0:13:58

please have a seat thank you forgive my tardiness traffic was terrible I'm totally making that up the subcommittee will come to order good morning today we are today we are here to take a closer look at whether the veterans benefits Administration is

0:14:15

responsible for Steward of the more than 100 billion taxpayer dollars that Congress provides every year in short that means paying each veteran the correct amount of benefits they have earned when VBA makes underpayments

0:14:28

veterans budget get stretched and when VBA makes overpayments taxpayer dollars are wasted and Veterans and their families get put into difficult positions of owing debts to the VA simply because VBA makes a mistake year after year VBA

0:14:41

leaders have failed to clean up their policies which they are most certainly working on procedures and element improper payments in the pension programs over the last year the pension program issued over $1.3 billion doll in

0:14:54

improper payments that's an error rate of over 10% over $860 million were overpaid within vba's control usually because they failed to properly use some of the data or information that has been that they have access to much of the overpayments

0:15:10

were due to the vba's failing to do their due diligence and Veterans Benefits income information from the Social Security Administration that income information was inaccurate for over a decade when VBA stopped relying

0:15:21

on the social security income data they started depending on only veterans to self-report any changes in their income this was a massive error many of the veterans did not understand that they had to report or they wereable to do so

0:15:35

we appreciate that several senior VA leaders have stated that the veterans will not be forced to repay the pension overpayments but this is but this never happened this should have never happened in the first place if VBA has already

0:15:47

implemented a reasonable effective policy at any point during the last decade the improper payments would have been reduced before they even go out the improper payment situation and the disability compensation program is not very encouraging either VA has

0:16:01

declared Victory here but the underlying data is a bit murky in 2021 someone at the VA determined the improper payments had fallen below the reporting threshold so they permanently stopped reporting they also stopped sampling and testing

0:16:15

the payment data I understand they are still doing it doing I understand they are still doing risk audits but that seems to involve reviewing policies and procedures not crunching the payments that are necessary meanwhile we are

0:16:28

consistently encountering examples of incorrect compensation payments just two weeks ago surviving spous has testified at the full Committee hearing that VBA vba's long delays in discontinuing dependencies and indemnity compensation payments are

0:16:42

creating overpayments debt that surviving spouses have to repay in September we had a subcommittee hearing Where We examined vba's Fairway to process over 81,000 veterans requests to add or remove dependence we still don't know the ex exactly how many

0:16:57

overpayments or underpay payments that were created again I appreciate the Assurance we have heard from the VA that it won't claw back these debts from the veterans that were caused by the vba's mistakes but this is just another

0:17:09

example of how accounting problems cause serious problems I I've looked forward to hearing from our Witnesses about a strategy to resolve the pension improper payments and a better explanation about the disability compensation improper

0:17:21

payments thus far transparency is crucial so veterans can have confidence in VA and the taxpayers can trust that their money is being well spent on those that have earned it today we are going to be hearing from VA and the office of

0:17:34

Inspector General I want to thank everybody for coming I yield to the ranking member for his opening remarks thank you Mr chairman um clearly the issue of improper payments whether they be overpayments underpayments or a

0:17:46

result of waste fraud abuse or simple human error is a concern that I share with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle we all want to ensure that VA is good stewards of taxpayer money that programs are efficiently and effectively

0:17:57

run and that benefits are uring to those we intend however we must always remember that the programs designed by Congress and implemented by the executive branch are by for and about human beings and are subject to all the

0:18:11

flaws and frailties that humans have humans make mistakes despite their best intentions and so I think we must focus our attention on ensuring that programs have strong internal controls and that everything is being done to get it as

0:18:24

right as possible so I appreciate you chairman Latrell for holding this hearing to examine improper payments at the veterans benefits Administration I will express some concern over the unnecessarily provocative title of this

0:18:35

hearing as it presupposes malthe without the subcommittee having received evidence of such so I look forward to hearing testimony from VBA and va's office of Inspector General today and learning about the extent to which uh

0:18:47

they are doing all they can to hold themselves accountable and guard program integ Integrity we must remember that the mistakes of human nature don't equal malice and they certainly don't present evidence of legal Activity thank you Mr

