Transcripts For CSPAN Monetary Policy And The Economy 20140720

Henry a. Wall asms the wallaces of iowa consist of three generations of wallaces. The patriarch was known fondly as uncle henry, and he was the founder of wallaces farmer magazine. His son, henry c. Wallace, was u. S. Secretary of agriculture under woodrow wilson, and henry c. s son was born on this farm in 1888. He went on to become editor of wallaces farmer magazine. He was then asked by Franklin Roosevelt to serve as u. S. Secretary of agriculture, which he did for eight years from 1933 to 1941. In 1941 to 1945, he was roosevelts Vice President as u. S. Secretary of agriculture. He is known for the agricultural adjustment act, which was the first time that farmers were asked not to produce. At first people couldnt believe the things that he was proposing regarding that, but then as prices went up, they started to listen to him, and people still refer to him today as the genius secretary of agriculture. Explore the history and literary life of des moines, iowa, today at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv n cspan3. John quincy adams was the second adams to be elected to the white house. He was the second northerner to be elected to the white house. He was only one of two antislavery president s to be elected to the white house. He was deeply feared by the uth, worried that his vision of a unified country in which the federal government and the states were partners in a relationship that en abled the federal government to play a leading role in binding the country together through infrastructure projects, through supporting manufacturing and so on, that he was deeply suspected by the Southern States who thought indeed that he wanted too much power from the federal government. Fred kaplan on the life of our sixth president , john quincy adams, tonight at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Three whistle blowers from the Veterans Benefits administration testified at a recent hearing on the process for evaluating Veterans Benefits claims. In their testimony, they spoke about misappropriations and the threat of retaliation for reporting wrongdoing at the v. A. Department. This is part of an Ongoing Investigation by the Veterans Affairs committee after reports of misconduct at v. A. Facilities. This portion is an hour and a half. Thank you very much. We appreciate you being here to introduce the panel. I would ask the panel to raise their right hand. Do you swear the testimony you are about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Thank you. You can see seated. Ms. Ruell, you are recognized for five minutes. My name is Kristen Ruell and i have worked for the department of Veterans Affairs. I work at the Philadelphia Regional Office an authorization director. I poses a law degree. Mr. Chairman, community members, veterans and guest, i have been identified as a whistle blower. I started reporting glitches in the vet system, the system responsible for paying out va benefits since july of 2010. I discussed what i saw as mismanagement at the filled office and raised issues but not limited to the improper sledding of mail, beneficiary receiving inappropriate payments, data manipulate and other various misreadings of the law. I have been targed by the the va despite the fact aig confirmed these reflections. The vas problem with a result of managers who have the power to and continue to ruin peoples lives. I can speak from experience. I do not believe in manipulate the data while harming the veterans and survivors. The va listed fast letter 2010 and a simple reading established the claims would be few and far between and to qualify for a new data claim, rather than using the date when the claim was discovered, it had to be undiscovered and put in a memo folder. Upon completion of the claim, an email was sent to the office and understanding the claims and why it would have an alter newer date. It was supposed to be tracked by a flash and this fast letter was a solution to solving the problem with the back log. Philadelphia took the letter to mean they could change the dates of claim on every claim older than six weeks old regardless of the circumstances. When investigated, the managers pled ignorance. A veteran should have a date of claim in 2009 but instead they used the date of claim of 2014 appearing it to be new and they have a new priorty claim it it will not show up on reports for claims pending longer than 120 days. I have been suspended because i was unable to work overtime and by management. No one else was given that severe of a punishment for such behavior. I wasnt given a job that i was qualified and i was followed around by management, i was accused of slander and lied to many times. My name was reported to the people i turned in and my car was dented and there was coffee all over my car. I have no proof who did it but i dont put it past the workers there. I contacted numbers thinking i was doing something the department of veterans would appreciates. The management nor the Central Office had any interest in hearing about the problems at the agency regarding the extend. I whistle blew when i realized it could be in the millions. What i thought was happening the taxpayer and the veterans and the beginning of a horrible nightmare i have been living. I know the va covers up to gain bonus and target anyone that steps in the way. Many employees were depressed and upon seeing me stick up others began to tell me horror stories. I now spend free time representing the employees who have been treated poorly. The people that serve the country and the employees that serve them deserve more respect than the Veterans Affair is giving. The agency is unable to police themselves and operating out of control at the veterans expense. The requirements placed on employe employees have required them to decide what is right and wrong. They are bullied into doing thick things they are doing. They make unattainable goals set by people that dont progress claims. I will be available by email to answer any questions i have experienced and welcome the community to meet with anyone who is interested in fixing the problem. Thank you very much, ms. Ruell. Mr. Robinson you are recognized. Good afternoon chairman, Ranking Member and members of the community. On behalf of my comrades and employees thank you for the opportunity to discuss the evaluation of administrations goal that was established in 2009 by Eric Shinseki and had 125 days at a complete and 98 claims accuracy. Serving veterans shouldnt be about unclaimed goals but how can we serve them better . It has been proven that setting unrealistic and unplanned goals with longterm targets without short and immediate targets to validate effectiveness is a disaster. Acting secretary gibson visited and it was refreshing to hear the top leaders say it isnt abo about matt but it is about Building Trust one veteran at a time. He addressed transparency, accountability, retaliation of employees. He acknowledged it was his job to create conditions for employees to be successful. He is setting the tone for changing the culture for lack of accountability and retaliation and va talking points. In october 1995 when i arrived at the columbia vro as a work study there was a poster in the hall on the hallway that read making a difference with accountability, integrity and i was impressed and embarked on the journey to make it a reality. In february of 2013 i visited the hauls and the same paper was there but the words on paper are meaningless without corresponding. This is a Service Organization created to serve veterans, widows and orphans. We serve those who made the ultimate sacrifice and seen horrific acts of war and need comfort, those who have been mentally and physically disabled and need health care. Those who are homeless and need support and shelter. Those thinking about suicide and need a lifeline and all of the authoritys who have honorable and faithfully served our country. This is about serving those who served and the va providing the leadership and the tools in creating an environment for employees that are conducive to providi providing accuracy and timely decisions to our customers, veterans, survivors and their families. When unrealistic goals throw out leaders to throw out common sense and analysis out of the window it is time for a reassessment and shift the focus back on our own mission. To care for those who owned the battle and his widow and orphan. President roosevelt on the day he signed the gi bill stated the members of the armed forced have been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice for the rest of us. And they are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems. Ladies and gentlemen of this committee, i served 20 years serving this country. We need tools to do our jobs. We need to be lifted up. Not pulled down. And this is done not by anybody else but the failed leadership of our organization. It is our organization as well. Mr. Soto, you are recognized for five minutes. I thank the chairman, Ranking Member and esteemed members of the community for the opportunity to be here. My statement relates to my experience at the Saint Petersburg florida Regional Office which i will refer to at st. Pete. The problems, in may opinion, results from setting goals that are fantastic and unrealistic that the result could have been predicted. Management focused on creative number crunching and not the veteran. I point out i tried bringing out problems to management to verifyious i will discuss many example. There are many. The rules simply hid wait times. Once a claim is given a provisional rating, its not counted toward the back log. However, the claim has no final rating. Its still unresolved. In summary, at st. Pete, the employees work hard to serve veterans and complete the work competent incidently. However, we