Transcripts For CSPAN VA Officials Testify On Sexual Harassment Issues 20220730

Subcommittee to address what is being done about the issue. This hearing is about an hour and a half. The Government Accountability office, about 17 of employees with the Veterans Affairs department say they have experienced Sexual Harassment in the workplace. V. A. Officials appeared before a house Veterans Affairs subcommittee to explain what is being done to address the issue. This hearing is about an hour and a sexualharassment affects the rights and wellbeings of employees. An estimated 17 of the v. A. s four hundred thousand employees experienced Sexual Harassment in the preceding two years. I wish i could say the department has done all it can throughout history, but despite very high levels of Sexual Harassment reported in anonymous surveys. 17 of 400,000 employees, v. A. s own date say there were 500 form reports during a recent oneyear period. The meeting of the numbers is clear. One of the least common responses is to report that through official channels. Victims often fear no one will believe them, no action will be taken or that theyll be blamed or socially ostracized. That means that too many employees are not getting the help that they need and serious injustices are not being corrected. I would like to acknowledge that the v. A. Has made some progress. One of the secretarys first acts as secretary was to issue a policy statement making clear that he would and i quote not accept discrimination, harassment or assault at any level or any facility within v. A. This is a welcome and important statement. In march, the department issued a detailed set of harassment prevention procedures. I was glad to see that v. A. Manages and supervisors to report. There is also new mandatory training. However, the v. A. Has not taken other necessary steps. A hearing two years on this topic, many employees do not report Sexual Harassment out of fear of retaliation oral. More than half were not confident that Sexual Harassment complaints would be resolved in a fair and just matter. G. A. O. Made seven key recommendations, some addressing shortfalls in policies and procedures going back years. I have to express my frustration. Its two years later and v. A. Has only fully implemented two of the seven recommendations. Lets talk about two priority recommendations in particular. A longstanding e. E. O. Commission directive requires that the same Agency Official responsible for executing and advising on personnel actions may not also be responsible for managing, advising or overseeing the e. E. O. Precomplaint or complaint process this is for good rvenlt the same person shouldnt be in charge of both pursuing a Sexual Harassment complaint and defending managers. This is a clear conflict of interest. The it was put this way, one of several noticed that v. A. Has received back to 2017. Were concerned that a perceived conflict of interest could have a Chilling Effect on employees use of and or confidence in the process. Yet v. s Department Wide equal Employment Opportunities director, the assistant director who is ultimately in charge oversees both the e. E. O. And personnel functions for the department. V. A. Has refused to acknowledge or correct this blatant conflict that undercuts employees confidence in how Sexual Harassment cases are addressed. Equally troubling is the people tasked, not to the trained professionals but to their individual hospital administrators, this is about more than misplaced boxes on the organizational chart. This erodes faith that they will be handled in an impartial martin. Two years we were told they were working to align and they gave us a timeline, now even that sluggish timeline appears to be slipping. Thats why i have invited the deputy secretary, mr. Donald remy to participate in this hearing. He declined because of conflicts. The two v. A. Witnesses here today have done an admirable job updating various policies and procedures but with all due respect, we need the Decisionmaking Authority to make the major structural changes that are needed and that falls on the deputy secretary and the upper leadership at v. A. Im concerned about his lack of absence here today and about the clear decisive decisionmaking by v. A. Leadership that we need. That can send a wrong message to thousands of employees who have experienced Sexual Harassment. I hope there are real actionable steps to fix the departments structural deficiencies. The struggles didnt begin with this administration but current leadership has an opportunity to take the action now that would better position the department to prevent and address employee harassment moving forward. So thank you to all of our witnesses for your willingness to participate. That includes my statements. Im turning them over to the Ranking Member for his opening comments. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you for having us here. Nearly two years ago to the day, this subcommittee held a hearing with almost the exact same title. While some improvements have been made, we know that harassment still exists. One thing that is true then and still true now is that mandatory training while important will not end Sexual Harassment. We need employees and veterans alike to treat one another with respect. And when Sexual Harassment does happen despite all of the current mitigation strategies, management must be committed to Holding Employees Accountable for their actions. Two years ago, the Government Accountability Office Published a report on Sexual Harassment of v. A. Employees. There were several recommendations. V. A. Has closed on only two of them. Im very disappointed by the lack of progress. Department did not concur with two of the recommendations regarding the alignment of the eeo director and the eeo Program Managers in v. A. Medical centers. They are concerned it creates a conflict of interest, v. A. Disagrees. This has been going on for two years with little progress. This debate was always necessary and im glad the house is taking action. I am pleased that earlier this congress stepped in and passed legislation out of the house that could codify the recommendation over the objections of the department. Unfortunately, the legislation is stuck in the senate. I they can break the logjam and pass the legislation so we do not continue to spin our wheels and have the same debate regarding the alignment of e. E. O. Directors. I want to close by saying, i appreciate the efforts by v. A. Employees to end Sexual Harassment. The battle can be overwhelming and it feels like everyone is a critic. We all can agree that more whilf alignment is important, congress has already ruled on that matter, on that issue. We must turn to the heart of the matter, which is a leadership and cultural failures of ea. The Inspector General has called bas leadership disengaged and is culture dangerous. His words strike at the core of the issues before us today. I tend to make that the