Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140715

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 more people to help. I see your point. Mr. Ronald robinson. I agree 100 percent. 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 has expired. I would have loved to have heard from all of you on that. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being with us tonight. We appreciate it and understand the sacrifice you have made. I want to follow up on this notion of comprehensive onestop shop and the whole aspect of your job that is troubleshooting and the challenges they you have, the difficulties that you face. We have heard a lot about the va adding 2 million veterans during the time of secretary Eric Shinseki lead. So we understand the volume problem that you have. I am not sure and tell tonight i completely understood the disarray of the process of trying to put these plans together. We had been hearing from this fiasco about their progress of fully developed claims that they would try to get the claims to a place where you could make your decisions in a timely way. I am trying to understand, has that not been effective . Is there Something Else that could be done in a preliminary way before these claims even get to use of that you could do your analysis and your task in a more timely way . The fully developed claim is a good idea. Overall it is a good idea. The problem that i see from my viewpoint is that we have sort of the shifted the burden to the veterans. We are kind of skirting the edge of the duty to assist in terms of providing assistance. He is waiving certain duty to assist. It is not a bad program, but for veterans that dont understand the process they may not get the best service. The perfect example is, i think, you may be familiar with the 5,000 attorney initiative. Attorneys gathered. That is what i have been told. Since we started attorneys began appealing more and calling almost every day asking wire you done. That is the information we have got. They felt like it was a great idea. When we get to it we can probably decide a disaster. We are kind of shifting the burden to the veteran so that we dont have that much work to do in terms of doing what we are supposed to do. That is my view. Okay. Anything to add . Been around since 2008. If it was effective it would have been by now. That is my answer. Shore. I agree. I think that the ftc just gives us even less communication with the veteran. It says but we gave you what you need, the evidence you need, told you ahead of time. It is on of a piece of paper written in small print. Most of our clamans have trouble understanding what that means, and if they dont submit everything they did tonight. I think it is a great idea, but if you are trying to grant more benefits i think its a horrible idea. I call him on the phone. Stay friends with veterans that i made years ago. Dagata emails once in awhile from their families. I dont have a problem getting my work done when i do it the right way. I spend a little more time doing it right the first time, but in the end people are not coming back complaining about what awful service they got. You mentioned that there is no communication with the veteran. Is there any way for a veteran to track their claim or keep track or stay in touch . It has been brought up that going through your Congressional Office is the best way to get a claim done. We have done a lot of that. It has been effective. Now i understand why that is necessary. Is there no communication . There is communication. They can use e benefit if it is working right. And then most of the time. To you have anything else to at . Communication. Give that statement as saying at have come one. My time is up. A thankyou for my service. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chair. You know, a couple of comments. Congressmen and women handling complaints, it just seems like years ago i was not in congress but i was on the other side, congressional interest. And now overwhelmingly it is all about the va. Quite frankly, you know, congress does not kid credit for a lot of things, but the one thing i think most of the people here certainly on this committee did was actually cut through the red tape on this issue. It is something that we pride ourselves. I dont have to pull everybody. A couple of things. I want to ask your personal opinion and an anthem of the Senior Executive service in general. In my experience they think that they are god. Thank you. By the way, i was going to a First Sergeant is much more powerful and important. I had to throw that in. I appreciate what you have done for our country. I think whatever it takes, it does not mean you will be a good leader. And recently had a director who had never worked at the department of Veterans Affairs before. I dont know how you can make a decision was signed off on all large amount of money if you have never worked in our agency before. Thank you. I truly believed that the ses service these revamping in terms of training, in terms of how they interact with middle management. I just dont see it as effective thank you. In regards to manipulating claims, falsifying claims, destroying stuff, how many people do you think have been brought up on charges were sent to jail for violating those things . Any . We have the shredding incident. But