have found that employees avoid appealing quality error calls, because they fear reprisals. When employees do clear the airs, theyre overturned at least 30 of the time. We did some figuring out, and we believe that if employees were not afraid to appeal these errors, the total number of claims with errors overturned may be troubling. To date, to excuse the back log and other processing problems, many employees are Performance Improvement plans. We were interested and we checked. Not one manager at st. Pete is on a Performance Improvement lan. The total number of errors have been overturned can be great. We just need to need. Any employee who complains is met with severe consequences. Once again, id like to thank the committee for providing me the opportunity to share my views. I will be happy to take any answers. Thank you. Thank you very much, mr. Soto. Were going to start a round of questioning and each us will have five minutes with which to ask our question. Mr. Soto, i will start with you, sir. If you would, just answer in a yes or no fashion. Did you receive a promotion in 2030 . Yes, sir. Andy got some documents here that are letters signed by the Regional Office director, who youve talked about this evening, so when i ask you them, the first is a letter dated july 24, 2013, where the r. O. Director contested transfer of your official time which notes having raiders taking from the recuring duties on a regular basis hampers the flow of work. Did you get a copy of this . Yes. The second is a letter that is dated february 26, 2014, with r. O. Director denied your lead to attend training, citing that you were needed due to the all hands initiative. Did you receive this document . Yes. And the third letter dated the 23rd of june, just three weeks ago, from the director again, which appears to respond to an a f. G. Leave without pay request for you, which reads in part, leave without pay is granted at the discretion of the department. While you understand that its preparing for various changes within its organization and engaged in various national projects, mr. Soto held a Fulltime Position as a Ratings Veterans Service representative and is needed to perform his duties in that position. Did you receive this document . Yes, sir. Could you tell the committee what occurred after june 23 of 2014 . Well, on june 24, i published a v. S. R. Accuracy report concerning quality review and v. S. R. Operations. On june 26, it was distributed to all employees and anagement. During this period i received calls telling me that management was looking into your folders, specifically bonnie wax from Human Resources called our coaches and said dont tell anybody, i need to you look at this, etc. On june 30, i was, for this, and i think the legal efinition is laid off. I received the letter saying services are no longer required, and that was the end f my employment. You had the policy that philadelphia violated the policy direction given in the letter 1310. Definitely. And how did they violate that policy . In our office, we would receive emails as we got closer to 10 that the emails would change, but they were instructing us to change the dates of claims on any claims regardless of the circumstances, if they were older than a certain date. Do you believe that the management at the Regional Office intentionally violated the letter or was it simply a misunderstanding as v. A. Has said publicly . I believe, and i think it can be proven, that management intentionally violated the fast letter. If you read the fact letter closely, the management rule alleges that they didnt understand what the first part of the fact letter said. However, their actions show otherwise. The other paragraphs in the fact letter explain that youre supposed to control these memos by placing a flash in a program called map d. Thats the way to track how many memos philadelphia was issuing for changing dates of claims. You were also supposed to email washington after you processed the claims and explain the circumstances for changing the dates of claims. Philadelphia didnt do either of those things, so its my belief that if you didnt understand the top part of the letter, number one, i question why youd be paid a gf15 or 14, number charge of the amount of money that our office is in charge of if you dont understand the language in the fact letter, and why then did you prohibit any type of control in those claims, so that if they were to be looked into at a later date, no one could find them, similar to the v. H. A. , paper, waiting list, our memos were all on paper. So if you wanted to find out how many memos were done in philadelphia, you would have to go to the file room and open all the claim folders to find these memos if theyre still there. But map d is not a program that the managers arent familiar with, and emailing, they do every day. They email us lists nonstop. So if they didnt understand the fact letter, at least the top portion, i know that they understood the bottom portion, and they failed to do any of those things to control it. So i think it was to hide it. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. The first few questions should be a quick yes and no, and ill start with mr. Sot sando just work down the panel. Do you believe that production is being driven over quality . Absolutely. Yes. Definitely. And do you believe that nonrating workload is being provided enough resources to be done in a timely and accurate manner . No. Definitely no. No. And do you believe that vbmf is making v. A. More efficient than it was when you dealt with paper . At the present time, i would say thats debatable. Id say that its no, because all the workarounds that we have negates the rogress that it is making. I dont currently work on vbmf, but anything that is electronic at the department of Veterans Affairs has many problems, and if i do a claim with a paper folder, i can see the paper, i can page through it quickly. When i look at whats in the computer, theres multiple entries for the same documents, it wastes a lot of time, and sometimes the program freezes and it halts us from getting our work done. I would much rather use paper. Ms. Ruell, to follow up on the chairmans question his question was do you believe the va ignored, you know, the pension and ignorance well let me back up. You suggest the Philadelphia Center pleaded ignorance with regard to the found or discovered claims. Did you believe the va findings were not correct in suggesting the center misapplied or misunderstood the policy and procedure from the oig . I believe that is probably not hundred percent accurate because they only found 30 memos. But if they stay a lot longer they would probably find thousands and see the instances that the claims were changed and some had no reason at all. They just changed the date of claim. That is not what the fast letter said. Do you have proof . I photo copied a few of the memos but if you ask employees how many they did on a weekly bases you would definitely find out. In our testimony, you highlight that you believe a large number of documents were improperly shredded. Can you walk us through recommendations that more needs to be done . Do you want to describe the shedding . Yes. Okay. I was working and receive an employee from the triage clerk and they have to look at a claim and figure out in a short time what type of claim it is and identify it with the veteran in the system. A lot of people mail claims in and may not put their full name, forget their Social Security number, their birthday a lot of people have the same names in the system. If you are on production and you have to open the mail and look at the things and decide what claim it is in a very quick time period there is not time to investigate or try to identify who that person really is. So what was happening, and various employees told me the clerks were trying their best to identify these things but the ones that took longer because they were lacking the identifying information were put aside in a separate pile that was stored in boxes eventually. I went down to the file room that night after i got this email and i wanted to see for myself what was going on. I saw the boxes that were labelled 2010, 2011 and 2012 claims to be shredded. I opened them and saw things that were not supposed to be shredded. So i reported it to washington. I took pictures. Apparently they stopped the shredding of those. There was a total of 96 boxes. Their answer was it is a military and return maim mail and the process is after you hold it for a year you can shred it. But the law is if you try to identify it first. Because of the production requirements the clerks had a choice to pitch it to another box and hopefully get to it later or lose their job and do it the right way. So most people had Good Intention and put these aside. Then they had gift cards they were gave giving away to those who could process the most mail. I saw the boxes with my own eyes and what was in the boxes and a lot of that stuff shouldnt be shr shr shredded. When i did research about the shedding truck i was informed that for the mail to get shreded it gets shreded on the truck and i would have been shreded with it. So i cannot say i saw it being shredded because that would be impossible. Mr. Lamborn you are recognized. Thank you for your leadership on this vital issues. Last week we had another hearing involving whistle blowers. It is so important we have employees who for forward and disclose what they have seen with their own eyes. It can be critical to exposing things that need to come to the light of day. Thank you for your work and your service and your putting it on the line to do that. And i want to ask you and i think i know the answer to this but lets do it for the record. Have you experienced or do you know others who experience retaliation in response to bringing things forward