focus of my questions and effort. And with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. I will now yield to the chairman who is joining us for the hearing. You are were opening comments. Ano. Thank you. I would like to associate myself with the statement you made to begin. The lack of addressing sexualharassment at vi is disappointing. What i see as a lack of engagement but v. A. Leadership is disheartening. I remember the hearing that addressed these issues. I told the witnesses at that time that i was impatient with the v. A. s slow pace of reform on sexualharassment. My comments were mild compared to what several republican members had to say. Sexualharassment among the v. A. Workforce is a bipartisan concern and has been a concern of this committee for many years. No one should be suggested suggested unwelcome sexual advances or teasing, joking or derogatory comments based on sex, Sexual Orientation or gender identity. Unfortunately, these are issues that many v. A. Employees have had to do with, and continue to deal with today. Let me highlight passages from a Government Accountability office report. Alleged incidents of Sexual Harassment are underreported under v. A. s current system. Without areas that warranted attention including evidence of lack of trust in management, fear of reprisal or concerns about eeo complaint processing. And another quote, communications intended for all employees did not always reach them. Finally, gao identified concerns about whether the investigation and resolution of eeo complaints was sufficiently independent of management of the v. A. Medical centers. I am sorry to say this is not a recent gao report i am reading from. This report was issued in 1993, nearly 30 years ago. And yet the department is still rapidly with some of the same sexualharassment issues. Two years ago, we were told every alignment of equal Employment Opportunity Program Managers which had been underway at the Veterans Benefits administration and National Cemetery Administration Since 2016 would not even begin at the Veterans Health administration until 2024. And we know that vha is the biggest section of what we do at v. A. Even with that ambitious even with that unambitious goal, that has been further delayed. The two v. A. Witnesses here this morning should be commended for the steps they have taken to improve tracking of Sexual Harassment complaints, update raining and revise handbooks, but policies and procedures are only as good as people who implement them and what we have heard from too many v. A. Employees is that there is dale a lack of trust in the departments antiharassment reporting structure. I know there is renewed focus on harassment and whistleblower protection under this administration. But there is more that needs to be done. I share concerns that the deputy secretary is not here to speak to these issues. He or someone at or near his level should be able to convey to this committee that gaos outstanding recommendations on sexualharassment have the full attention of the department that will be swiftly implemented. It was communicated to us that the department does not want to set a president for a deputy secretarys appearance at subcommittee hearings. I find this odd since the committee has a long history of having Senior Leadership appeared before subcommittees. The deputy secretary of. Before our Technology Subcommittee in november and then, acting deputy secretary pamela powers testified before the oversight and Investigations Committee in 2020 on sexualharassment issues at v. A. This deserves the attention of Senior Leadership, and the deputy secretary is the appropriate v. A. Official to make necessary changes that gao and the equal Employment Opportunity commission have been recommending for years. Current v. A. Leadership has a critical opportunity to give employees renewed faith that they are harassment complaints will be handled in a fair manner. Time for talk is past due. We need to see some action. Thank you, again, mr. Chairman, and our guests. Thank you. We are joined by the chairwoman of the newly authorized womens veteran task force. Thank you, chairman pappas, Ranking Member and the rest of the subcommittee for holding todays very important tearing and including the womens veteran task force and its voice. First, i want to acknowledge the progress v. A. Has made over the best two years of sexual prevention. That Deborah Sampson act required v. A. To establish a comprehensive antiharassment and antiassault policy. I look forward to hearing from our witness on her neck witnesses on enactment of this policy. However, i am disappointed to be sitting here again as i was a 2020 because the v. A. Equal Opportunity Program is still not compliant with federal laws and regulations. Many findings of the gao are unresolved. This continues to harm the ability of v. A. To bring justice and support to employees who experience Sexual Harassment. At the 2020 hearing, i voiced concern that the v. A. Timeline to implement gao priority recommendations are taking way too long. Two years later, we are here once again. And today, i hope we will not be hearing the same premises and excuses same promises and excuses. The deputy secretary declined to be here today. I expect the deputy secretary to lead from the front, take responsibility and voice commitments to immediately resolve this issue for v. A. Employees. As far as i see, there is no sense of urgency. That is a problem. The 2020 gao report stated, absent additional action, some v. A. Employees may continue to distrust v. A. Handling of Sexual Harassment allegations. Additional reports take back decades on this subject which exposed many of the same problems, and distrust. The equal Employment Opportunity Commission Found that both the departmentwide eeo director in the eeo Program Managers at the v. A. Are misaligned, creating the perception there is a conflict of interest among v. A. Workforce. Further, v. A. Policies are not consistent throughout the agency and are missing crucial information such as including all options employees have for reporting Sexual Harassment, not to mention Data Collected from Sexual Harassment complaint and reports are incomplete. V. A. Must create a culture where employees are not stifled against reporting workplace harassment. Sexualharassment is underreported. Department leaders must work with the equal Employment Opportunity commission to implement compliance policies and procedures in order to ensure a safe, healthy and supportive Work Environment for all our employees. For decades, v. A. Employees have not trusted their leaders to handle the severe and evasive issue. There continues to be deficiency in both the application include documentation of corrective action. Survivors will continue to suffer without assurance that perpetrators of Sexual Harassment will be held accountable for their actions. Surveys by the merit Systems Protection Board in 2016 and 2020 one found v. A. Employees experienced more sexualharassment than any other federal agency. This is unacceptable and it is time to fix it. Advertising a policy for zero tolerance of Sexual Harassment or assault Means Nothing if it is not fully implemented. Employees rightfully expect and deserve better. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses on improvements at v. A. And what is being done to address changes still needed. Thank you. I yelled back. We are also joined virtually by mr. Thomas costa of the gao Education Workforce worry overseas Worker Protection and training issues. In addition to the assembled issues, i asked for unanimous consent to enter into the record a i received from the equal Employment Opportunity commission which identifies deficiencies in the program and states the v. A. Organizational structure does not lie with federal law. Just a reminder to mr. Costa who is virtual, please pause before speaking so we fully capture your comments. I want to start by recognizing mr. Johnson for five minutes. Good morning, chairman, Ranking Member and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting us today to discuss v. A. Efforts to prevent and respond to Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault. Joining me today is perdita johnson abercrombie, our director of the Eastern Region of the office of management, diversity and inclusion. We appreciate this opportunity to convey the commitment v. A. Secretary Dennis Mcdonagh has to achieving an inclusive environment to every veteran and our worldclass workforce. V. A. Thank you for your partnership and commitment to our veterans. We thank you for the Deborah Sampson act. This legislation served as the catalyst for v. A. To increase efforts to prevent and respond to Sexual Harassment and assault. We are pleased to discuss our tremendous progress since passage of the act and how v. A. Is going above and beyond implement this law. Secretary mcdonough issued a zerotolerance policy for Sexual Assault and harassment. This means we expect and work to manage an Organization Free of such incidents. We believe that just reacting to Sexual Harassment and assault is not enough and that we must achieve and sustain the Cultural Health of v. A. To prevent sexualharassment and assault. Today, you will hear us describe our efforts to do just that. V. A. Now has a clearlydefined process for reporting genderbased harassment and Sexual Assault for all employees, contractors, veterans and visitors. We now have a harassment prevention directive and handbook. The handbook provides instructions and procedures for v. A. Organizations and stakeholders at every level of the organization. V. A. Now has the outpatient Safety Survey that is disseminated to veterans. Survey inquiries about veteran feelings of safety and attending appointments. We also established a Remediation Program for facilities that have five or more substantiated complaints of Sexual Harassment and or resulted v. A. Has updated all harassment prevention training that not training that now includes Bystander Intervention training for employees. Secretary mcdonagh established the secretarys work that includes veteran service organizations, advocates, state directors of Veterans Affairs, tribal representatives, v. A. Employees serving in a personnel capacity and survivors of Sexual Assault and harassment. Finally, our white ribbon Pledge Program represents a unified, National Call to action to eliminate Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence across v. A. And surrounding communities. We have a white ribbon v. A. Champion at 100 of v. A. Medical centers. At a toolkit was disseminated to facilities to support local programming efforts. About 60,000 veterans, employees, and our partners have taken the white ribbon pledge. V. A. Has done much in the last two years. Most recently, we were named by the partnership for Public Service as one of the topfive best places to work in the government among large agencies, v. A. s First Time Ever in the top five. We were named the most improved federal agency for 2021. Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors are the heart of america. Having dedicated their lives to serving and sacrificing for this country, for all of us, in the times when we needed them most, it is our job now to serve them as well as they served us by delivering timely access to worldclass health care and earned benefits and by honoring them with a final resting place that is a lasting value a lasting tribute. We appreciate the continued support of this committee in achieving excellence for our veterans i look forward to continuing to keeping to keep you apprised of our efforts. This concludes my statement. My colleague and i would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Mr. Costa, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. I am pleased to be her to discuss the status of our june 20 20 report recommendations on sexualharassment that the department of Veterans Affairs. Sexualharassment negatively impacts employees and can constitute unlawful discrimination. Our report found some aspects of the v. A. Policies hindered its efforts. V. A. Ranked among federal agencies as having the highest incidences of sexualharassment and based on our analysis of data from 20192020 one, v. A. Continues to be a ranked among those agencies. To be ranked among those agencies. 17 of v. A. Employees have experienced a harassment compared to 12 that other agent these. We made seven recommendations to improve v. A. Structure and training. I will highlight the two recommendations v. A. Has implemented that the five open recommendations, and what more v. A. Needs to do. Related to the two closed recommendations, this year, v. A. Formalized its Harassment Prevention Program, hpp, and finalized the handbook for addressing allegations. V. A. Developed a new mandatory training with new information on sexualharassment and reporting methods available to employees, including hpp. Five of our recommendations remain open. We found that the v. A. Eeo director position is misaligned and that the personnel the person responsible for personnel actions is also not responsible for complaints. V. A. Has not provided a consistent answer as to whether it plans to address this. V. A. Disagreed with our recommendation that but in august 2020, v. A. Changed its mind and agree. V. A. Indicated it was exploring options and in july, v. A. Again stated it disagreed with our recommendation. Having the same person in charge of oversight of personnel actions such as disciplinary actions and the eeo complaint process can create the appearance of a conflict of interest and erode trust in the process. Moreover, the v. A. Position appears at his with itself, policy requiring that the person have a direct line to the agency. Administration serves as both the head of personnel at the eeo director which appears counter to policy. V. A. States and eeoc agrees that the Deputy Assistant secretary