0:18:59

chairman I yield back our Witnesses from VA today Mr Ronald Burke the deputy under secretary for policy and oversight in the veterans benefit Administration Mr Burke is joined by Miss leiko Graham Chief Financial Officer for the veterans benefit

0:19:15

Administration uh Mr Brent Aran the deputy assistant Inspector General for Audits and evaluations will testify on behalf of va's office of Inspector General Mr Ron is joined by Miss Dana Sullivan director of claims and appeals for oig office of audits and

0:19:29

evaluations uh I like to swear in the panel so please stand raise your right hand do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about to provide is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you God thank you and let the record reflect

0:19:45

that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative thank you for being here today Mr Burke you're now recognized for five minutes to deliver your opening statement chairman LR ranking member papus and other members of the

0:20:01

subcommittee thank you for inviting us here today to discuss va's financial management policies and practices joining me today is loiko Graham the Chief Financial Officer for the veterans benefits Administration Mr chairman at

0:20:13

VA we believe that veterans their families and survivors have served and sacrificed for our country we take our mission to serve veterans very seriously we also take our responsibility as stewards of taxpayer taxpayer dollars

0:20:26

equally as seriously I want to assure Congress that VA is not illegally spending taxpayer dollars VA Works diligently to safeguard veterans and beneficiaries Financial well-being by using a range of strategies to proactively address and mitigate

0:20:42

potential improper payment issues as quickly as possible improper payments such as overpayments occur in less than 7% of award actions processed by VA for example in fiscal year 2023 VA processed over 4.2 million award actions of which

0:21:01

improper payments occurred in 6.87% of those actions we are committed to reporting improper payments to Congress and have made significant improvements to identify and prevent such payments VBA uh began reporting improper payments to

0:21:17

Congress in 2004 as required by the improper payment information act of 2002 since then there have been a series of laws that aim to identify prevent and recover improper payments in federal spending the current law is the piia of

0:21:31

2019 signed into law March 2nd 2020 piia and OMB require programs determined to be at significant risk of improper payments either improper payment rates of both 1.5% of program outlays and $10 million or $100 million

0:21:50

to produce statistically valid estimates of improper payments through sample testing since 2004 VBA has made every effort to identify and Report improper payments in alignment with legislation and implementation guidance provided by

0:22:04

om currently VBA pension is the only program still required to report improper payments all other programs were removed from testing requirements with concurrence from the office of Inspector General bba's disability compensation

0:22:20

program demonstrated commitment to improve payment Integrity through the implementation of effective corrective actions on April 2nd 21 the programmer was was removed from the testing and Report reporting requirements of piia however vba's disability

0:22:36

compensation program is still required to perform annual risk assessments and recapture and recover activities VA has documented processes for collections pre- and postp payment reviews to identify and recover overpayments as

0:22:49

required by om VA also include using quarterly payment reviews to identify possible duplicates and overpayments addition additionally VA proactively reviews potential situations for improper payments through various data

0:23:02

matching agreements with several federal agencies these data matching agreements allow VA to receive information on a regular basis to determine a beneficiary's original and continued entitlement to VA benefits this assists

0:23:16

in identifying improper payments to beneficiaries with the attent to reduce potential overpayments that would otherwise be discovered based on information reported by the beneficiary or their fiduciary VA currently has inter agency

0:23:29

data sharing programs with the Social Security Administration the Internal Revenue Service the Department of Justice the Federal Bureau of Prisons the defense Manpower Data Center and the Department of Defense in addition to our commitment to

0:23:44

reporting issues to Congress under the law VA also ensures transparency for issues concerning improper payments discovered by VA as an example in 2011 VA discovered a data quality issue with the result of the social security income

0:23:59

match which is a computer matching agreement with SSA used to validate SSA income for pension recipients from 2011 through 2017 VA continuously collaborated with SSA to resolve this issue on March 13th of 2021 VA and Social Security reestablished the SSA

0:24:18

income match resulting in the creation of large beneficiary debts going back several years recognizing the hardship and distress that these debts may have caused on November 2nd 2023 VA paused the collection of all established debts and the establishment