has a whistle blower in the va . Ms. Ruell we will start with you. Unfortunately, yes. Yes. Absolutely, yes. Mr. Soto, lets talk to you for a second, you probably saw the letter, the memo from acting secretary gibson dated june 13th saying we will not stand for retaliation against whistle blowers. In this memo there is a great line that says protuckecting employees is a moral obligation and a priority for the department. We will take action to hold those accountable for those engaged in behavior identified as whistle blower and that provides punishment. So the memo says those who punish whistle blowers can be subject to treatment. Congress protected whistle blowers 25 years ago. Mr. Soto, is it true you were retaliated against after the memo came out . I believe so, yes. Could you explain that, please. I was, again, and i am still trying to piece it together. I believe i was laid off june 30th. I believe that email and other memos. The memo i quoted from was june 13th. What was the reason given for you being laid off . My services were no longer required. Had you been acting as a whistle blower prior to that time . Yes, sir. Can you explain what you did . I put out notices of wrongdoing concerning violations of due process and veterans claims and how they are processed. I put out to accuracy reports concerning the quality review process at st. Pete. One was in december 13 involving the raters and how there is a conflict in how we define various laws and definitions of evidence that results in due process of the veterans. June 26 it was distributed and addressed the sars and the problems they were having in terms of receiving inconsistent quality review. I have the letter given to you when you were discharged and there doesnt seem to be a reason for you to being let go. Correct, sir. How often does the va fire people for any cause number one . And for number two without giving a cause . Being involved in the union i cannot say i cannot answer that question. Have you ever seen that happen . I have not heard of somebody being told their services are no longer required. Without a reason . Yes, sir. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Ms. Brown, you are recognized. Ms. Soto, i am from florida and i am florida with the system in st. Pete and you process most of the case work in florida. It has improved. We were having kickback with processing it and it wasnt going through so i think it is very important to have goals. How long did you work at the center in st. Pete . Four years. You worked there for four years. Have you seen improvement in the system in the four years . That is a difficult question to answer what is the number of cases you were processing . For a long time we were having Serious Problems because you all processed most of the cases in florida and we have a very high number of cases in florida. Yes, i did studies and part of those studies that i just mentioned and essentially we have not corrected errors that have been occurring in the past three years no matter what type of training it isnt effective and we were repeating the same errors over and over. So i would say no, we have not improved to answer your question. You havent improved . We have not. June 30th was your termination date . Yes. And without cause . I was terminated because my services were no longer required. I am not sure what that means. I am not either. But i am going to find out. Mr. Robinson, thank you for your service again. You indicated that you all could do a better job if you had better leadership at the top. Are you talking about congress when you say the top . What exactly are you talking about . I have worked with every va secretary we have had and some leave a lot to desire but i think the last va secretary did a lot based on what he had to work with with the congress. When i talk about the top i am talking about the our leadership. I reported and sent letters to the vha command. So it had not been working like the military . Its not the military. Ts about leadership being a retired first sergeant, i think i know a little bit about leadership. It was not the director that was the problem. It was the system that allowed him to do what he did. Leadership atout the top, when you have a problem and you allow it to go on, even to the point of discrediting the president of the United States i placinghis photo by his photo in a place no one can see when that happens, i know there is not an accountability issue. You indicated that you think paper works best. We have said over and over again, we dont want paper. We want the v. A. To get with the modern systems. With the take training employees. What would you recommend . Process a number of cases and caseloads that need to be processed by hand. Totally agree. The problem is the computer correctly so i would rather use the paper folder system than the Computer System. The va had Computer Systems like maybe if apple designed them it might work better. I can do more on my iphone faster. We have given them money to upgrade. We have discussed it over and over and over again. That is not acceptable. We have to take them into the next century. We have to have the new technology. I totally agree with you. But if you sat down next to us you would see why there is a backlog. We have to click on a large amount of documents and sometimes hundreds you need to look at in the computer. When you click to open it and sometimes it doesnt open, sometimes it is the wrong persons information and you have to move it, sometimes the Computer Systems go down and you not sure when you will get back up. So you have thousands of employees sitting there and they cannot do their job because the only way you can process the claims is with the information. Little babies, twoyearold children can work the Computer System, we have to move to the next level with the va. Thank you and i yield back the time. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for the testimony and your courage. Ms. Soto, your testimony spoke to the manner that production and accuracy measures create hostility in the work place for empl employers, quality reviewers and management. Can you relate how managements focus on the metrics is affecting the veterans who have claims pending . The production is the problem. They want the numbers and for whatever reasons the numbers seem to validate what they are doing. It tends to show, i gather but dont see it, they are progressing in the backlog fight. They are starting to push and bullying employees into simply following changes and rules that sometimes may not serve the w t veteran. And one thing i saw, for example, is for whatever reason to ensure we clear the backlog we shortened the evidence collection period. Our decisions are based on evidence of record. There is nothing of record. We deny the claim and it is seen as a shorter duty to assist periods and shorter periods together and evidence from private providers. And that is how we are moving. Next question for the panel. There has been talk about how vba manipulates the data using certain endpoints. Define, whoever want to go first, define end products and how vba manipulates their use and what consequence this has on the veteran. An end product is a threedigit code that identifies what type of claim we have. For example, if i say a 110 that represents an original claim with less than eight issues. I i say an o2o that represents a claim that the veteran submitted after he submitted an original claim. You only get one original code and everything is an input from there. You have use 930 from there and that is rate decisions that were prematurely decided. It doesnt include a rating bundle. So the 930s which the majority of them are claims that were rated prematurely and they are not counted in this inventory of blacklog claims. That is just one example. Anyone else wish to comment . I agree with them. I dont have as much experience with that sort of processing because i worked the rating side but i agree. Question for the panel. Starting with ms. Soto. Can reacting secretary, mr. Gibson, succeed with the current vba leadership or should we hold this current vba leadership accountable and start with new leadership . Can the acting va secretary succeed with this leadership . My answer would have to be i dont know. They have been in office for some time now. If the problems are still persisting it is time for a change. That is my opinion. No. Maam, would you like to respond . I think the people under the secretary are letting the under secretary down. I dont think they are being truthful to the under secretary about the Regional Offices. I feel someone is responsible for the va and all of the problems but in my office there are far too many people to hold accountab accountable. Thank you for your testimony. Mr. Soto, i understand you worked at this office for four years, is that correct . Yes, sir. Had you served the va in this capacity prior to other offices . Yes, but i prefer not to discuss that. I want to get a sense of how long your served the va . 