is the person with accountability for the eeo process. However, the Deputy Assistant secretary does not have a direct line to the secretary and is four steps removed from the secretary which appears counter to policy. Second, the v. A. Eeo Program Managers are misaligned. V. A. Has taken steps to realign these positions and expects it to be done by the end of the fiscal year. However, v. A. Has not taken a consistent approach. The v. A. Statement today discusses a unified model to combat Sexual Harassment. Implementing our recommendation to make the eeo Program Manager position consistently aligned throughout the agency is one way to achieve a unified model, yet the Veterans Health administration has no plan to realign their eeo Program Manager positions. Instead, v. A. Is considering reclassifying the current eeo Program Manager. It is unclear how classifying them prevents a potential conflict of interest if their duties remain the same. We and eeoc believe v. A. Must ensure that eeo Program Manager for part of the Deputy Assistant secretary in charge of the eeo progress. Third, while v. A. Is developing procedures to review its harassment policies to make sure they are current, they have not begun such a review. Fourth, v. A. Updated policies to require managers to report all sexualharassment allegations and created a tracking system or complaints. Both are positive steps. However, v. A. Has not assessed the effectiveness of the tracking system or leveraged data to identify areas that need attention. And fifth, we recommended that v. A. Corrective actions decided on are actually implemented. V. A. Has not taken steps to ensure documentation of these actions and that the information is entered into its tracking system. Without doing so, v. A. Cant be sure corrective actions are implemented. They expect to address three of our five open recommendations by the end of the year however, the recommendations about placement of eeo function will likely remain open because v. A. Has not agreed internally or with our recommendations or with the eeoc about compliance. In conclusion, while v. A. Has taken steps to combat Sexual Harassment, significant issues still hamper its ability to protect employees. Without additional steps to address our recommendations, some v. A. Employees may lack trust in other v. A. Handles sexualharassment at the province of sexualharassment that v. A. May remain high. I look forward to questions. Thank you. The witnesses written statements will be submitted to the record. We will now turn to questioning. I recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Johnson, one thing is clear. Everyone in the room understands the importance of addressing Sexual Harassment. It also is clearer further action is needed to respond to high rates of harassment among the v. A. Workforce two years ago v. A. Workforce. Two years ago, v. A. Made seven recommendations to improve handling of sexualharassment allegations and only two of those that been implemented. I want to focus on the two priority recommendations that remain unimplemented. V. A. Lacks a structure that gives employees confidence. We have learned the department has no intention of implementing the first recommendation, the v. A. Will not realign it eeo directors so this person know longer oversees both eeo and personal functions of the department. I am wondering if i understand this correctly. At this time, v. A. Is not planning to realign the office of resolution management, diversity and inclusion under the deputy secretary. The eeo director for v. A. Is the assistant secretary. She reports directly to the deputy secretary. It is my understanding that the eeo Program Managers, the people employees can go to to report sexualharassment, have already been realigned at the National Cemetery administration and Veterans Benefits administration. But when it comes to vha, the department know longer thanks the realignment is necessary. You are correct in that the realignment of vda, nca and odit are complete. However, this is breaking as of today cash we have as of today we have a new under secretary in this week. By the way, he took the white ribbon pledge. Also, he is ready to put Energy Behind this recommendation and close it out. So, we are to start discussions immediately with vha to close out this recommendation of aligning those folks under the ormbi. However, that would require a statutory increase to the cap. We are cap now. We would have to come back to the committee to increase our cap from 460 whatever the new number would be. If i am hearing right, there is a change here and your commitment is therefore vha for this realignment, but it sounds like we have some steps along the way to get to that goal. When will this occur . Can you give us a timeframe on this realignment . We want to close this out this out. He is new aboard this week. I found this out today. I have got to meet staff and come up with timelines. We have been working with the professional staff from this committee and will do that in the followup. We want to work with you on that end we want timelines. Thats get this quickly. Thank you. Mr. Costa, what will be the impact to v. A. Employees if the department nor is that First Priority recommendations department ignores that First Priority recommendation you talked about . People will not see the eeo process as independent. We heard that when we talked to employees, when we talked to eeo personnel and folks working on the process. There are strong concerns that there needs to be more independence for the eo process because the person in charge of hr is also in charge of discipline and defending the department. So, if there are concerns that person is going to not take the eeo complaint seriously because they want to defend that apartment instead of pursuing the eo complaint, there is a real challenge. I am also concerned that the department has changed its mind several times on whether it concurs with this recommendation. I am heartened to hear they are going to try to pursue the second recommendation now, but in the past, they disagreed and agreed and disagreed again. I am hopeful there is a followup there. Thanks. Just to reiterate, there is bipartisan concern among our Committee Members that v. A. Is not moving fast enough to fix major structural issues that gao and eeoc identified. And it is their responsibility to do so. We look forward to continuing exploring these issues. I want to turn things over to our next questioner, the Ranking Member, for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Johnson, while i appreciate the department convening a working group on preventing Sexual Assault in the creation of a sub council on v. A. Enterprise governance, i worry these efforts are bureaucratic and dont lead to real change. What changed you expect from these groups . Thank you. In the last two years, we have done a tremendous amount of work and it is not focus strictly in the d. C. Area. If you look