0:24:33

of new debts VA will not collect debts associated with the data quality issue and will refund any payments made on these debts as of February 1st 2024 VA has determined that approximately 12,369 beneficiaries have been affected

0:24:50

due to the SSA match data quality issue this population is still being assessed for a total overpayment amount VA remains committed to ensuring that claimants affected by VA delays and processing overpayments due to the

0:25:02

Quality data issue with the SSA matching program are not negatively impacted it is important to note that anytime VA is required to establish a debt such as when VA proposes to reduce or terminate a benefit based on information or

0:25:16

evidence from a third party received by VA all beneficiaries are afforded due process rights under the Constitution this means that before we take any adverse action VA provides a statement of our proposed decision including all of the details in order

0:25:32

for the beneficiary to have ample understanding of va's proposed decision and then provides the beneficiary 60 days to respond in addition to Due Process rights the beneficiaries also afforded their right to present evidence

0:25:46

request a personal hearing and to have representation this helps beneficiaries by explaining the basis for a proposed adverse action and provides ample time to submit evidence showing knowing why the action should not be taken however

0:26:00

anytime a debt does need to be established based on evidence and after due process is afforded beneficiaries will have uh all existing debt relief opportunities including requesting extended payments requesting a waiver or disputing the debt debt relief is

0:26:14

available through va's Debt Management Center for all uh benefit debts to include a waiver suspension compromise or payment plan all debtors may be eligible for va's financial relief options mentioned above in I of filing a

0:26:28

dispute or an appeal across VA we are committed to providing the highquality care our veterans have earned and deserve we continue to improve services to meet the needs of our veterans and their families we are grateful for the

0:26:41

resources that Congress has provided to VA and pledge to do all that we can to ensure they are used as effectively as possible thank you for the opportunity to to appear before you today Mr chairman this concludes my statement my

0:26:54

colleague and I are prepared to respond to any questions you or other members of the committee may have thank you thank you sir the ri statement Mr bur will be entered into the hearing record Mr Ron you're now recognized for five minutes

0:27:04

to deliver your opening statement chairman Latrell ranking member papis and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify on the office of Inspector General's oversight of the veteran benefits administration's compensation and

0:27:18

pension programs these programs provide critical support to Veterans their survivors caregivers and family members as you noted I am accompanied by Miss Dana Sullivan who has led many of our reviews of VBA programs the oig focuses on illegal and

0:27:37

improper payments of all kinds whether it is Criminal fraudulent investigations odds um audits that examine underpayments and overpayments and reviews of potential waste our independent oversight teams are dedicated to making meaningful

0:27:54

findings and recommendations that Advance vba's effort efforts to provide prompt and accurate benefits and services to eligible recipients while making efficient use of its funds we know that many veterans and other beneficiaries rely on their

0:28:09

monthly benefit payments and that their well-being is at risk when significant claims processing errors are made our oversight work helps VBA identify deficiencies in their processes systems and internal controls that can lead to

0:28:23

corrective action and make its leaders and Personnel better stewards of taxpayer dollars despite the the the dedicated work of VBA Personnel the oig's body of work on va's compensation and pension programs has found that improper

0:28:38

payments are often caused by ineffective internal controls in inadequate technology or human error resulting from complicated and unclear policies and guidance in my written statement I describe how VBA struggles with designing implementing and mon

0:28:56

monitoring its technological infrastructure and processes we see areas that require continuous Improvement such as strengthening oversight guidance and communication between VBA headquarters and staff located in the Regional Offices an example of inadequate

0:29:14

supervision occurred when VBA staff did not review 917 fugitive felon actions for which we reported in 2022 the oig confirmed that VBA received this information to process however the relevant information was sent to just one individual's email

0:29:33

address who was responsible for determining if Bene benefit payments should continue or if they should be suspended based on fleeing from a felony this created a single point of failure when that individual was out of the office and missed the email this

0:29:49

type of incident is mitigated with stronger VBA internal controls in another report we found VBA ba continued to send payments to Veterans for up to S months after their deaths VBA staff did not realize this error in processing