do you have a rough idea . The point i am making we are talking about veterans. It is a Court Martial offense. The Court Martial, a trial. Many of them would get dishonorable discharges. Or at least bad conduct discharge is. Am i wrong . So that kind of bothers me quite a bit. The dd214, everyone, at least when i was in the military, that was like a piece of paper, that was it did you have to have. Some of them are in the file, not in the file, i should not admit this, but a number of years ago when i had leukemia, submitted a claim about agent orange it was denied, and i understand that they did not have medical evidence. And number of years later it came out. So we said, we are going to test the system. I went back in but the claim back in again. It came back tonight. I understand that, but it was denied because they had no record that i was ever in an area that had agent orange used. My question which i went back to the va was, where is the dd214, two purple hearts, tours of duty the u. N. To come back as an infantry person. Do i have to give every location . No one read. Until tonight maybe it did not occur to me that maybe that is not even part of the record in more. So i am i dont know. I get very emotional. Can i make a comment . Yes. In majors suggestion that i would think that the va needs to accept, there are a lot of civilians a worker at the va i was expected to know how to tell them you were in vietnam. I have no idea. I took it upon myself to learn those things on my own time. If you get up purple heart in combat it is not from i will say something. I will withdraw that. You are absolutely right. I think it is a basic part of the claim. I feel there is tremendous disconnect with washington and the bureaucracy. As the First Sergeant said, you know, weve lost that. You should see what we have to go through to prove that you served on that ship or that the ship was in that water. Some people because of production standards to not take the extra mile to look through everything to figure out if your ship you might have served on is on the list. Somebody commented. It was so long ago. I yield back. Thank you. It. Thank you for your service. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I first want to join my colleagues in thanking you for your service. Most importantly for what we are trying to tackle tonight. What you have encountered and what it might take to turn it around and improve it. Your comments, ensuring that the veteran is the focus of the decisions, all of those points are well taken. They seem to resonate with feedback we have received. A sharper picture is starting to come into focus about the problems. So much of it revolves around culture and the environment within which to work. So i want to thank you for that. But i also have a chance to hear from you on the front lines of processing all of these claims and appeals that these new claims a generating. Following on the other good questions about ideas or suggestions to improve the process, i really like the one stop shop, the idea that you would limit the medical information specific to the claim that you are filing so that there is less paperwork to wade through. Someone i have been falling on these issues lately, a professor at harvard who has been writing a lot. She brings up an interesting statistic. There have been almost a million iraq in Afghanistan War claims so far and only onehalf percent had been denied. Her point is instead of this protracted months or years long process to successfully filed a claim, is there some better way, some better handoff between the department of defense, some comprehensive medical exam that identifies these issues perhaps ahead of time, approve Mental Health claims given the propensity for veterans to climb them. And with that, try to shorten the backlog and speed up the process. Fees two wars beyond all the cultural issues you described, there is an incredible case load and stress. We would love to hear other ideas or something i have asked, is this a resource issue . De you need more people processing these claims . If we have the resources in place and it is just a matter of culture and some ideas. With a couple of minutes i have remaining maybe we could start and work down the line. I think that if someone applies with a medical condition they dont understand what they need to prove. That does not mean much to the person. When you call the person you explain what exactly the medical condition has to show and they understand. I feel like we have a call center it you can call. Most people have never processed to climb before. They do a great job and do everything that they can. They dont know the third burden. If we educated the service organization, i suggest they have seminars, Congressional Liaison to explain what they look for when a claim is submitted. That way they could help more people do it the right way the first time. Thank you. We have had these systems, programs out there to speed the process of. You cant hide that. These things when around. If we cant keep those done timely, you know, there is no easy answer. We need to get people who know the business together, sit down and discuss what is really needed and stop doing these quick fixes, these ideas. We work the claims. We know what is going on. No one is listening to us. Is it a resource issue . Is