15 year i have been a government employee. All at the va . No. How long at the va . Ten years. And mr. Robinson, you have been at the office nine years, did you serve at the va in other capacities . I have been in the columbia va office for 18 years. And the past nine years you have been in the current capacity you are in now . Yes. Ms. Ruell . I worked at the va for seven years this august 20th. Lets just start with you ms. Ruell. Has the situation with these metrics and management measurement, which is focused on concern outcomes in which could only be described as preverse incentives, have they existed for the last seven years . Yes. So there wasnt a time that was better . No, our office used to ha have we started doing original claims a few years after i got there so philadelphia didnt have as much jurisdiction. We had a lower volume of claims and i believe we were able to give more times to the claims. We didnt have to know how to do so many different types of claims because each claims has so many rules and laws that go with it. If you have 1520 types of claims it is like being a lawyer with 1520 specialties. So the more claims that philadelphia has i have noticed it is much harded to know more laws for all of these types of claims. They grew in complexity and variety since you got there. Is that what you are saying . I believe you can never figure out how complex a claim is. Sometimes people think this is a small folder so it should be fast. Because each veteran Service Representative is responsible for doing so many claims and doing them perfectly the more we inherit the less democrat i believe it is. Can you tell me something about what kind of performance bonuses were available to employees at your grade level . Our grade level you had to achieve a rating higher than fully successful to get a bonus. So if you received an outstanding or excellent you got a small bonus of a couple hundred dollars for the entire year . Yes. What was at stake for employees at your levels . Maybe a couple hundred . Yup. Mr. Robinson, can you answer . In my office the bonuses were up to 2,000 and over. They had three ways that you could get a bonus. It was production, they had a numbering system 13. If you got a 3 or a 9 you would get a higher bonus and you would get three for production, three for accuracy and three for auto support. It was over 2,000. It was based on grade so the higher the grade the more money you got. Mr. Soto . Similarly. We had outstanding and they are supposed to be given based on a point structure. The lower level employees that didnt receive points were declared successful. A few employees were given outstanding without reaching the outstanding criteria and the middle group that made production and accuracy were lumped in and made fully successful but no use of the unique appraisal. Thank you. There are different ways to file claims at the va. One way to inquire is to file a program through iris. And you can call or email a claim in and then a report is generated and we call an iris. You are supposed to read these and you are supposed to figure out what the claimant needs and address it. And in our office, somebody reported to me, a couple months ago that we were not doing these at all and there were 32,000 pending. It is a concern because some are calling in and it can be an informal claim. If we tonight process the iris we dont know the claim for those people. Not everybody calls in for iris and asks the status of their claim. The follow, i know ms. Ruell testified to this but the staff at columbia and st. Pete did they violate guidance provided in the fast letter 1310 . I dont have an incident that it did. I dont know. Same here. I am not sure. I know they say the duplicate payments dont happen and what a problem this is. We say it is fixed and it is fixed but obviously it isnt. There is many ways that the va that you can receive a duplicate payment. Prior to certain year veterans stop receiving service numbers. A lot of the veterans are in the system with a service number. When that same veteran or one of their survivors submits a claims they put the veterans Social Security number on the correspondence. When we put a claim on an end product, we create a duplicate record for the veteran. So the person has the same number and one service and one claim number and that can cause the veteran to be paid twice. There are other ways it happens. There is an operating system and everybody is looked at by a personal Identification Number and that is how the benefits are paid based on this number. If you apply for benefits and we put your claim under control with just your name and you didnt provide your Social Security number because you submitted an informal claim and were not aware you had to we will put a claim under control with a mary smith and no Social Security number. When mary smith comes in and provides her Social Security number we put a claim under control with her Social Security number. Our Computer System has two different pid numbers for that mary smith and she can get two checks. I worked on claims where one claimant got five checks per month. The va will tell you the problem is corrected and they have data mining programs to find the duplicate payments. I would disagree. Usually every week i find some. I stopped reported them because for two years i collected and reported them and nothing changed. I really cared about it because if we have the wrong Social Security number for a claimant that affects other benefits through government matching programs. We had a case of someone trying to apply for food stamps and it looked like they were getting money from the va but they were not. The va has dup licate reports and they can be paid twice. Thank you. Mr. Bradley, you are recognized. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you for being here with us this evening. Mr. Soto, i am just shocked to hear your story of being laid off on june 30th. We have had a lot of Committee Hearing over the sourcourse of last month and talked about the need for the va to improve and to become a good, positive organization and there is going to have to be real cultural change. We talked about the vha a lot. I wanted to ask you and the other panelist have you felt any sense of change coming down from the top around the Work Environment . How we want to improve, encourage, and serve the veterans and be a veterancentered operation. Have you felt that change in culture in your department . No. Mr. Robinson . I have a new director now. So i am not going to lump all of the directors in one pool because i dont like to paint with that kind of brush. She is new. We have been able to get along and together. Up until that point . Can you answer up until that point . Up until that point no. It was awful. Employees suffered. And the reason it disturbed me that the va chain of command knew and allowed it to be. Thank you, mr. Robinson. And ms. Ruell, have you felt any change recently . No. Actually i believe things are getting worse. I took it upon myself to help employees that were targeted by manageme management. They are terrified to stand up for themselves and they i dont want to be treated like that. I have a family to feed and i cannot afford to be fired. I promise them i would spend every moment i have and represent them against the agency if they need to file a claim. I feel like the agency let me down because they promised you can come into work and have a discriminationfree workplace and that is not the case. And i spent two years helping employees get their jobs back because the va isnt doing it. It is only getting worse. I get probably 45 calls a week begging for my help and honestly there is not a lawyer out there who will help you. At the early strange you would have to pay them 15 20,000 and most dont have that money. If something doesnt change soon i dont know if there is going to be any good workers left in the va. Thank you. I wanted to ask your reaction when the higher ups talk about notable progress and reducing the claims backlog . The Ranking Member mentioned the numbers in his opening comments of 630,000 plus down to 270,000. What is your reaction . Did you believe the progress was made ms. Ruell . No. Mr. Robinson . No, because we dont analyze the numbers we are counting. The va is saying or we say because this is my organization as well. We say the backlog is down 50 but if you look at the number it isnt down 50 . Numbers can be manipulated. When i see dependency claims over 200,000, okay . When i see appeals increase to over 297,000 these are veterans. Somebody would have to be asleep at the wheel to not realize they were going up. You can look at numbers anyway you cant to but for an example what i have seen during this time. I have seen failed initiatives such as contracting claims development and the idea that created the fast track for processing agent orange claims. I saw procedures doing that and all hands on deck to include suspending quality reviews, provisional ratings, unlimited overtime and 20 hours mandatory. I have seen Refresher Training and we shutdown offices and had 30 of the workforce coming back. That should have been accounted for. We had changes in performance standards twice. We have changed the money report twice, excluded the 930 from the rating bunding. We used ep 400s and changed that and abused that to request evidence. I think my time is up. So thank you and i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you for being here today and your compelling testimony. I agree with ms. Probrow and we have been told the backlog has been worked on and making progress and you are saying that is baloney and they are concerned about numbers and not veterans. And changing the date of a claim is common practice to reduce the ba backlog. It is unbelievable this is going on and no one is responsible for it. I am hoping we will make progress through the hearing and make it happen. I have a question for you. And maybe each of you. Name the top two things that you would change if you were in charge ms. Ruell to make things better. How do we change the culture here to make it better . I understand rules for bonuses is a big problem but tell me what you think if you were in charge. I think that if management does something wrong that they need to be held accountable. They have no problem holding an employee accountable. Many managers in my office have fired people over illegally. They should have to pay their legal fees should they be found to be guilty of an illegal firing. They use regional counsel as their own private attorneys and i am spending my own time representing employees because they cannot afford an attorney. So i feel like the biggest problem is