The move follows a yearlong review by the Office of Personnel Management on federal workforce pay issues. In a statement, officials said the move was “the right thing to do” for the public servants and to keep wages competitive with the private sector.

“Raising pay rates across the federal government to a minimum of $15 per hour reflects our appreciation for the federal workforce and our values as a nation,” said Kiran Ahuja, director of the Office of Personnel Management. “We know that paying a living wage provides a myriad of benefits, from recruitment to retention to increased productivity, and more.”

About 67,000 individuals in the 2.2 million person federal workforce will be affected by the change.

Of that total, OPM officials said about 56,000 currently work as Defense Department employees, with most performing “non-appropriated fund activities at military bases around the country [that] provide essential services to our military, including many who are military spouses.”

In a statement, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gil Cisneros called the move “an important step for the civilian men and women who support the military community and their families” and a “well-deserved” pay raise.

Another 9,700 of the federal workers who will benefit from the change are VA employees. Department officials said they include custodians, housekeeping aides and food service workers.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough called the workers “critical front-line employees, central to patient safety and improved outcomes for veterans” and noted that many have acted as front-line service providers workers through the coronavirus pandemic.

The pay raises will go into effect by Jan. 30. The $15-an-hour pay rate is roughly equivalent to $31,000 a year, without overtime or bonuses.

Under changes in federal policy in 2021, all government contractors already are required to pay employees at least $15 an hour for their work.

However, a proposal in Congress in summer 2021 to guarantee service members base pay of no less than $15 an hour was rejected because of cost and implementation concerns. Enlisted troops with less than two years of military service can earn around $22,000 a year in base pay, but that does not factor in other compensation, like free health care and housing stipends.

In a statement, American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley praised the action as “one of [the president’s] most significant actions to date.”

“For the tens of thousands of workers who will start seeing more money in their paychecks each week, this is a transformative policy choice that will improve their everyday lives,” he said. “Setting a new, $15 per hour wage floor for federal government work will encourage employers across the country who are currently paying poverty wages to compete for labor and start paying fairer rates, lifting the wages of American workers across the country.”

The directive extends in-store and online exchange shopping privileges to appropriated fund and non-appropriated fund civilian employees who work in the U.S., and in U.S. territories and possessions, according to the memorandum signed by Virginia Penrod, acting under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. It was effective April 12, and within 30 days, these shoppers will be allowed in Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores, Navy Exchange stores, and Marine Corps exchanges.

According to the latest estimates available, this will bring about 575,000 new customers into military exchanges in the U.S.

The new policy also provides online exchange shopping access for others, to include retired DoD and Coast Guard civilian employees.

The details:

*Retired civilian employees of DoD and the Coast Guard won’t get in-store exchange shopping privileges, but they will get limited online shopping privileges for exchanges and for other online Category C Morale, Welfare and Recreation activities. One example of a Category C MWR program is the American Forces Travel program, an official DoD site for travel discounts on airfare, flights, hotels, car rentals, travel packages and cruises.

*Family members won’t be allowed to shop in these on-base discount department stores, or in the online stores, but the authorized shoppers can make purchases for themselves and their dependents.

*Honorably discharged military veterans will get limited online shopping privileges at Category C MWR activities; these veterans have been allowed to shop online in exchanges since that benefit was launched in 2017.

*Those extended shopping benefits for online military exchanges and online Category C activities are effective 180 days after the directive, in mid-October for all the populations: DoD and Coast Guard civilian employees, honorably discharged veterans and retired DoD and Coast Guard civilians.

*The shopping privileges for all groups exclude purchases of tobacco products, alcoholic beverage products and military uniform items.

*The civilian employees will use their Common Access Card for the benefit. According to the directive, employees who are not issued CACs can show their locally issued proof of civilian employment for exchange access, only at the location where they are employed. Otherwise, access to the stores is not linked to employees’ work assignments.

*Verification for online shopping for all the groups will be done through the Defense Manpower Data Center, and those systems, processes and records are being updated.

*The Coast Guard is ensure that its MWR organizations, exchange system and the supporting entities put procedures in place for the access; and is coordinating with DMDC for the authentication process.

DoD civilians stationed outside the U.S. have exchange shopping privileges. DoD officials have been deliberating this policy change for about three years. Last October, a DoD official said the proposal to open the exchanges to civilians was close to being approved, and that it was expected to bring about 575,000 new eligible customers into exchanges. There are about 796,000 DoD civilians in the U.S., but about 221,000 of those employees already have exchange benefits resulting from another beneficiary category such as retiree or military spouse, said Berry Patrick, who works in the DoD Office of Morale, Welfare and Recreation and Nonappropriated Fund Policy, during a virtual conference of the American Logistics Association.