it simply the culture they you describe . What would you change beyond that culture . One thing i saw while back, and i have only seen it less than a handful of times, when the veteran got out of service somehow he was given a va examination and essentially we did not have to reexamine and when he applied for benefits. And that kind of work can speed up the claim. I have only seen a handful of times. That may be an idea. Give it a more comprehensive military exam. Appreciate that and yelled back. Thank you. You are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Welcome. A question for you. You mentioned the june 24 study the use circulated that seemingly that to your dismissal you mentioned in earlier testimony, previous reports or studies you had circulated. Can you speak to those . I circulated a study, that accuracy process of. The gentleman spoke about the dd 214. One of the problems we see is that there seems to be this agreement disagreement as to how we read agreements. You get an indepth teaching. And then they have these rules. There are a lot of people that have problems matching that up, not because they cant but because the training is just not that clear. So the study went into accuracy issues. We were either not paying, not service connecting or just overpaying. The decision that we found, essentially there was no central focus in terms of revenue. In essence, it somehow exemplified that we have a big problem that we cannot easily fix and have to look at the consistency. It is not a mistake. And we are going to say that somebody has an issue. You mentioned two studies earlier. You said you had raised several. Was there a pattern . Was it just of the two major studies . Have they ever responded . When we did the study everyone expected a response from quality review team. We got none. How did you distribute them . Did you distribute them to all employees, send them to management . Email. I believe our union also distributed. Did you receive any response . Are the morning you not to do it . No response. No response. You issued circulated their response. The only response you had was on june 30th. Yes, sir. No acknowledgment throughout your time at the Regional Office regarding any of these circulated reports or notifications or concerns . The only comment i received through other employees, and i believe they gave me information that apparently the quality review team, there was a comment made, is management going to respond. That is the last i heard. Okay. You are saying, your june 30th letter termination was a complete surprise. Yes, sir. I mean, i am asking, and i am trying to be helpful. As an employee if you are circulating reports about management i would have respected some response. Frankly, i think the lack of response is more damning. The fact that these concerns went completely and responded to. Thats accurate. Yes, sir. We expect a dialogue. Let me ask you a question. If he had the opportunity to remain employed with the va, would that be your preference . Yes, sir. I like the job. I find it incredibly interesting. Go beyond what is required to try to serve as connect everyone. It is difficult to connect some of the people aboard aircraft carriers. The record is just not there. I would do Everything Possible to research issues. Very good. Thank you. Thank you for contributing to the performance and success of their Regional Office. I appreciate that. I yield back. Thank you. You are recognized for five minutes. I think the chairman put it thank you all for being here. You hear the members talk. They are channeling what is coming from their constituents. It is incredibly disappointing to hear how you have been handled. It is beyond the pale the some of this would go on, but i guess the flip side is there are dedicated people that keep coming back to the veterans. I have been saying we need to figure out a national policy. Whitney to have a National Focus getting at it and i keep hearing you are exactly right on this. I have been in units where they told us change was coming that meant enlisted troops are going to get hammered. This comes back to leaders. We all went through. They can have the a are 6701. The issue on this is that i think youre bringing up good points. We can talk until were blue in the face. We know there should be one record. The two biggest agencies of government compete for funds. That is why the last six months they dont do dental exams the taxpayers still get it. And it all comes down. My question to you is this is an interesting point you brought up my colleague from texas brought up a good point about the claim. It is so interesting, the irs takes every tax return and on it afterwards. The va audits on the front and. So the taxpayers are given more credibility we should not be overpaying. No veteran should read see they claim that does not deserve it. If theyre is a group that has the benefit of the doubt on their side it would be this group so here is my dilemma, and i ask this of you. We have resources to the va to an obscene amount to. We have done nothing for it. That definition of insanity and this is from congress, from the administration, the va, how do i go back to my taxpayers and tell them we dont have enough . County you respond . Is it so bonn will when i hear you cannot find a copier, it is just atrocious, the amount we have