accountability for the people in middle and upper manageme management. It has been my experience you can never find out the name of the person that implemented the problem. Mr. Robinson, what are your top things if you were in charge to make the culture better . Make the veteran the object of business. He comes first. And the employees need to be given effective tools, training, and leadership and we cannot do that without leadership. Mr. Soto . I agree we have to start with policies that place the veteran before the numbers and secondly we have to completely think about restructuring the Training Programs for raters and vsrs. It is time to change that. Let me ask another question. For the men and women returning home from the service who would you recommend to them in order to get their claim process . What should they do . Is there something that everyone should do to make the claim go better . You have any ideas on that . I think one of the main problems with the va expects is a completed application is different than what the regular person thinks. They have ruled that zero isnt an answer on the income validation. We have to ask you if you met zero. So there is really strange rules that we have to follow at the va. An average person who fills out an application wouldnt know. So going through a Congress Member or call thiing the media the only way to get them to your application faster. We have to educate the veterans and do outreach and explain the process because we get documents we dont need. The veterans goes to the doctor and he is claiming a knee condition and he goes to the doctor and he will send in the documents pertaining to everything and the knee. If we can simplify and get the veterans to file medical evidence that per tains to what they are claiming i think that would be a great health in educating the veteran in the process. I think that will make a lot of money doing that; educating veterans. I am out of time but i appreciate you being here today. Thanks. Ms. Kirkpatrick you are recognized. This culture of intimidation has to stop. I introduced hr 54 which is the whistle blower protection act because i want to make sure there is not retaliation against them. Thank you for being here and we would not have the information without your courage and commitment to the veterans and that is what it is about take caring care of the veterans. I would like to know for each of you when you started at the va were you given a policy that directs you how to file a claim if you see something you are not happy with . We are all told to review, lets put it that way, this thing called the no fear act. We are told not to have fear. It doesnt work. Mr. Robinson . I came to the va 18 years ago and it was a lot different then. I didnt get anything at that time. But we have to read the policy or whatever but that is about it. Ms. Ruell . Once a year we get the annual whistle blower no retaliation email. That is why i reported the duplicate emails. There is no grieving policy . We have a union but it took two and a half years to get the suspension off my record. The Decision Maker when you go through process were the people that punished me. So i realized i am not going to go through the grievance process because why would i want to a bias Decision Maker and i then tried the eeo avenue. Unfortunately that takes a year and a half to even possibly get a court date and sometimes it is up to three years. When you are being tormented at work every day that is not a solution. You can report to the office of special council but they accept 5 of the cases. I felt like there were laws out there to protect us and i was fooled by them and they have all let me down. It is kind of like if you say your husband or wife is abusing you and the police give you a piece of paper that says you need to stay away. That doesnt protect you from getting beat up from your spouse. I am from arizona and i am a former prosecutor and we have a difficult time getting people to report child abuse and neglect until we had an anonymous hotline. And would it be beneficial to have an anonymous hotline for patients and workers outside of the system that knows to somebody outside of that system to address and look into it. I would like to know your thoughts about that. I think it would be a good start but the people you need to report to have to be far removed from the people involved. If the same person is still in power im just going to get i agree 100 . If employees and our own organization cant expect it to protect them that is the problem. We have to protect our employees like i said to the acting secretary, he said he will do that. Now we will see whether he does it not. The will be watching to make sure we are doing what we say. Five seconds. I would like to see. Thank you. My time has expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You are recognized for five minutes. I just want to thank you all for your courage in coming forward. I think without the whistleblowers the employees at the va who really care about meeting our nations obligations to men and women who have served this country, without you all we would not have any idea really what the magnitude of the problems within the Veterans Affairs. One question. Let me say first that i think there is an emotional component to your stories and the way that you are treated once you are identified as a whistle blower within the organization. I think you have all expressed that. Ms. Kristen ruell, you gave some very specific examples about how tough it is to go into work every day when things like that happen to you. We talked about your car being damaged and the other things that occurred. One question that i have, the manner in which all of you were retaliated against, what are you members of the union . Will was the role of the union in terms of protecting the employees, your specific case, let me start with mr. Javier soto. What recourse did you have . I assume your remember. Yes. Okay. Essentially we are still trying to figure out what happened. What i believe is that retaliation for the whistleblowing we have problems with claim processing. There is no other way to address them. We found ourselves in that strange this situation where we have to rely on the union to help. That brought conflict. Server. Well, i am actually the president of local 520. And we have been as a matter of fact, in june of 2012 we had a rally to bring attention to what was going on. The Va Police Department had cameras and video trying to intimidate us so sure. In your testimony you talked about as a lawyer that in your free time you were defending fellow employees that were for one reason or another having difficulties with va leaders. Can you speak to that end what representation or access to representation there would have had from the union as well . The main problem with the union is that it takes forever to get anything resolved. Like i mentioned before, i have an admonishment on my record because i did not have anyone to watch my child. I got written up the following month. I was told i was fraudulent and suspended. I went to the union for help. Two and half years later my record was reversed by the director. Had he not been there i believe my record would still have an admonishment and suspension on it. You go through the union. A Decision Maker that works in the agency. I have taken matters into my own hands. I represent myself now. I help anyone else that wants me to represent them because unfortunately people did not have to onehalf years to wait. The union decides whether or not to take the case to arbitration. One question i have. I am running of time. Its my understanding that the claims process called one who does that is kind of a generalist. You do all kinds of claims. It would not expedite the process of people became specialized in a given area such as agent orange and ptsd. Would that help move the process along . Definitely. Would you want to go to an ear nose and throat doctor for her surgery . We tried that before. I mean, we kicked around all kinds of things. The most important thing is that when a claim comes and we need to do an analysis of the claim. It has happened in the past. We tried that with a number of claims. Specialization. I yield back. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you to the panelists for taking the time group participation. We must focus on disability claims. Provide the full range of services on which our veterans depend. At top priority i am committed to addressing an appeals backlog. I introduced the veterans access act which would include Video Conferencing during the appeals process as a substitute for the veteran being there in person if he or she chooses not to. This bill aims to reduce the appeals backlog. More must be done. They cannot afford further delays. So my question is more on the practical pragmatic steps to the streamline the claims process without averting other essential resources. You said in your Opening Statement that employees are craving tools. And what tools to help them do a good job. What tools do you suggest . Well, we have no choice. We have to improve it. If you put something out and it does not work the way it should to try to alleviate the problem, but that problem brings about another problem. Did it right the first time. Dont take away my chain saw and give me a new chain saw and tell me that the chain saw is faster but when i go to cut the tree down the chain saw its stock. I have to pull it out, try it again. Now youre going to get on me for not cutting the tree down faster. We have tools out there. We need tools that work in the beginning. That means they have to be tested. They have to be tried. If you were to plan and Training Session for a system of training for employees, what would you include that you are not receiving now . We have a training website with all of the things