Under federal law, all employment service staff must give priority to serving veterans, and the assignment of DVOP and LVER staff to local offices does not relieve other employment and training program staff of this requirement. There are also greater expectations for serving Vietnam-era veterans and disabled veterans. Veterans Receive Priority Service, but Effectiveness of Service Is Unknown

Veterans receive priority employment services at one-stop centers as required under the law, but the effectiveness of these services cannot be determined. Those who find employment before being registered are not counted as having entered employment after using self-service resources available through the one- stop center. VETS Does Not Adequately Manage DVOP and LVER Grants

Despite recently proposed improvements to its performance measures, VETS’ overall management of the DVOP and LVER grants is ineffective because the agency does not have a comprehensive system in place to manage state performance in serving veterans with these grants. VETS does not effectively communicate performance expectations to states because its goals and measures are unclear. For example, instead of coordinating with other programs to determine how best to fit the DVOP and LVER programs into the one-stop system, VETS officials reported that they are waiting to see how states implement their programs and will then decide how to integrate the staff or adjust their programs. VETS has not developed practices for operating within the one-stop system or adequately shared innovative ways to help veterans find and retain jobs. Consequently, they fail to adapt to the new workforce environment created by WIA. The new one- stop center system, while giving veterans priority for employment services, gives states flexibility in planning and implementing employment and training systems and holds them accountable for performance. Specifically, we suggested that the Congress consider revising title 38 to   provide states and local offices more discretion to decide where to locate DVOP and LVER staff and provide states the discretion to have half-time DVOP positions;   allow VETS and/or states the flexibility to better define the roles and responsibilities of staff serving veterans instead of including these duties in the law;   combine the DVOP and LVER grant programs into one staffing grant to better meet states’ needs for serving veterans;   provide VETS with the flexibility to consider alternative ways to improve administration and oversight of the staffing grants, for example, eliminating the prescriptive requirements for monitoring DVOP and LVER grants;   eliminate the requirement that VETS report to the Congress a comparison of the job placement rate of veterans with that of nonveterans; and   eliminate the requirement that VETS report on Federal Contractor Job Listings.
What GAO Found

The Department of Labor's (DOL) Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program (DVOP) and Local Veterans' Employment Representative (LVER) program allow states to hire staff members to serve veterans exclusively. The two programs are mandatory partners in the new one-stop center system created in 1998 by the Workforce Investment Act, which requires that services provided by numerous employment and training programs be made available through one-stop centers. The act also gives states the flexibility to design services tailored to local workforce needs. Although the DVOP and LVER programs must operate within the one-stop system, the act does not govern the programs--and the law that governs them does not provide the same flexibility that the act does. Because Congress sees employment service for veterans as a national responsibility, it established the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) to ensure that veterans, particularly disabled veterans and Vietnam-era veterans, receive priority employment and training opportunities. To make better use of DVOP and LVER staff services, VETS needs the legislative authority to grant each state more flexibility to design how this staff will fit into the one-stop center system. VETS also needs to be able to hold states accountable for achieving agreed upon goals. Veterans receive priority employment service at one-stop centers as required under the law, but the effectiveness of the services, as indicated by the resulting employment, cannot be determined because VETS does not require states to collect sufficient data to measure outcomes. VETS does not adequately oversee the DVOP and LVER program grants because it does not have a comprehensive system in place to manage state performance in serving veterans. VETS has not adequately adapted the DVOP and LVER programs to the new one-stop environment and determined how best to fit them into the one-stop system.