put. Can we comment . That general tools you need to do your job or not there. We start out by having enough printers and copiers. Every time i walk to pick up the print, that is wasting time. Youre not allowed to have a printer at your desk. I have no idea why. If you leave your paper in the printer you can get in trouble. You run the risk of chatting with somebody. So simple fixes in our office would help a lot. I dont understand i keep hearing from all of you that this fear of retribution is real. Yet we have a pending act of congress to go after the managers. I am intrigued to. It is sacred this idea of using Regional Council and taxpayer dollars to defend themselves and personnel management, someone has to have middle ground. We want folks to be making decisions, but not to the point where if i make this mistake and fire someone incorrectly you have to pay for it. My last question, how familiar are you with other offices . Many of us, we are not provincial by choice. It might to offices that i deal exclusively with cars sioux falls in minneapolis. I dont know if i could just that or not. Do you think what you are seeing , at different across the country, any inclination as you talk amongst yourselves, systemically it is pretty similar . If. I think systemically a lot of the issues are probably similar, but i think the bullying and nepotism and cronyism and things like that are more prevalent in my office. We have a health team, and from two different Regional Offices and i got to know some of the offices. Do you do the discover claman of . I feel like not all offices are the same, but i feel like their is a culture of corruption in general. There is one simple answer. Do a complete review. I agree. The problems are systemic. Very . Ventures handle it differently. Thank you, and i yield back. Thank you. You are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I think as a First Sergeant, the veterans that are watching this, people around the country, it gets a little confusing, what is going on. Im looking at it, what is the veterans saying . What can i expect . What we heard here and i have been on this committee five and a half years. A huge backlog of claims. That was the problem. Many of these claims are not adjudicated. What do we do . He will put a lot of money into hiring more people and training people to evaluate claims. Number two, we decided we would go to pay claims. We put the money into infrastructure. We have put an obscene amount of money into infrastructure. We did that. If you have a fully processed claim all of this is going to get better. Tonight after all that has happened, it has not gotten better. Have we hire enough people . Is it a problem of resources . Every single year i asked the secretary. To you have enough money to carry out your mission . Every year the answer was yes. On both sides of the aisle we think it provides the resources. What i am hearing tonight is they are not used properly or we dont have enough resources. Which is it . Am i correct . We still have a problem out there. Let me just go through to win three questions quickly. How is an old claim made to look new . I know that another thing you brought of was how you prevent duplicate of claims. If we are paying a veteran twice that means their is a veteran out theyre not kidding paid. Our resources are not infinite. They are finite. The veterans to deserve that, how we deal that and stop it as quickly as we can so that veterans did to deserve to be paid can get a in a timely fashion. Those are a few things. Am i correct . If someone is getting paid twice it does not mean someone is not kidding paid. It means that we incorrectly processed the plane and allowed for the system to pay them twice. I think we have plenty of resources. I think employees, if you ask them if they like their job, very few in my office would say that they cannot wait to come to work today. We are not treated very nicely. If you tell your child there bad every day they will probably think they are bad. There is no positive reinforcement. It is just a really corrosive type atmosphere. Back up to my question, how do we stop duplicative payments . When that plane comes in they should not be on production. They need to have time to do it the right way. If i am a veteran and put in a plan tomorrow and we get all these things. I could expect it to get processed and 125 days. That is what we are told. That is not happening. The backlog is only a few types of claims. It is not all the claims at the va. That is only made to someone who is filing an original plan. If you have a different kind it might not be included. So it depends what you pile and what end product is on it to determine if you are included. What i have heard also is that the problem that we have and i have not heard anybody say we did not have enough money. Unrealistic goals and basically accountability. No one is accountable. And i think those are the things. Basically just leaders at the local level. I assume that in the various regions around the country the outcomes would be different it may get adjudicated fairly rapidly just like we were told. When you have been to one, you have seen one. Is that the same thing . Is there some across the country can you expect the same metric . You should be able to get the same gall bladder operation in another home