at the Deborah Sampson act, i will start their. Thank you for that. We now have directives and handbooks that mandate certain actions. They mandate required reporting, they mandate the process, so we now have a consistent process that is promulgated. We also have policies. The policies now are consistent because we established a governance council. Before, we had disparate offices working this. Now, it comes under a harassment prevention, assault prevention, survivor care sub counseled that is managed enterprisewide. We have governance on this. We have remediation plans in place so if a facility has five incidence of substantiated harassment and assault, now they have to complete the reedy complete the remediation process approved by the facility. If leadership comes to our office, we work on it. We have timelines on all this to happen. We have done so much in the last two years to really combat this. And we do Technical Assistance reviews and compliance reviews in the field. I want to share that, inside our largest facility, you talk about employees not knowing that someone will be there together concerns, i am so proud because sometimes you see a poster put up that you have a place to go with the points of contact and we now have a full copy trained on the designated points of contact that can hear those individuals and get those to the leadership. We have the data to support what we have done with that in the benefited brought to our facilities. Thank you. Mr. Johnson, organizational changes and description modifications are good, but sexualharassment is not prevented by these things. Strong leaders and a moral culture prevent Sexual Harassment. V. A. Leaders around the country carry responsibility to protect, serve and empower their staff. What is ormbi doing to address this requirement in solving the harassment problem . We made sure that we have points of contact at every facility. Those become force multipliers, they tell us what is happening on the ground. These were not in place two years ago. Through the governance, we meet biweekly come but the work streams meet weekly, and this is not a headquarters thing, this is an enterpriselevel thing. I was in sacramento last week on a Technical Assistance review, looking at facilities. I was pleased to see signage all around the facility on how to report things. We will get increased numbers. I heard comments in the Opening Statements about trust. We built a program. Part of our sub council includes Strategic Engagement and announcement, annual distribution letters, all these things. We are getting the word out but now, we have got to rely on those who experienced harassment to feel safe and confident to come to us, but we put a number of things in place. A followup to mr. Costa, what best practices have you seen work to reduce and end sexualharassment in other agencies, and could this be applied to v. A. . One of the first things that should be done is looking at the alignment of their eeo processes. As long as employees dont trust the process and tough concerns about whether it is independent of their facility managers or hr, that process is not going to work and people are not going to report. The mspb survey data indicates nearly 70,000 people have experienced Sexual Harassment, but only several hundred are actually reporting. So, there is a wide gulf between the survey data and what v. A. Is getting in its reporting. My time is expiring. Thank you. Thank you. Chairwoman, you are recognized. Thank you. Mr. Johnson, the Harassment Prevention Program handbook notes that managers should ensure collective actions are taken. However, it does not provide procedures for managers to document evidence of corrective action or for your office to monitor that information. Can you talk about what steps v. A. Is taking to ensure that corrective actions are resulting in assurances that complaints are documented and are taking place . Thank you. The handbook does require officers to report back to us whatever corrective actions were taken through the hbp process. It is a 30day business process. And once managers are whoever is conducting the factfinding, decisionmakers consult with hr, general counsel, we have all sorts of resources available. But that they have to get back to us and we do track what happened and were there any followups. We are excited this year that we were just given access to alert hr. We can go into the hr system and see if corrective actions did actually occur. And that is handled at our departmental hpp office. The handbook says it is mandated, but what is the check and balance to assure all complaints and our program. Thank you. Mr. , during the 2020 hearing, i asked how over the course of three years there were only 15 reports of Sexual Harassment that resulted in a employee correction action and since that hearing two years ago, how many reports of employee Sexual Harassment were filed and how many were resulted and in documented corrective action . We track everything from reprimands, suspensions. I have it broken down by quarter, i would be happy to provide that. The ga just alluded to the fact that the Sexual Harassment occurring was higher in the v. A. Then federal agencies. The reported and documented corrective actions are relatively low. There is a pretty significant golf. Do you agree with that . Is it alarming or ok that we pay more attention to this . Two years ago, this was a huge problem. However, i am saying that a lot of these collective things are happening in the last two years. I know the report lookeda lot ot two years i have about 21 initiatives i could explain today. I am embarrassed to see that. We are committed absolutely to turn this thing around and fixing it. I hope what you are saying is true. I feel as though i was very involved in the Deborah Sampson bill. I think there was a huge sense of urgency that is taking a long time to get to a place where we can actually say we have zero tolerance second zerotolerance tolerance Sexual Harassment policy and that the da is rather focused on this issue and building an environment for their employees that are safe and trusting. I think the numbers tell us something, the data tells us that those numbers are important to be able to tell ourselves how well we are doing. But also, it tells us we can learn from this data to find out what kinds of things we need to do in order to really address particular kinds of harassment taking place across the enterprise. I still feel like there is a lot of work ahead. I hear you that you feel confident that youre on that road to successful completion but i will just say we will keep a strong eye on this. It is important and we really need that sense of urgency. Thank you for holding this important hearing today. Thank you to the panel for your testimony, putting an end to Sexual Harassment is something we all wish we could hand wave and fix but unfortunately that is not the world we live in. Thankfully my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have