Veterans Affairs official responsible for delivering benefits resigns

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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) seal hangs on the facade at the headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, May 10, 2013. The department's funding has jumped more than 40 percent to about $140 billion this year, compared with fiscal 2009, a boost to help the agency cope with a surge of new veterans returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) seal hangs on the facade at the headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, May 10, 2013. The department's funding has jumped more than 40 percent to about $140 billion this year, compared with fiscal 2009, a boost to help the agency cope with a surge of new veterans returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

BY KEVIN FREKING

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.hire vets

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.

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