town. Can i expect the same level of scrutiny . I dont think anyone can answer that question there is no accountability. This idea the claim in south carolina, if someone developed a plan in south carolina, i send it to florida. If the raider can not write it because i made a mistake in south carolina, who is responsible for fixing it . It sounds good on paper. Move things around and all this kind of stuff, but you have to fix responsibility. You have to know who is responsible, you cant pick up the phone. This is your problem. The veteran can be talking with someone in california, someone in south carolina. He might be getting two different answers to the same question. We need to fix responsibility. I yield back. You are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to hear from the courageous employees. I do pause to wonder why you would want to show up here. I do understand it must be a commitment. I want to follow up on part of your testimony referenced in the 96 white boxes. I was reading that. The 96 white boxes, claims from veterans. No. I am not really sure. I tried to check up. They were supposed to go through the boxes and make sure the stuff was not identifiable before it was shredded. I am hoping that is what happened. They go down to triage once in awhile. Those boxes are not there anymore. No one has told me they went through all of them. I am not sure what happened. In the guesstimates how many veterans were part of those 96 boxes . Thousands of claims. Some of them probably true leave are not identifiable. A lot of the things were not easily identifiable. It took a little bit of work to figure out. There is no time for investigations. You have to move quickly. So fortunately if you get a call and they say the va says the did not give my claim to my belief that. I saw some of them in the box. For you to receive notice from someone, another employee contacted you and you contacted your superiors and notified them of these boxes. They end up being shredded. That employee is sitting here in the audience tonight we actually contacted washington immediately. They actually did act on it quickly. I was told that they did not go to the shredder, but i dont know where they went. I do not see that in your notes. It was that an email or phone call . Anything in writing about what happened . Actually, i called. I attempted to send an email. Apparently shortly after they took action and prevented those documents from going to the shredder. We hope they were not traded. Okay. I appreciate you being here as well manipulation when columbus reporting data. Can you describe why you were fired. The reports that i offered on concerned accuracy and how the accuracy data in my view was being presented there seems to be a problem in terms of trying to find Common Ground. The Common Ground seems to be the problem seems to be over some very basic and over complex evidentiary issues. In other words, we were not rating claims accurately. I want to get construction and guidance. I think that led to and i appreciate that. As a member of congress, dozens and dozens of claims to follow upon. I continued to tell my constituents should not have to call your member of congress to get your claim processed. 500 times in my three and a half years that has happened. You say that someone gets special treatment, that upsets me. Upsets many veterans. We have to fix this system. I appreciate you being here and sharing your testimony. I appreciate followup testimony as well after we hear from va officials. They will come and talk about how good the date is. Things are improving so much. We cant believe anything. So much of it is falsified. I yield back. Thank you. You are recognized for five minutes. If i could go back, yes, these Regional Offices vary greatly because the one that service was vegas is in reno. The fifth worst in the country. The way they reduced their backlog was to send half the cases out to other Regional Offices. We dont know where. I would like to follow up on the points you were making. As i listened to all of this, it seems clear to me that we have two levels of problems. We have to separate these and look at them differently if were going to ever come to any Practical Solutions that move this forward rather than just have hearing after hearing was no suggestions. One problem is the privacy at the national level, the fully developed claims were found claims or budgeting. What i am hearing from you is that as the First Sergeant said, that level is not listening to the people who are in the trenches on the front lines dealing with this every day. They have listened more than some of those policies might have been developed differently. A second kind of problem seems to me is the personal problem at their Regional Offices. We just passed a bill out of the house making it easier to fire people. And so a lot of their Regional Offices have folks at that level in charge. Some of them to not. The reno office, for example, as edgy 15. Then they would get the message. However, we dont know who is doing what at the Regional Office level. We dont know if they are not because if they get in trouble they are shifted to someplace else to someplace else or was it a resource problem . Was at a leadership problem . We dont know because now we have shifted cases and we are hiding cases by shifting