never shied away from hardware when it comes to hard work when it comes to protecting our veterans and a staff that supports them. I look forward to ensuring that the v. A. Is successfully implementing policies. I am proud to support that all the way to its passage. Mr. Johnson, why do so if you employees participate in Bystander Intervention training . What are your plans to market this training tomorrow employees . Thank you for that question. Before i begin, thank you from the last time that i spoke with you. We have done a lot for freely associated states or equity assessments. Just know that we are doing a lot of things there. But it is a really neat program. It is interactive training that anyone can take alive. It is an annual distribution to all veterans. You got it through the mail or email depending on whichever your preference was. That was one way. The second way is through our Strategic Engagement work through as part of that new sub counsel. We are working with tribal and other stakeholders there. We are tracking it. We are tracking their gender, age, what they like most about the bystander techniques so it is a great program. I am looking for help from everybody who can hear my voice. You can go to our website and everybody can take part in that training. Can you tell us about the work of the small and disadvantaged Business Association to help grow veteran women owned Small Businesses . It is an enterprise effort. We have conclusion, diversity, excess. There are a number of organizations involved. And we have the miter group on board and they are helping us do equity things for underserved communities. We are in the process of turning those insights into actions. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Thank you. Lead by example, pretty simple. Be that example and after leadership, when you have a task, no matter what the task is, you try to make it better. The culture of behavior that you promote if you will, you exemplify as a leader goes a long way toward compliance. Not compliance because you have to but because you want to. There truly is kind of unique. In any organization, especially one as broad and vast this, sometimes you get a behavior that you inspect, not the behavior you expect at times and that is what it is. Mr. Johnson, leaders do set the tone. The culture of an organization is dictated by what the leaders do, what behavior they allow for their staff, how do you and your office work to corrected the leadership failures and support those good leaders working to corrected bed correct bad culture . Thank you for that question. I think we have exhibited do as i do. We are committed. Everywhere we go, we do fellowship. I am looking for everybody to be a partner. I give a lot of speaking engagements at conferences, training events, i travel quiet often. We have so many people committed to this that want to do the right things. I have a great challenge. We get a lot of volunteers asking how they can help. We have to figure out how we bring multipliers into get them engaged. Along that line, because things operate independently, you have the head shed, the corporate v. A. If you will. Any issues there that you have to confront . I have not had an issue. We have standard policies and procedures. I have not found that to be an issue. When we do Technical Assistance reviews, we build those partnerships. Do you believe the v. A. Is collectively affecting leadership and taking proper steps to support good leaders working to collect bad culture customer we believe there is more to be done. The misalignment is the big issue. It is the large impediment to people feeling comfortable about their concerns and complaints. The department does not have the ability to address that. I am pleased that the department is taking action. We still think a lot more needs to be done there. We will continue to monitor the v. A. Progress in those areas but i would emphasize that the structural issues are not insignificant and you are speaking to having one unified model. This is one way in which things are not unified. We will have to monitor that to see how the department moves forward with that and when it can implement the operating in the same way as the rest of the department. Thank you. I see my time is running short here. There is zero tolerance for any type of this behavior. It is negative and detrimental to any culture and the men and women who serve. Thank you for not stopping. It will never end but you can stem it. Thank you. I will now yield to representative custer. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to wave on this important hearing. There is a survey detailing how employees think higher levels of Sexual Harassment then and any other department in the federal government, no one should have to go to work and be subjected to harassment and made to feel unsafe. Frankly this is unacceptable in the v. A. Because their medical and support us cannot provide the very best care for our veterans when they face this kind of treatment. My republican colleagues and i teamed up and test the gao to study the v. A. In have addressing Sexual Harassment affect the v. A. Workforce. I appreciate that some steps have been taken in the past few years but i am concerned more progress has not been made. It is imperative that all recommendations be fully implemented as quickly as possible. I echo the urgency that general bergman has stated today. But there is more to be done. We dont have to look any further than the second survey that was conducted last year. Employees still report significantly higher levels of harassment. Around 17 of the federal government average. Compare that response to the 440 complaints of harassment filed by the employees last year. The discrepancy is stark and i would argue the only way to read this is an employee still does not have the confidence, that the v. A. Will resolve this behavior. Let me turn to my panel. Major deficiency found was that harassment complaints were not being centrally compiled. Thankfully that is now changing. Mr. Johnson, how are they being made aware that they must send him plans to your office and what are the repercussions if they do not . Thank you for this questions. Im going to start with those facility points. They are eyes and ears on the ground. Those people know to get it to us within 30 Business Days 42 Business Days. Is accountability essential to demonstrate to employees that something will be done about the harassing behavior . Do you think that principle has gotten through at the institutional level . Idea. I believe that is because of the secretary and deputy secretary. They have talked about this more than anyone i have ever seen. Good. Question only thing that was different is at our departmental level, we are actually notifying her senior level officials. We are reporting them. Not only those in charge of facilities but they are being called out if they are not operating appropriately. I