip limited to five minutes, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11 50 a. M. The chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. Dold, for five minutes. Mr. Dold thank you,
I met a veteran who has been out two years and 10 disability but the point is he cant get his paperwork from dod. What are we doing . We have asked this question for years. Its a great question. I have to say secretary hagel and i are totally aligned that we want to have a seamless handoff from the department of defense to the va. Thats why we have instituted programs like cap while the person is on active duty and allison can talk about that. Congressman brown some good news to report on this front though it didnt obviously help that particular veteran two years ago we are engaged now in the mandatory program for all of our servicemembers including National Guard and reserve for which there are now nearly a million who qualify for benefits that did not previously. Another thing that is starting literally right now is the mandatory separation health assessment. The choice to the veteran told a session is if you are going to make a claim to be a for anything that va will do a complete s
Quickly. And unfortunately, mr. Lee passed away that evening. That had a great impact on brian and me. It was very sad, but it was so touching that he had seen mr. Lee and mr. Lee had confirmed that brian was number one driver. This is San Francisco paratransit. Its not perfect; we have our ups and downs late trips, frustrated customers, stressed out drivers. But at our best, we get our riders where they need to go on time and with a smile. And when we Pay Attention real carefully and notice whats happening on the van, taxi, or at the senior center, we notice that our drivers make a difference in the riders lives and the riders make a difference in the drivers lives. Good afternoon and welcome to the city and School District select committee for september 25, our first regularly scheduled meeting post legislative recess. I want to thank the staff at sfgtv and Jennifer Lowe for making the transcript available on line and recognize our clerk derek evans. I am your chair and joined by our
Its leadership on this issue. We wouldnt be where we are today without your leadership. Thank you, miss pond. Are there any further comments from members of the civil grand jury, mike from the civil grand jury on the responses that you heard from the departments . Very briefly, i want to thank everybody in the Mayors Office for hearing our report and responding to it and taking action on it. I think what we were most concerned about is that government be inclusive. And im hearing that were making progress in that way. And my crossreferencing of all of the lists that i, think at one time i had five lists and came up with 38 of the commissions. So that is the number i was working with, we did 32 out of 38, but i appreciate that some change is happening there, too. Thank you very much. Great. And also, i would just like to make a comment, just for clarity. For example, the mayors list that provides the attendance and lists the names and numbers of days that they might have attended out of