them from one place to the other. There is a need for review of each Regional Office. Its unfair to a regional director whos doing a good job to be lumped in with a director who is not doing a good job. Or for him to have to take on the burden of someone who has been doing poorly and now he is to redouble the work. Exactly and does he have the resources . Though now he is back. His employees who are doing a good job are now suffering. Is that right collects no its not right. So somebody has to take the lead in this and go to each individual office because i believe that its a problem all over. We have it in baltimore and we found out the mail sustained the claim process. Its the piece of document, its that thing that we need to start the claim in me to process the claim. So if you look at the Regional Offices and how they handle that mail its a key and i just want to go on record saying that the centralized mail but they are coming up with somebody needs to get a handle on that thing and make sure its ready because we will we saw a claim disappear in cyberspace. That system is not ready. Its not ready and if we dont do something about it we will be talking about them next. Ms. Ruell . Its strange to me how easy it is to fire an employee but its so hard to fire a manager so i dont understand why we are not all under the same rules. Because if a manager is found to have illegally fired somebody more than one time i dont understand why they are not on the spit that they put the employees on if the quality or the production standards across the country if 56 are passing and thats your office has a rate of only 56 people passing how are you getting a bonus at the end of the year . So i feel like they are in the end unless you can prove that they are acting outside the scope of their employment. And i think that Legal Standard needs to change. Its a pretty vague standard. I was just going to add and i will be quick that maybe someone needs to determine that manager his services are no longer required. Thank you mr. Chair. Thank thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Patrick you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you chairman for calling the panel and thank the witnesses for their incredible and compelling testimony tonight. Ms. Ruell you testified in her Opening Statement that it came to the d. A. Around 2007 and within a short period of time at your tenure at the va he began to notice things were not working as they showed, that claims were not being processed timely and claims were being lost. Fellow employees were reported that mail was being set aside and in some cases mail was being shredded. We have constituents, perhaps a widow of a world war ii veteran who sits down and write to traditional bladder, puts his stamp on it and sent it to the Philadelphia Va Office believing that claim would be processed and that simple request might be heard. That letter might have been shredded and went on to find and report to your managers that duplicate payments were being made and as a dedicated employee of the va you try to fi fix it. You asked that those duplicate claims be recaptured and brought back in to be ignored. Around the same time i was sent by the people of the philadelphia region to come back to congress to serve them and i have served a Previous Term back in the 109th congress from 2005 to 2006 i had the chance to rehire dedicated caseworkers who served veterans who have worked with me in the past. They are veterans themselves in within a short period of time in 2011 they were reporting to me that something was wrong at Veterans Administration. The claims are being delayed and they couldnt get answers and they were sending letters. We are the hearing the same from our constituents. I did not know you at the time kristin but you were saying the same things to your leadership the philadelphia Regional Office and before that you were criticized and castigated and you were abused and disciplined. I think you ought to be applauded or trying to change the system and i think he wrote an apology from the Veterans Administration. Think your fellow comrades here who were with you worked with you and other offices they should be applauded. There are thousands of dedicated Veterans Administration employees who try to do the right thing from within. Our nations veterans deserve an apology. Some of them passed away while waiting for that claims to be processed. Ms. Ruell you provided information with the administration at the Philadelphia Office who is now listening to my office duplicate payments which we wrote to general shinseki when we brought that information to us in september of 2012 and their response was received in february of 2013 from the undersecretary essentially that if there are any problems they are so minor that we dont need to change any systems in order to address them. Knowing what you know ms. Ruell how can the administration of the va provide that kind of an answer . I think its the easiest answered to just ignore the problem. From working with the oig for the last four weeks, they are baffled as to datamining this information and fighting the problem but i dont think an answer is inconclusive or we are not sure how to figure this problem out is a fair answer to a veteran who has been waiting for their benefits and they have to claim numbers and we are not sure what we are going to do with that claim. Ms. Ruell last week the philadelphia va acknowledge the backlog of 49. 