think the accountability is adequate. One of the recommendations is that the v. A. Do a better job to measure corrective actions where Sexual Harassment has been substantiated. Do you have a perspective on anything the da has made in this regard since the report came out . They have made it clear that managers should ensure that corrective action is taken. Whatever concerns are is that it does not lay out exactly what sort of documentation needs to be provided to show that action has been taken. We have seen in the past with Government Agencies where somebody says action has been taken but when you actually go look, they thought about it but never actually did it or whatever. This is just make sure that there is sufficient documentation to show that actions actually have been taken to create a trusting environment for employees. One of the things we heard in our previous work where the employees did not feel there was accountability for Sexual Harassment. I think it is really important that there is not just reporting but evidence to prove that corrective action has been taken. Thank you. I would just call on general bergman. I know that representative brownlee is working on this. The urgency and accountability is key. Thank you. Highyield back. I think we have gone through the list. For the witnesses, i think youre all aware that last year i introduced a bill which is the proving improving v. A. Accountability act. It passed the house and it would require some of the changes that they have called for. It addresses employee training, case tracking, prevention policies. It is we have not had a chance to fully review. We definitely appreciate that. It does not include all those recommendations such as making the Program Managers report to or mdi. We appreciate that very much. And i think there is an alignment of missions between the legislation and your recommendation so we appreciate those comments. I am just wondering if you have thoughts on the bill. The department size, does this clarify what congress would like to see in the harassment reporting structure . I have seen the bill. I am aware we have to discuss that with the leadership. I think it is reflective of the themes you are hearing from Court Members today. Maybe i could just ask another quick one about the handbook. According to the handbook supervisors have a duty to separate parties within one business day upon receipt of an allegation. Our complaints able to request a transfer of unit or facility . Can they request leave or is remote work generally an option . Generally, we have an interactive process where the management will sit down with the alleged harasser and consult er. Most questions can be asked and solutions found. They want to immediately separate them while doing the factfinding. It is first and foremost, it is to make sure that the harassment has stopped and the employee is safe. Can you stress the issue of confidentiality as well . From a practical standpoint, i am just wondering what that means in that process. Who has to be notified that a complaint has been made . What is your offices role in reprisal . We are the or mdi. I would say that this is strictly maintained. No one else can see that. We own that process. The prevention process can lead to monetary and nonmonetary. We work with factfinders. The report to us and it is a need to know. We have some key witnesses and etc. Can you address the issue of these volunteer factfinders that are trying to conduct investigations . The policy is unclear on when supervisors are supposed to utilize these volunteer factfinders conducting an investigation. One of the things we did, this is thank you for giving us 22 more harassment prevention but that is not enough. We saw volunteers. I believe last i checked, we had 400 people signing up for that training. That way it is consistent training. What that does is it gives us a cadre of inspectors and factfinders who can go out there and do these things and report back to us. Thank you for the clarifications. How can gao and this committee tracked the efforts to prevent Sexual Harassment are meeting the mark . I think looking at all the sources of data, it is going to be the best way. The da is collecting data as mr. Johnson said on a number of different aspects and that is good. We can track the number of hpp complaint. We would also like the department to analyze the data which we analyzed twice. We think there is something to be gotten there. There is 17 in the last two years. We are only seeing several hundred sources of complaint in a given year. There is a disparity there and i think the analyzer of that data is a critical part. Another department is doing some of that. What metrics should we be examining to determine if your efforts to eliminate harassment of working are working . We have data now. I think ever our last report was sent up december 24. The other thing we are doing and this is one of our new initiatives is we have an enterprise unifying dashboard coming out in fy 23 and we have to have an enterprise utilizing solution that will expand on these legacy systems. Right now we have the spirit systems, they are a little bit dated. They will go through something much more savvy. What metrics in that would you be tracking . There is all sorts of data you can collect. What are the metrics and the key things we need to be looking at . We are going to look at what happened, where it happened. We will look at the narrative, why it is happening, as a criminal and intellectual disability. Those are the kinds of things that we bear down on on the site. It is happening in a certain region. Is it something spilling into that region . I think we are looking at this from so many different ways. In your written testimony, you mentioned 16 million to veterans talking about the departments antiharassment and Sexual Assault policy that you were required to do that. I have heard from veterans that were a little confused by why they were receiving it and found to be overly bureaucratic and not very helpful. What was in the letter . Do you think it was helpful . At what cost was that sound . At what cost was that sent . We did send it out. We are looking for feedback because it went out as a trifold because i received one. I appreciate that feedback, we appreciate all the feedback and we will pivot as necessary. I have no further questions. With that i yelled back. Mr. Johnson, i wanted to sort of follow up on my last line of questioning. We were talking about how the data that the egg collects helps to be better understand the trends in Sexual Harassment. Now that your processes have improved, can you talk about what some of the trends are with regards to Sexual Harassment . Absolutely. One of the things we looked at, we are not participating in our Remediation Program. In one case, we have someone who had an intellectual disability and inappropriately grab Health Care Providers and they did it three times. They did it in such