that we need. It is not that we dont have lesson plans and all of this stuff. When selig is that having quality trainers to train. And human gene that technology is very outdated. Do you have any suggestions . Have you heard of other Software Technologies that you would recommend the committee look at . I know that when i found my tax return every year it is done in a couple of weeks. The questions that they ask me are not different than that va pension program. Who do you use . Turbo tax. I know that there are other agencies. That with as many employees that va has we should have this problem. We dont have enough printers. I have to walk in hopes that i find one that works. It is hard to find a photocopier in my office. Sunday is all the printers are down. There are employees that come to me. They spend an hour trying to print something out. One last question. I have 15 seconds. How would you apply this to the veteran center process . I think if a veteran had a place to go and it was zero onestop shop, we look at their claim, they have to come back when it is complete. If that is complete the move to another area kind of like when you get your oil changed. If they need more things they could come back another day. We dont have any communication with veterans. It will take time. Theres no communication with the people we are supposed to help. It could be done right in there would not be so much rework. A comprehensive onestop shop. We dont have to run all over the place. The frequent feedback. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank all of you for being here tonight. When i think about the letters and email, it is beyond me how anyone could look at that and say this is a good idea. Its a great idea. Receive this emails . How to process claims is that something you received . De mean the same . To that affect. We receive emails the tell us when need to do certain things if they dont it could give an adverse consequences. What strikes me is through this time there is no talk of promoting the veterans, their human beings. It is all about numbers. Did you ever give anything that emphasize that point . Its about taking care of our veterans or is that something that is just way up the . Email with these numbers. We are taking care of veterans. Its not about an email. Its about the communication between your superiors and the employees. When you care you have veterans in your office. The employees. Not treating our veteran employees. How can we say we treat other employees well . Linda halliday let me go into that concept. The rank of first sgt. That me just and you that. Developing trust amongst soldiers, commanders, people who look up to you, i admire you. Commanders that i assure you trusted. And Mutual Respect to you had there. And you know they you have to lead by example. This is something you would do every day. You were also willing to let those under you come to you with problems and present solutions and have a conversation. I know the role you are in, and i know that i think the pin your heart that is what you are saying is missing right now then , that ability testier the ship and then right is right and wrong is wrong. Exactly. I am trying to be that conscience. Employees are the ones that really have to serve our veterans. If we dont take care of our employees and give them the tools, encouragement, the workplace, the process these and the honest, that is all were asking. This is an awesome undertaking. It is massive. Command the undersecretary for putting us into getting into paper. I see the advantages of paper. I am saying that the leaders have to listen. If they dont they will take us over a cliff. We are that close to the edge. Is there anyone in your careers recent years to more your immediate va leaders that you felt you admired and trusted and could go to with anything . He is deceased now David Chapman was out there with the employees. You could talk to him about anything. I mean, you know, he would bring you the paper. We would talk about it. We just need for our leaders to listen and act. If we have a situation where something is wrong, listen to us we are the ones in the foxholes on the front line of battle. We know what is going on. To not disregarded would we tell you, this is not working. That is all we want, someone to listen in to the serve our nations veterans together. Thank you very much. My time also heard from officials in the v. A. Department. Among them was allen and alison hickey. This portion runs one hour and 45 minutes. Again noticing that the witnesses are at the table and i would like to ask the audience to go in and and the witnesses would please rise, raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to the penalty of perjury that the testimony youre about to provide us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Please be seated. Each of your complete written statements will be part of the hearing record. Prior to recognizing witnesses for testimony on going to address a recent issue and im going to provide a timeline to each of the members for your own information because its going to be hard to follow. A timeline as i recount it for you but i instructed the Committee Staff to make a visit to the Philadelphia Regional Office on the second of july of 2014. As of the 20th of june specific concerns and we have heard some tonight have been raised on the management or more accurately mismanagement of the Regional Office and i did wander staff to spend a day on the ground to perform a technical review of some of the various files from you the office and meet with individuals who work there. This is a customary thing for our staff to do. Let me run through what occurred on this unannounced visit. My staff alerted the Office Congressional affairs of their imminent arrival at approximately 9 00 in the morning and 20 minutes later they arrived. They were greeted by an employee of the Regional Office and they were company to Conference Room on the fourth floor. Within moments of arrival while waiting for the judge of the Regional Office will do my staff went to the restroom. There was another individual that was in the restroom to head set a yellow notepad not far from the sink and a staff member went by at this think. They notice that there was writing at the top of the page that was circled. In fact we have a copy of it and i would like to post it if we cant so everybody can see it. Members you have a copy of this. Its the yellow legal pad. The two names for circled at the top of the page. Now these two employees were from the Regional Office and they both had acted as whistleblowers to improper activities in the past. My staff then looked at the remainder of the page among what was written by Staff Members names for information and their status as committee Veterans Affairs and then if you will notice about midway down you will see where the word ignore was followed by one of my Staff Members names. So you see the word ignore it just looks like to the left of the patent. Before i finished the timeline for the members benefit the person who exited to the restroom at the yellow note pad in hand was acting director of lucy of the Philadelphia Regional Office in the acting director met with my staff moments later in the Conference Room and when requested who had provided notice of the visit she stated she had not spoken with a cla but instead had spoken with diana rubens regarding Congressional Staffs arrival. She then began the meeting with two comments. For she said the Philadelphia Regional Office endeavors to do all things with integrity and get proper benefits to veterans and second she made a curious statement than taking an ms. Ms. Villa paths possession of the notepad with the two names that were circled. She said its difficult to have employees or exemployees who say we are not doing a good job. When we heard from ms. Halliday at the office of expected Inspector General i believe this commitment to integrity and service to veterans is seriously challenged. On the basis of verified data manipulations leaderships failure to follow reporting protocols and investigation into a myriad of inappropriate practices. While in the Conference Room that vso veteran Service Management told told her the appeals team is on their way up with files and computers to facilitate staff access. In exchange the transpired three separate times ms. Subtwelve accommodate a room on the third floor despite repeated participations of the room. The veteran service senator manager exited the conference or when they came back and she dictated that our staff would in fact be directed to be accommodated in a room on the third floor. The room was found to be wired with activated microphones and inactivated camera so it could be no surprise to anyone the staff requested a relocation to a different room, a room that va oig had vacated which was was presumably free of recording devices. Now back to my message. The acting director wasnt in possession of a node upon which was written ignore my staff. Am i surprised . No. Actually i am shocked. To my colleague and Ranking Member mr. Mcjob mr. Michaud not listening to feedback be it from Congress Veterans or from its own employees. Now, and va knows its whistleblowers to report practices that go against the principles of the department and acting secretary gibson has been noted tonight that he is deeply disappointed in the failures of va to take whistleblower complaint seriously. Va ignores vsos when they are found to be in communities such as when vpns obstructed the american legions Regional Office action reviews and limited the regions ability to fruitfully conduct its business and commercial claims processing staff and review disability benefits claims in accordance with its longstanding practice of seeking quality. The va now ignores Committee Staff as well. My staff and its Regional Offices perform technical legal claims review. By way of example on a recent visit 14 appeals files were reviewed from two Regional Offices. 