6 with 42,140 veterans serving in the Philadelphia Office waiting more than 125 days for an answer to their claims. Based on your experiences this inaccurate statistic for philadelphia . Know, if we do now if we didnt have that them i think the number would be much higher. The Obama Administration has promised to end the backlog by 2015. With 274,000 claims still stuck on the backlog do you think this promise is feasible . Absolutely not. It breeds corruption in the Regional Offices and we might say the claim is then claim is in process but its probably not processed correctly and we probably didnt help the veteran the way we are supposed to. Are veterans of our nation passingly while waiting for their claims to be processed . Mini. Can you estimate how many . Know but i know that thats the easiest kind of claim to do if a veteran passes away. You hit one button and you get the same amount of credit as if you work the claimant grant the benefit. That number was 19,500 back in december. When it was investigated by cir, investigated the report. I yield back. Mr. Meehan for five minutes. Mr. Chairman i want to thank you for the courtesy of being able to be with you today and ms. Ruell i see by your testimony you are warned by his supervisor that you were at the philadelphia Management Center that you are not permitted to report issues to your director and i greatly regret that and appreciate the courage of you being here today. In addition your testimony and those of your colleagues has opened the door to the appreciation of we are seeing exactly the same type of cooking the books on the benefits side of the va as has been exposed on the health care side. This is a whole new expiration of the management problems at the va. Your testimony is very compelling. Youve talked about improper shredding of documents documents and he you talk about beneficiaries getting improper payments and in many cases duplicate payments. Youve talked about the failure to rectify once those payments have been improperly paid and youve talked about the failure to notify the irs of what could be the ability to recapture some of those all very significant. Let me just drilled down on a couple of things because i do want to follow for some of these issues when we are concluded. They talk about the number of people who may have been receiving duplicate benefits. You talk about the process of people receiving duplicate benefits. Do you have any estimate of how many people you believe are receiving duplicate benefits . What was the number . 41,000 duplicate records. That was told to me by an employee of the central office. That would mean that our claimants are listed in the system with more than one pid number. At that point anybody could get paid twice. Its up to the case processor to identify that as a duplicate record and fi fix it and unfortunately after a reported things in 2010 there was a list given out that people were being paid twice. I provided i believe in exhibit. I checked that same list last week. I checked everything every number on the list. Unfortunately after we stopped the second payment you have to fix the record so that person that is looked at. And the essence of that there may be as many 41,000 duplicate records . They are probably duplicate records, yes. Let me ask this my time is limited as well do you have any idea of the scope of the claims that have been paid in excess . I only know the ones that i have seen but i have seen over 2 million when i researched it. The office of special counsel considers the 2000 or more souls might call cool to get at least that amount wasnt hard. He spoke of meant mail. Whats the difference between military mail and returned mail . Im not actually sure what the differences. Its just what we call the mail and is the mail that we send to the claimant and the returned mail comes back because we dont have the right addresses. We pay by direct deposit mail which is not the best thing for climate. What about mail that is sitting there no one is clarifying it and theres no response to the veteran that has some bad peace. Is that accurate . So we are waiting for up to two or three years. One of my colleagues questioned you on this but there are 96 offices you have testified and i have in my hand the exhibit which clarifies and quantifies not just 96 boxes but a separate in addition to what were eight other filing cabinets of this kind of mail. To your knowledge, has any of that than shredded . I know that when i went down a week later it wasnt there anymore so im not sure. You said a week later. When is a week later because this is going to be important for a followup . When i reported that and ive made so many different reporting some sorry. With your exhibit you up a colleague that brought it to your attention and from your attention the gave it to the attention of your supervisors the fact that these boxes were sitting there and they were not handled. And then i went down subsequently a week later and all those file cabinets were empty. So week later he went down and they were empty. Yes. We will followup on that the Sergeant Robinson to testify there were 95 similar documents in baltimore as well . No, in baltimore they had boxes of