0:30:06

until the oig identified the mistake during our review of the Social Security Deathmatch process VBA officials did not provide sufficient monitoring at that time to prevent or identify these types of Errors the oig is committed into

0:30:21

providing effective and independent oversight of claims processing activities and VBA operations further we have developed training for all VA staff on how to engage with the oig this training details for VBA and other Personnel how and when to report

0:30:39

suspected wrongdoing including waste and illegal payments additionally we now send routine fraud alerts to all VA staff and other stakeholders alerting them to high-risk processes and indicators of fraudulent activity chairman latrel ranking member

0:30:57

M papis and members of the subcommittee this concludes my statement we would be happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you thank you sir the ritten state of Mr Ron will be entered into the hearing record we will now move to questioning I

0:31:10

recognize myself for five minutes uh Mr Burke M Graham the the ranking member and myself the ranking member myself and Mr self expected a response on a letter that we sent you about improper payments on Monday we haven't received

0:31:31

it do you have that letter on you right now uh Mr chairman no sir I do not so now I'm compelled to ask you why you would come to our committee in front of us and the ranking member of myself and and not have the answers to the questions

0:31:50

that we that were requesting can you can you can you look me Square in the face and tell me why that's happening because what I want I want you to understand is that he and I are taking this very seriously the whole committee is all

0:32:02

right and I we just don't sit down and write these letters to send out just so you don't respond to it I'm going to wire brush you a little bit okay because you knew you were coming here whether or not you expected me to ask you about

0:32:12

this or is it Miss gram either one of you I got both your names in front of me which one of you is it you sir it's me sir okay now I would request that you have that to me before you walk out of here which I don't think you're going to

0:32:24

be able to do but if you can have that to me by the end of the week I would appreciate that Mr Ron how many how many of this report how long have you been in this position I have been in this position since 2015 and I have been with the oig since 2018

0:32:44

okay so are these reports that you're giving us today are there similarities from last year the year before the last five years and last 10 years to this particular ISS these particular issues of overpayment yes sir every every time that we look at a at an

0:33:00

area that involves claims processing without failure we find underpayments and overprint payments how much money did we overpay and the F The Fugitive things got me kind of Spun up a little bit that's that's a bit ridiculous

0:33:16

especially if it's just landing on one day a single point of failure that's how much money did we in the VA spend with that was overpayment waste fraud or abuse what was the dollar amount Mr Burke Miss Graham Sir with regarding compensation

0:33:35

and pension for FY 23 we um established $2.1 billion in debt for vetrans last year last year 2.1 billion yes sir overpayment yes sir okay that seems like an an obscene amount of money considering how much money that we could use that we could

0:33:55

use that money in different areas is whether it's our spouses it's mental health the list goes on and on what was the year previous to that in fy22 it was 1.3 billion so we're going the wrong way by a billion dollars am I correct on

0:34:16

that that is correct in terms of the numbers um we also collected funding from the Veterans for the debts that have been um reported as well for fy22 we collected over $837 million and what do you mean I'm sorry you lost me that

0:34:31

what do you mean collected you went and took the money back from them for debts that had been established that were properly established so we so we' overspent by 2.1 billion and we 23 in 23 and how much did we collect back we we

0:34:45

collected $1.1 billion okay I'm sure our veterans were not happy about that my my point is if Mr rante has over the past you said 2007 I'm sorry how long you been there 2008 2008 has been feeding the same discrepancies to the office over

0:35:07

and over again and the numbers are getting worse I'm going to look to leadership and ask why is this problem continuing to exist if you have the answers and how to solve it Mr Burke Mr chairman thank you that's a very fair question um let me just take a

0:35:26

second second to frame up that we are serving more veterans more decisions year over year than ever before Mr bur you can you can you you can park that one okay we just got out of that's just where you live your job's not easy

0:35:41

okay and you can't give me the because we got more veterans coming guess what they're they're going to continue to do so okay so I can't go home and blame the Veterans for being veterans yeah Mr chairman I'm gon to stand by my comment um because it's

