A nine-member privately funded commission is embarking on uncharted territory with a two-year effort to plan the future of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The effort is headed by Harry N. Walters, a former VA administrator and assistant Army secretary who concedes this is an ambitious project, called the Veterans’ Coalition, especially because there is no government money involved and because commissioners were picked for their expertise and not for political reasons.

“This is not your standard government commission,” said Walters, an Army veteran.
Walters’ idea, endorsed and funded with seed money from major veterans’ groups, is to leap beyond the normal two-year and five-year federal budgeting process. “What we are looking for is new ideas,” Walters said.

“Right now we cannot look past our own nose,” he said. “Nobody in Washington is looking beyond two years, if they are looking that far.”

The plan for the Veterans Coalition is to look five to 15 years into the future to consider how the VA needs to change, both in terms of facilities and services, Walters said.

If everything goes as planned, the coalition would have a final report with recommendations available by Memorial Day 2008, which would be just in time to be part of the political debate for the presidential elections. The group, though, is nonpartisan, and Walters — who served in Republican administrations — said he did not consider veterans’ health and benefits issues to be a partisan matter.

Walters conceded it is an ambitious undertaking, and said the real heavy lifting of the group may be in getting attention and support for the recommendations once a report is finished.

Having a private commission make recommendations solves several problems with past commissions, he said. First, having no direct ties to the government means the commissioners were not named by anyone in the administration or Congress, relieving concerns their views are tainted by the person who gave them the appointment. Second, being organized to be independent from the veterans’ service organizations — who only provided some seed money but have no say in commissioners, what is studied or in any recommendations — also prevents the final report from being discounted as an attempt by veterans’ groups to please their membership.

The solution to the future of the VA could step over several other agencies, said Peter Dickinson, a spokesman for the commission. It could involve older military retirees covered by the Defense Department’s Tricare for Life health benefits, along with Medicare and state-run programs, he said.

Walters said the effort has support from Veterans Affairs Secretary J. James Nicholson, who has promised help, and from the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees, who have offered to open doors to analysis already done on veterans programs by congressional researchers at the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office.

The nine commissioners were appointed two weeks ago, based entirely on the expertise they bring, Walters said.

They include several Vietnam War veterans.

Commissioners are:
• Everett Alvarez Jr., a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war who was deputy VA administrator in the 1980s.
• Raymond Boland, another Vietnam veteran and former head of the Wisconsin state department of veterans affairs and past president of the National Association of State Directors of Veterans’ Affairs.
• Chad Colley, former national commander of Disabled American Veterans and a Vietnam veteran who lost both legs and an arm in combat.
• Ronald F. Conley, an Air Force veteran and former American Legion national commander who also is founder and president of the Legion’s Homeless Veterans Corporation.
• William M. Diefenderer III, a Vietnam veteran and former deputy director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
• Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, who spent five years as VA undersecretary for health.
• Susan Livingstone, former chief executive officer of the Association of the United States Army and a former Navy undersecretary, Army assistant secretary and VA deputy administrator.
• Bryan E. Sharratt, a former Air Force assistant secretary for reserve affairs who was executive director of the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.
• JoAnn Webb, a former VA assistant secretary and former staff director for the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on health.

Walters, who will be a nonvoting member of the commission, said the coalition plans open hearings once it gets organized.