documents that were not processed. You dont know whether these were the tree arched documents . It has to be documents coming in because they were not a status. I thank you for that and i will work with my colleague that we are particularly concerned about big circumstance in philadelphia and people were to get answers to you particularly with those boxes of documents that appear to have disappeared. Thank you mr. Chairman and i yield back. Mr. Lamar for five minutes. Mr. Chairman break in member i appreciate the opportunity to sit in on this committee here tonight. I represent far Northern California a large district with significant veterans population and am frustrated as his or her office was trying to get answers for that. I greatly appreciate this was the blower panel being here tonight and having the guts to do that. You should not ever feel like you cant speak. I will try to keep it quick here. All three of you have you ever been told and this is redundant and my apologies. Have you been told not to take your concerns to members of congress were to hear from members of congress on how to handle whether its an individual claim or overall system . Have you ever been told not to deal with this and just dont talk to those members about it . We were told that if we dont bring their issues internally we were sent an email that it was an improper avenue of redress. When mccotter yearly whistleblower email we got another email that came with it that said recently a lot of employees have been contacting the undersecretary with issues at work and they told us that email wasnt an appropriate avenue of redress and i immediately reported it and said are you telling us we cant whistle blow and they resent the whistleblower memo out with new language. And the other two members of the panels . I took my issues with it be a chain of command for x amount of years and now i started sending them to congress and no one has told me i could not send them. Mr. Soto . We have not been told by the similar experience as ms. Ruell when individuals contacted the undersecretary directly via email than they got back letters from management saying he violated the chain of command etc. Etc. And received threats. We feel we are different from the chain of command because we take the phonecalls from veterans when they cant get satisfaction with the va. Our offices get those calls so we intervene on those cases. We ran into a brick wall because of management and again well deal with the open Regional Office which is under new management and we feel positive about that at this point but under the old regime we were stonewalled pretty badly. Even so much as i had a staff member handdeliver and not go through the mail system acclaim for a veteran that waited 36 years to be handled and was denied entry into the building read the security was waiting for her so to follow up on that do you feel you have had the freedom or do you feel like you should be able to talk to a member of congress or staff firsthand dealing with the veterans claim as with us they cant get through to be a . Definitely. We have a Congressional Team in our office of the Congress Person calls in. They speak to the Congressional Team. The problem is so many people now have figured out that the way to apply for benefits that we have so many congressional and those are taking priority over people who have been waiting many years. It shouldnt be that way because you shouldnt have have to contact a Congressional Office to get results. We should be able to get the big picture things but nonetheless we are not going to tell them them know as much as we can keep up and one of my office is 70 of their work is handling veterans phonecalls of their something broken the system there. Finally we have had in our openoffice again previous management to deny or render rate claims or give 0 ratings to process claims. Have you ever been ordered to just get them off the books . To deny them or find 0 or low rates and have you been able to do that all three of you again please. I dont rate cases. Do you know that in your office by those that do . I cant answer that question. I dont rate cases either. Do you hear such a thing . Indirectly we hear that the rules are totally being followed when processing claims so i believe its not about 0 or ratings. I believe people are being denied because its faster that way than granting the benefits. Than they get kicked to the board of appeals. Mr. Soto i only have a few seconds. And talking to other raiders we pass this thing called changing the game rules and in that sense to me in my view what it meant was that for increased claims we would try to rates the evidence of record that resulted in zeros or denials rather than ordering for example. Thank you. Thank you very much and members thank you for your questions. We want to thank again the folks for testifying. We appreciate your courage in coming forward. You are now excuse. Thank you for being here tonight. [applause] go ahead and call a second panel to please come forward. [inaudible conversations] if i could ask everybody to go ahead and take your seats. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] again noticing that the witnesses are at the table and i would like to ask the audience to go in and take their seats 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