0:35:55

relevant to the the to the question that you asked we are as we do 4.2 million award actions it does increase the amount of opportunity for either human error and the like what I do want to point out is yes we do appreciate the

0:36:10

oversight from the office of Inspector General we have learned from those Trends we have closed out many of the recommendations we've implemented strategies Sops tools and Technologies um but I I will say we've got the most dedicated and talented

0:36:26

Workforce the federal government and we do stand behind the record 4.2 million award actions in FY 23 we are committed to reducing improper payments we take this very seriously and we have work to do yes sir um and I appreciate all the

0:36:40

effort toward the veterans but if you went from 1.8 billion to 2 point I'm fudging these numbers a little bit but two an in increase of a billion we're hitting we're not hitting the nail on the head here I my time's up I I yield to the ranking

0:36:55

member thank you Mr Mr chairman and I I do want to make sure we're not ignoring the experience of the veterans which is really important in this equation I've heard directly from constituents that have received improper payments uh then

0:37:08

unexpectedly get these debt collection letters it can be a significant source of fear of anxiety for the beneficiary um and it can also hurt their credit scores potentially um so I want to know how VBA is minimizing the impact on

0:37:22

beneficiaries um who uh either establish those debts or you know how do they work to forgive those debts especially when the veteran has done nothing wrong they provided everything they need to uh and through no fault of their own they

0:37:36

received one of these debt collection letters so um what recourse do they have what support can you give them yes sir thank you for that question we are very sympathetic to the customer experience in this case our customer our

0:37:48

veterans and beneficiaries obviously uh and so it's important to note that not not only by the Constitution do we serve appropriate due process rights but in our proposed decision letter we are letting veterans and their representatives know the rationale

0:38:04

behind any proposed uh uh adjustment we've working we've worked to soften the letter um content to make it a little bit more um you know veteran friendly beneficiary friendly we do serve the due process period and currently we are

0:38:17

taking full advantage of the provisions in the Cleveland old passage that allow us to wave debts that are not the responsibility of the beneficiary okay and and how do you communicate that is it just through the the letter with

0:38:31

the softened language to the veteran um I know there are new authorities that came about uh from legislation that we pushed in the last Congress um and so can you talk a little B bit more about how you're using those authorities and

0:38:44

how you communicate that to Veterans yes sir so typically in in in our average um you know day-to-day routine it would be a proposed action with the contents explaining the rationale there would be a due process letter that affords the

0:38:57

rights for a hearing to submit new evidence to have us reconsider all of that before an actual decision to create a debt um when a debt is actually created then the debt management center provides debt relief options again

0:39:10

through correspondence we are in the midst of finalizing our procedures that will allow us to implement the provisions of Cleveland do and we're very appreciate appreciative of the law that provides us Avenues to provide some

0:39:23

of that debt relief so when we do that we will also be communicating to uh to Veterans beneficiaries um the impact of any created debt what part is their responsibility what part may be raved uh um uh um collected and in fact in some

0:39:39

of the pension overpayments we are refunding amounts that have already been collected so Mr Burke I'd like to turn to the internal governance controls that oig monitors um and one of the common threads in their reporting is lack of

0:39:52

sufficient program supervision it seems to flow from a decision on on resource allocation so what's VBA been doing to ensure that supervisors are not stretched too thin and have the capacity to oversee programs at a level of

0:40:05

granularity necessary to catch problems before they metastasize yes sir thank you um I want to start my response by emphasizing that quality accuracy of decision- making and focus on improper payments is the responsibility of all

0:40:19

VBA employees all VA employees and so with respect to your question about supervisors we've done quite a few things whether it be the advancement of dashboards tools and Technologies to allow them to see the workload at their

0:40:32

level better um a constant review of employee uh performance standards um we are constantly looking at the employee to supervisor ratios to make sure that we're not overburdening supervisors we're also looking at the ratio of

0:40:47

quality review team Personnel to ensure that we have an ample number of folks reviewing the quality of work um and we're also making sure that the responsibility doesn't solely fall on firstline supervisors in our Regional

