VETS ISSUES NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING

The Veteran’s Employment and Training Service (VETS) recently published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the reporting requirements under VEVRAA, currently known as the VETS-100 and VETS-100A reports.

The most significant change is the departure from reporting data by individual protected veteran category to an aggregate “protected veteran” count. Currently the collected data cannot be combined for a total, as employees are able to be counted in each category for which they qualify (thus, overlap might occur if categories were combined). VETS felt this would lead to more meaningful numbers for reporting to Congress and for contractors’ affirmative action efforts. They also cited improved employee privacy (i.e., if few disabled veterans are employed) as support for aggregate reporting. This change and others are summarized below:

• Report veterans count in the aggregate rather than for each of the protected categories of veterans
• Removal of “obsolete” rules at 41 C.F.R. part 61-250, thus removing the requirement to file VETS-100 reports
  • VETS does not believe any contracts entered into before December 1, 2003 still exist
  • This will make VETS's rules consistent with the soon-to-be-effective VEVRAA regulations issued by OFCCP
• Change the name of the reporting from VETS-100A to VETS-4212
• Revision to terms and definitions in Section 61-300.2 (e.g., addition of “protected veteran” and “active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran” and the removal of “covered veteran” and “other protected veteran”).
• Revise text of the reporting requirements clause included in Government contracts and subcontracts

VETS proposes that contractors begin complying with the reporting requirements in the revised regulations one year after the effective date of the final rule, thus these changes will not affect the 2014 VETS-100A reporting.

Comments on the proposed rule may be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.regulations.gov) under RIN number 1293-AA20 before April 25th.

by Amanda Shapiro, M.S., Consultant, DCI Consulting Group