a short time that it happened it is not like it happened over months. We look at that kind of stuff. We also look at whether or not this is just bad behavior. I am always looking for why offenders do this and what is causing it. We look at the reports. I dont know if that answers your question. It doesnt really. I cant imagine someone with an intellectual disability would do that. You keep saying you are looking at it. I am just wondering if you can to kill it specific trends. That is some of the corrective action we have taken. I have heard things like a baby or youre too pretty to be a veteran. Those are some things that some people did not realize were offensive. We have posters that say that is not acceptable at our facilities today. One of the trends i will talk about, i will call it the hallway of shame. If someone walks by, something is said. We have done a number of things to collect those, everything from turning chairs and making sure people dont conjugate in an open area or a common area. That is where i think it starts. Every time i walk up facility, i have walked those areas and i am ready to abide by standard training. You talked a lot about the effect that we now have standard policies and procedures in the handbook. I think the gao concurs that that is a strong step in the right direction but it still sounds like through the standardization around documentation and sort of a standard procedure that actions have been taken, it does not seem to be necessarily in place. The v. A. Is such a huge enterprise, the challenge is always how to scale something across the organization that has been consistent across the organization. I think if i am understanding this correctly, i think they are looking for that standardization documentation and a procedure that has been taken. Can you talk a little bit about that . Yes. I want to defer to my colleague. I will start off with the sub counsel. This is the government that is making it standardized now. That is in place. We could become more sophisticated. This is all about what forms they are supposed to send us. Would you like to add more on that . Yes. One of the things we have done is if we have an individual that is grabbing or inappropriately touching one of our students, that case is referred to our disruptive behavior. Each case is looked at individually. If this behavior continues, that is addressed and then they may have to find their medical care. That is part of the Deborah Samson act. With the additional staffing, we will have more people on site to build a presence. You will see more statistics and a change in the behaviors because we have precautionary things to put in place. Thank you for that. One last note on this white ribbon pledge. I think it is always good to have a campaign to raise awareness. I just want to make sure that the campaign is not to wind address. We are manifesting a new reality. This does is real. I believe it. We will still have some bad behaviors. Some people will act inappropriate but they will be dealt with swiftly. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. I will now recognize chairman turkana for five minutes. Thank you. Secretary wilkie, two years ago, in response to weather at this topic, they state in a quickly unequivocally that the hospitals would be realigned under all that you need. Of course, this would address two of the home recommendations. I want to know why you think that is the case and when this realignment will and when this realignment will be included in the departments annual budget request. Thank you for that question. Becoming that this is not a priority of years. I hope we can see stronger signals from the department that this is a priority. I want to touch on the latest survey results showing that 70 of the Employee Experience this data indicates that tens of thousands of workers have been subjected to inappropriate or prohibitive contact. Then on july 1 of 2021, viewers came forward with Sexual Harassment complaint. How do you account for the discrepancy . Thank you for the question. I will tell you that we have built a program now and i see that those numbers will exponentially grow because i think they are starting to grow. Our office has been doing this for the past five years. Now we have brought everybody together. I think you will see that people will utilize this program. Is actually more than that. If i look at quarter 2, we are about 500 now. We are at about 600. I have told people that we will have a program in place. I think that when you build something, people will start to utilize it. I agree, i am hopeful that the departments efforts are going to be successful. The structural issue is a significant impediment to people coming forward. We heard repeatedly in our past work that there was not people felt it was not accountability. They are responding to facility managers. Along as long as mr. Johnson went to get to the cemetery, i think there is a challenge there as well. I think the Department Needs to address both of those. I am heartened to hear that the department has changed its mind this morning on realigning the Program Managers. I hope we see a followthrough on that. Mr. Johnson or miss johnson, do you have anything to say about any Additional Resources in order to approve the Sexual Harassment complaints . I believe this committee has been very generous to us. We are bringing on 36 new counselors. We will reassess what we need. We are very happy with that, the numbers that you have given us. Do you have anything else to add . I yelled back. Yield back. Thank you. Seeing no further questions from members, would you like to offer any closing comments . Thank you for doing this. We have a lot of work in front of us still. We have to make progress. Thank you mr. Johnson, i appreciate the news today. We are going to want to hear from the deputy secretary itself, confirming that and ensuring that will move forward and again on timelines. I think todays hearing has shown some progress. This hearing has also underscored how additional reform is needed to improve real or perceived Sexual Harassment. We look forward to continuing to work with you both as well is with deputy secretary remi to ensure that longstanding recommendations and provisions of federal law are not ignored. Mr. Costa, thank you as well for joining us. We look forward to continuing the engagement. It is really good that the womens Veterans Task force is represented here. This hearing is adjourned. Cspans washington journal. Every day we take your calls live on air on the news of the day and policy issues that impact you. Coming up saturday morning, we discussed the rise of monkeypox cases at the university of michigan. Then, in our spotlight on podcast segment, they talk about why history is in politics. Watch washington journal live on cspan, or cspan now, our free mobile app. Join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets. 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