There are about 7,000 Coast Guard civilians, according to a Coast Guard website. Coast Guard exchanges already allow Coast Guard civilians to shop in their exchanges. In 2019, the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard’s parent organization, opened up Coast Guard exchanges to the more than 200,000 civilian employees of the department.

These new shopping privileges don’t apply to commissaries.

This policy reverses a statement by a DoD spokeswoman in January, who told Military Times “DoD is not pursuing military exchange access for DoD civilian employees at this time.”

“Access is granted for the convenience of the DoD and Coast Guard civilian employees,” the directive states. DoD civilians are on the base every day, Patrick noted in his briefing to the American Logistics Association last October.

But the expansion is also expected to help boost the military resale system and MWR programs, which have faced a number of obstacles over recent years. Based on projections of buying patterns, Patrick said, DoD officials estimate exchange sales could increase by about $287 million a year, with a potential increase of $48 million in profits going back to support the services’ MWR programs.

One indicator of the popularity of the benefit among DoD employees was the situation in March, 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, when DoD gave base commanders temporary authority to give commissary and exchange privileges to DoD civilians and contractor employees considered mission critical. Many people misinterpreted that to mean that every DoD mission-critical civilian employee automatically got those privileges, and DoD officials were getting phone calls from those potential customers, Patrick said.

But it was up to each installation, and some commanders gave the privileges while others didn’t, for various reasons such as concern about the strains on the supply chain’s ability to provide enough products for the stores.

This is the latest of several expansions of the pool of those eligible to shop in exchanges over the last several years. In January, 2020, on-base shopping benefits at commissaries and exchanges and the use of certain MWR activities were launched for about 4.1 million veterans. The new benefits were authorized by law for all veterans with VA service-connected disability ratings; Purple Heart recipients; veterans who are former prisoners of war; and primary family caregivers of eligible veterans under the VA caregiver program.

That followed the 2017 online exchange shopping benefit offered to honorably discharged veterans, a pool of about 15 million potential shoppers.

The review, expected to last 12 weeks, is not expected to delay the deployment of the new system to the Columbus, Ohio, VA medical center this summer. But department officials acknowledged that “the order of subsequent deployments may be revised as a result of this strategic review.”

Last month, officials from the Government Accountability Office recommended postponing further expansion of the project until lingering issues with the system are resolved. They said as of last fall, “VA was at risk of deploying a system that did not perform as intended and could negatively impact the likelihood of its successful adoption.”

Department officials framed the new review as an assessment by the new administration to ensure that project timelines and requirements are realistic.

“A successful electronic health records deployment is essential in the delivery of lifetime, world-class health care for our Veterans,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement.

“After a rigorous review of our most-recent deployment at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center [in Washington], it is apparent that a strategic review is necessary. VA remains committed to the Cerner Millennium solution, and we must get this right for veterans.”

VA officials separately emphasized that the review is not aimed at looking whether the entire project should be reconsidered, but instead only at the pace of deployment and advance requirement needs for that work.

The 10-year health records project — heavily touted by former President Donald Trump’s administration as a transformation effort for VA — is designed to bring veterans and military medical software into alignment, allowing lifelong medical records to follow service members from through Defense Department clinics, VA medical appointments and even health visits outside the federal systems.

But deployment of Cerner’s Millennium software, already in use at the Defense Department, has had a difficult start. Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have promised close scrutiny on the new records system in the coming year, both because of the scope of the project and the reports of uneven progress in the initial stages.

Earlier this week, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., set a letter to McDonough complaining of “new stress on the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center” — the first site to use the new system — because of shortcomings with the new records implementation.

“I am hearing from some [employees] who are deeply frustrated with the system and are not getting the support they need,” she wrote. “Nurses who go to work every day to serve our veterans should not be driven to tears because software, which was intended to be an improvement, makes their jobs more difficult.”

She also raised concerns about patient safety, citing multiple reports of prescription delays linked to the new system. Officials from Cerner have disputed whether that is a widespread problem.

They have also said that many of the initial challenges with deploying the new system were expected, and technical experts from their company and VA built space into their deployment timelines to account for improvements needed as those problems have arisen.

“Cerner supports the decision by VA to conduct a strategic program review,” said Brian Sandager, general manager of Cerner Government Services, in a statement.

“We are proud of the significant milestones we have achieved, including one of the largest health data migrations in history and the deployment of a new joint Health Information Exchange between DOD, VA and their community partners. As committed partners we welcome and value the opportunity to review the program and share lessons learned.”

VA officials have already moved more than 24 million veteran health records into the new system. All VA facilities are expected to be using the system by the end of 2028.

Maze, a hacking and ransomware group, has breached several law firms, local government databases and other companies, demanding payments for data recovery and deletion. The posted information includes VA documents, patient care records, legal fee agreements and privacy consent forms.

Two of those hacks targeted Texas-based law firm Baker Wotring in November and Woods and Woods LLC in Evansville, Indiana, this month, the Evansville Courier & Press reported.