12 of those 14 were found to have her mandible errors yet when my staff convened with Regional Office staff to demonstrate the errors and see corrections for the veterans that have been negatively affected regional staff which refuses to acknowledge and often even the most rudimentary of the mistakes. Quite simply this oversight complicates vb as message is that we are doing great work. While va make nor employees and ignore whistleblowers vsos and ignore Congressional Staff and ignore lets not forget the veterans that they are supposed to serve you will not ignore this committee anymore. And be on notice he will not adore our staff that is acting as this committees agent says well be the committee has a constitutional oversight and i intend it shall be carried out on an hindered on behalf of the American Public and a half of our nations veterans. If you look very carefully and put the snow back up, its a pretty derogatory comments that are on this. But anybody at the table like to comment about the comments that are written on this piece of paper . Mnstci you are welcome to comment. Chairman, without question, without question we respect the oversight of this committee and your staff. What occurred on that day was not acceptable and not indicative of the normal ways in which ms. Rubens might behave. Now she has been on visits with your staff and members of this committee before and i think if we reflect on those visits in the last year we would say she did not repeat similar behaviors but i will not excuse it. I have not excuse did with her and i will just tell you without question it is unacceptable. I offer on behalf of the department by sincere apologies to your staff who experienced out that day and my commitment that it will not happen again and that you will receive absolutely with open arms and fully in support anything you need on any visit you gone. Undersecretaries hickey can you explain why ms. Rubens came to our offices to try to cover up what had taken place and gave a totally implausible reason. In fact i believe the excuse he gave was she did not say these things. She said that other people were saying these things and in fact staff should ignore those you are now saying that ms. Rubens did lie when she came to her office . Chairman miller i was not present when ms. Rubens came to talk to you. I know her entire purpose for coming to talk to you into your staff was to express persons here regret for her comments made on that piece of paper. I apologize but im going to take two more minutes. On this note, it talks about arrogance. It directs a person to ignore a Committee Staff person and then it makes another derogatory statement about a staff person. Ms. Rubens came to our Committee Offices and when she did she did not apologize for that. What she said was she had told the acting director to ignore what other people may be saying about my staff. And youre telling me this person is still employed even though she gave a directive, do not tell an agent of this committee what was happening at the Regional Office. Chairman miller i will say again without question, without question we respect the oversight of every single one of you on this committee and in these hollywood halls and anyone of you who would like to come at any point in time and many of you have, into our Regional Offices, we will affect every possible way to support you, your staffs and in the oversight you need to exercise. I commit that to you and i would please ask you to please call me directly if you ever see anything different. So i will take that as a no, that ms. Rubens did not lie even though she did. Again your commitment is appreciated but it is not believed and i appreciate you being here tonight ms. Halliday you are recognized for five minutes. Chairman miller members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to discuss the oig oversight work within vba. I am accompanied by mr. Brent arronte project of the san diego benefits san diego benefits inspections division. Oig provides cyclical oversight of operations performs National Audit special reviews and reviews allegations to help identify antitrust problems. We see that vba is making some incremental process through its initiatives and in response to implementing oig recommendatio recommendations. But more work needs to be done. We have concerns that vbas performance goals are not realistic and compromised by data integrity issues. Vba has appeared more concerned with reaching its goals and providing a balanced approach to its workload management. We continue to find significant claims processing error rates resulting in improper payments that in some cases create hardships for veterans are you today we issued the results of the review with vbas special twoyear initiative to clear all claims. This initiative was put in place so that the veterans who waited the longest to begin collecting benefits. Vba implemented eight provisional rating process where we found it was less effective than vbas existing processing quickly providing benefits to veterans. Instead we determined the va policies change remove provisional rates from the pending inventory while additional work was still required. Once removed, the pharaohs did not place a party on finalizing these claims which were no longer considered part of the backlog. The policy change led to inaccurate reporting of vbas workload statistics on pending and completing claims. We also projected that vba did not accurately process about 32 of the rating decisions completed under the initiative. We estimated these inaccuracies resulted in about 40 million in improper payments. Vba is set parties to meet performance goals and a clearing the backlog of compensation claims. This approach has created additional backlogs and delays another critical workload areas such as appeals and nonraiding claims including changes to veterans other claims processes and activities such as the management of temporary disability evaluations, military drill compensation offsets and benefit reductions made improved financial stewardship to reduce the risks to improper payments. We have been told by vba staff that higher priorities such as processing the compensation backlogged to the president over processing this up with her work with. We needs to ensure adequate resources are in place to reduce the Financial Risks and the improper monthly benefit payments and most of all provide Better Services to veterans. In the wake of receiving a large number of allegations of patient wait time manipulation and dha, we are receiving a number of serious allegations regarding male mismanagement, manipulation of date of claims and other data integrity issues in the baltimore, philadelphia, los angeles, oakland and houston arrows and today we received an additional allegation regarding the little rock pharaoh. Vba reported to us the male mismanagement problem at the baltimore there are a that led to confirming over 9500 pieces of unprocessed mail needed immediate attention. In response bba has moved quickly to take action to process this mail. We have teams on site and our work is not complete at the philadelphia therell. I am asking my staff to understand why these problems are occurring and how they are impacting veterans needing benefits so that appropriate corrective action can be taken. Vba continues to face challenges to improve claims processing accuracy and timeliness. Further we are concerned at how quickly the number of therells with allegations is growing and we are working to ensure appropriate oversight. Moving forward should the number of allegations continue at this pace we will need to implement additional oversight and expand our benefits inspections to review more highrisk. Undersecretary hickey you are recognized. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the progress in the veterans administration. As we work hard to find the best possible service to veterans and their families and survivors. Before i provide a Progress Report on our transformation efforts i want to make it clear to this committee to every veteran come every family member, survivor or supporter of veterans that vba take seriously our commitment to provide timely accurate benefits and maintain the integrity of our systems and processes. I have been saddened and offended by recent events within the larger va system for some of my fellow veterans have not been served with honor respect that they deserve. I know that the number one question on your minds is whether the accuracy of data within vba systems can be trusted by members of this committee or by the american people. We have many checks and balances on her systems and data and we are working to make that even more trustworthy. Every plane has 11 letters of human intelligence there which is processed where any of those 11 individuals can catch an error. We also have valuable thirdparty validators liker vso partners to review every claim we work where they hold the power of attorney. We dont close the claim unless they do. Our data is held at the National Level not on local data systems. Its updated and protected every night and controlled access. 90 of our work is now completed an Automated System vbms which provides an odd trail and as such is a valuable to turn to data manipulation and misuse. We also have a dedicated Analytics Team that constantly refuse our work with data looking for anomalies of the system so management can respond quickly. Even with all these controls and more and i have learned this through 27 year military career retiring as a general officer that there will always be someone you thought you could trust but instead used extremely poor judgment and total lack of integrity as they figured out ways around the system. In our vba business that means they have heard veterans and that is grossly unacceptable to acting secretary gibson to me me and two pas dedicated employees 52 of which in vbr veterans themselves. Well may find these individuals we can rest assure i will respond quickly to the situation and begin necessary actions. One of these actions to this to immediately notify the office of Inspector General to home we intimidation or retaliation not just against whistleblowers but against any employee he raises a hand to identify a problem, make a suggestion or report something in law or policy of core values is absolutely unacceptable to me. I invite people to talk to me me and ive heard tonight that some heard tonight that some have made to prevent them from doing that when i invite him to. That is unacceptable to me. To ensure our organization is upholding our values we are doubling down our efforts to assure the integrity of our systems and processes. Acting secretary an expert team he assembled to brainstorm possible scenarios for where an individual might find a way around the system is further controls in further controls any. Additionally ive directed a 100 facility in desk audit of the male documentation in all 56 Regional Offices. Vba will also continue to provide publicly available performance data on the monday morning workload report. Now let me please update your quickly on our transformation progress. As a direct result of the transformation efforts yes we have reduced the backlog of veterans claims by more than 56 from its peak of 611,000 to 271,000 today. Last year our employees completed an alltime recordbreaking 1. 17 million claims. This year we are tracked to break that record again by completing 1. 3 million claims. We will disperse 67 billion into veterans hans, thats 18 billion more than when i arrived in death by lebanon and as of last thursday we have completed a million claims this year. More importantly its not come at the expense of quality. We have increased their claim based accuracy from 83 when i arrived to 90. 3 today. No matter which way you look at it how it is viewed how you cut it in three, 12 month claim issue all of them are 90 say because employees are working hard at that but i get it. I know you still have questions. As a result i have recently attracted to vba to a fly for the 9001 certification. The ultimate Global Benchmark for quality management. As reprioritized disability rating claims we have not lost focus on our other areas. We have completed 2. 5 million nonfading products the highest we have done in 15 years. We have also need to do a better job. We need to be more timely. That is why we initiated a seven different efforts to focus on im happy to talk about today. We have not lost focus on appeals. The appeals rate is steady. It has stayed steady for 20 years at 11 to 12 however is a complete recordbreaking numbers of claims at a 10 to 12 rate or 11 to 12 rate comics these map politics we are going to get more appeals because the rate has not changed but the volume house. Its unacceptable and i asked this committee for its continued support especially in the area for legislative solutions. While we have made Good Progress the employees have Good Progress, we recognize still more work needs to be done. I appreciate the support of this committee and im prepared to answer your questions. Mr. Bertoni you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Chairman Ranking Member and members of the Committee Good evening. Im pleased to discuss the department of up Veterans Affairs goals. Last year they paid 51 million in 3. 6 mayanne veterans. Given the sums the number of veterans served as important a department have a robust credible Quality Assurance framework to ensure all that was received accurate and consistent claims three and prior work we documented shortcomings and Quality Assurance activities. More recently cancer seminars about the lack of transparency related to changes in agencys national accuracy rate for disability claims which is based on a systematic technical accuracy review or star. My remarks are based on the ongoing work before this committee and to the extent to which bp measures and reports accuracy of disability claims and the extent to which other Quality Assurance activities are complementary and coordinated. In summary the agency now measures and reports accuracy in two ways. By claman by issue. But its approach has limitatio limitations. When calculating star accuracy rates for for either measure the day of statistical practices and that it doesnt wait the results to reflect examples in the same number of cases for all offices regardless of size and thus it produces imprecise estimates. Absent this data this did develop accuracy rankings may be skewed nba may focus positive recognition on the wrong offices are preliminarily by taking waiting into account we calculated that pas read Office Ranking would improve from its current 34th place among all offices to 22nd place. Conversely the Los Angeles Office would drop from 46 to 56th place. Further epas approach to measuring akers is inefficient due to sampling methods which caused it to radio for 5000 more claims than necessary thereby diverting limited resources from other Quality Assurance activities such as conduct a more targeted reviews in vero cases. Beyond star vbas work includes local quality review teams that conduct reviews before claims are finalized and provide feedback to staff to avoid future errors. However in three of four offices we visited claims processes during overtime hours which can be substantial works looted from such reviews. It may undermine agencies that undermine agencies that pretend to help claims processors make consistent decisions when presenting the evidence ppa uses electronic questionnaires to test for consistency and administer to thousands of staff at once. However we found the agency has never pretested these documents to ensure the query of questions or the validity of expected results. Pretesting is a generally accepted practice and sound survey. Wesley vba coordinates its efforts by disseminating national accuracy and related guidance to regional staff. They reuse the results of starter focused training and guide local quality reviews. However regional staff later be done at there are two many sources of guidance and searching for the most time consuming confusing and difficult. Staff were concerned that vbas policy Manual National training was not sufficiently opaque to help them avoid future errors. A conclusion of vba has made enhancements to its Quality Assurance programs at missed opportunities to fully demonstrate its commitment to quality amp in particular the agencies producing imprecise actress estimates used to guide programs management and improvements and also missed an opportunity to win the Publics Trust when introducing a measure as a full explanation of this limitations. In other areas its failure to follow generally accepted practices has led to implementation shortcomings which otherwise are representative of sound Quality Assurance practices. However all these issues can be addressed with more focus and sustained management attention. Going forward well continue to work with a b. A. In this committee to ensure veterans claims are adjudicated accurately and consistently. This concludes my statement about the apple ii and answered questions you may have. Thank you very much mr. Bertoni at first question mr. Mr. Murphy if you would sir. Less than than you were here before this committee i asked you a question about discovery claims and i think you gave me half an answer. You are the signatory to the fast letter which directed all employees to apply the date of discovery for the date of claim for tracking and reporting purposes. However in your testimony you said if there is a date stamp on it we receive it four years ago and its sitting in a desk drawer somewhere that goes into the system as four years old. Less than 48 hours after i asked you the question you resented the fast letter and deleted it from your repository and because of that canceled the scheme that was called discovered claims. You were sworn at the time to get the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Do you think that you told this committee the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Yes sir macri do. Chairman miller bat as he was under my guidance in my direction to suspend the letter and that happened from me to mr. Murphy and mr. Murphy took the action. I believe it was a recommendation of the office of Inspector General so you took their recommendation. It was not your idea, was that . In fact chairman nye did take their recommendation from the Inspector General but we were concurrently at the same time considering that the best thing to do while they investigated further. Undersecretary hickey whited somebody sent out a memo basically that says though we may not agree with this procedure is a National Guidance and we will follow it. Chairman i dont know what memo you are referring to. If you would like me to look at it like could make comment to you. I think the subject line as assistant director huddles went out on july 10. And it was put out because of the hearing that we had several weeks ago. I would be glad to provide you a copy of that but i think its very curious that folks would say that they dont agree with the National Guidance that they are going to follow it. Chairman i will take that for the record and get you an answer. To all of the va witnesses i want to ask questions about the backlog numbers that you reported in your monday morning workload reports. Its important to know that in your report you dont include the end product 930 the number which in fact has grown substantially as of late and the end product of 400 which includes provisional ratings. If you were to include me and