Woods and Woods is a nationwide disability benefits firm that deals with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs litigation.

“[Woods and Woods LLC] has notified the FBI and has taken and continues to take prompt action to contain the incident, mitigate its effects, and fully investigate,” said Neil Woods in an emailed statement to Military Times. “The firm is able to continue conducting its business since it had backups in place. The firm will provide additional information to its clients as the investigation continues.”

It is unclear, however, whether clients from the firms are aware some of their sensitive information has already posted to the web.

Baker Wotring did not respond to a request for comment.

Maze hacks an organization’s servers, notifies them of the breach and demands ransom payments to prevent data dumps, according to Brett Callow, a threat analyst with Emsisoft. If the group does not receive payment, it will publish small amounts of compromised data — “proofs” — online, accessible to anyone with internet access.

The group has previously demanded payments ranging from $1 million to several million dollars, and if payment is not received, Maze will release additional sensitive data on a staggered basis, Callow explained. Maze has already released a portion of personal documents from Woods and Woods, and the group claims to have more information.

Maze has also posted the compromised data to a Russian hacker forum, Callow said.

In some cases, other hackers will use the stolen information to target and demand ransom from individual patients or clients. Maze itself wrote on its site, “Use this information in any nefarious way that you want,” Callow said.

Ransomware and malware breaches have become devastated organizations in recent years, often crippling their ability to function or demands extraordinary sums of money.

A 2019 Emsisoft report found that 113 state and municipal governments and agencies, 764 health care providers, and 89 universities, colleges and school districts nationwide.

These groups prefer to target smaller firms with less secure cybersecurity infrastructure, Callow previously told Law.com. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a Flash Alert last month to private companies to notify them of increased Maze ransomware activities, BleepingComputer reported.

The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Western District of New York Court on Tuesday morning, demands an overhaul of the site and additional protections for personal information of individuals in the department databases.

“By making this private information freely accessible, the defendants are putting veterans at risk of impostor scams, identity theft, and other frauds,” the lawsuit stated. “Defendants are also depriving veterans their ability to control who learns sensitive details about their military service.”

In recent days, defense officials have announced planned changes to the site, including “updates to the website’s code base” to “better protect servicemember active duty information.”

But the lawsuit alleges the problems are fundamental to the set-up of the site.

“The Defense Department is fueling the problem by leaving veterans’ private information easily accessible on the internet,” said VVA President John Rowan in a statement. “(Defense officials) have refused to properly secure veterans’ information; we are asking a court to order them to do so.”

For now, the SCRA website allows any visitor to search through an individual’s service records by providing their last name and either their birthdate or social security number. No restrictions are put on who can read the results, which VVA officials say makes the resource attractive to scammers and identity thieves.

Retired Air Force Master Sgt. Thomas Barden, who is a party in the lawsuit, said online scammers used details from the site to win his trust, convince him to buy fraudulent computer security software and steal other financial records.

“We expect the military to protect our private information, not to leave it unsecured,” Barden said in a statement. “The government should not be giving con artists easy access to information they can use to scam veterans like me.”

The lawsuit accuses defense officials of violating both the federal Privacy Act and the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, along with a host of industry best practices for personal information.

VVA officials are represented in the lawsuit by the Civil Liberties and Transparency Clinic of the University at Buffalo School of Law. The suit seeks at least $1,000 in damages for Barden along with fixes in the site.

Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.

“To retain these veterans, employers must do more to help their non-veteran employees — especially human resources professionals and hiring managers — understand military service and structure,” the report notes.

The study also found that female veterans tend to struggle more with finding a post-military job than men.

Roughly 56 percent of male veterans said they found employment within four months of separation. Only 45 percent of female veterans said they did.

Program officials said they hope the findings can redirect veterans employment efforts to more focused results, given the success of broader initiatives in recent years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated roughly 7 percent of veterans were unemployed in 2014, but recent months’ estimates have fallen below 5 percent.

Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com .

Of the $4.79 trillion total calculated in the report, about $1.7 trillion comes from direct war appropriations over the last 15 years. The White House has already requested another $65 billion in overseas contingency funding as part of the fiscal 2017 budget.

Crawford also includes in her costs of war a rise in defense base budget spending related to the overseas conflicts of about $733 billion, and another $565 billion in related State Department and Department of Homeland Security programs.

And the total also includes more than $1.2 trillion in increased and future costs for veterans’ health care. That doesn’t include other VA benefits, such as the post-9/11 GI Bill and home loans.

Crawford notes that future interest on debts associated with unpaid war costs “will likely be many trillions of dollars,” further adding to the total.

“Even if the U.S. stopped spending on war at the end of this fiscal year, interest costs alone on borrowing to pay for the wars will continue to grow apace,” she wrote.

The full report is available online at the Institute’s web site.

Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.