0:41:00

Offices there are program offices there are tools and technologies that need to be done at the central office level to assist that supervisory uh burden as well and we're committed to continuing that approach I'm wondering in my

0:41:13

remaining time if you can comment on production goals and quotas for Frontline employees and um their ability to be able to maintain decision-making there's a lot of throughput happening uh we're continuing to ask uh VBA employees

0:41:27

to do more and more in terms of assisting our veterans um so uh how it seems like you can uh realize more erroneous payments as a result of that can you comment on how that uh plays out with respect to some of the production

0:41:40

goals yes sir thank you and I'm proud to say I'm here representing the best Workforce in the federal government our employees in the field and central office are doing a fantastic job room for improvement across the board with

0:41:51

respect to our focus on production um I do want to let the committee know that in our employee performance standards a critical element of performance is not only production but also high quality and we continue to focus we formed a VA

0:42:05

central office quality huddle we had field advisory committees to kind of help be that Canary and the coal mine and I can assure Congress that our focus is not just productivity it's producing accurate results as well well thank you

0:42:18

I'm over my time I yield back Mr chair thank you Mr papis Mr s you recognized for five minutes sir uh thank you Mr chairman I want to start with the um fugitive felon referrals uh I think I understood that uh it was human error or process error

0:42:39

that you did not process 2,000 of those is that correct which would you characterize it as process or human it was human error human error right okay uh it concerns me that you are not process processing felon referrals uh 2,000 at least 4,000 that I

0:43:02

think it said the O oig were actually identified uh however VA is processing into the ncks database veterans who simply need a fiary which I believe and I think many on this committee believe is not uh protecting the constitutional rights of our

0:43:23

veterans because there is no judicial review there is no uh judicial determination that they uh lose their freedom to own uh guns arms and VA I know you say you don't do it but you do put them in the next database I think we

0:43:43

have a discontinuity here between policy because you are paying money to thousands of felons who should not be paid and yet law-abiding veterans are getting put on the Nicks database and I asked you to go back because it's all

0:43:58

under VBA and readdress that now uh in in the uh uh it looks to me like in the U documents that we got there are like 13 different programs at least that are that have errors in this uh so how many people how many employees have been

0:44:18

disciplined for these human errors out of these 13 at least I count 13 different programs and what is your discipline when you identify these improper payments well let me first address the question of what we do um not every

0:44:37

error is malicious and worthy of correct discipline course uh it helps us identify training needs um it helps us improve our overall training programs that's a sanction and to training and what I would say is that we've gotten

0:44:50

better with the tools the tracking the technology the sharing of Trends um the looking down at the individual regional office levels to find out what Trends they see in their day-to-day because what happens in one office may not

0:45:02

happen uh in another I don't have for you sir an answer to the number of employees that were um you know uh subject to Progressive discipline um for the improper payment but I will assure you that it is something that we are

0:45:15

focusing on that we take seriously and in fact uh out of all of our program uh delivery benefits delivery only one is still required to report under the OM we were under the reporting requirements in 2021 um unfortunately in 2022 and 23 it

0:45:34

increased in 2022 the improper payment rate went about 11.5% uh it's gone down to about 10 a. half% and we are optimistic that we'll get pension in line as well but unfortunately we did see a a pickup there but we are addressing it sir okay

0:45:50

very good and I want to go back to the letter that the chairman mentioned did you know about this letter letter because it wasn't addressed to you personally did you know about this letter because in our testimony this

0:46:01

morning we found out that Congressional letters may or may not be read uh in order to be acted on did you know about this letter and again you were not the primary address e uh yes sir I did know about the letter okay thank you that I

0:46:15

yield back Mr chairman thank you Mr self Mr Crane you recognize for five minutes sir thank you Mr chairman this uh see like uh quite the problem when we have a national debt like we do $34 trillion $200 billion deficit every single month um what's the

0:46:41

problem I'm going to start with you Mr rante in your opinion what's the problem yes sir I I think the the fundamental problem is VBA does not prioritize the the development uh and the following of internal controls I I don't think it's

0:47:02

it it's the first thing that comes to their mind when they develop a program or a process or a technology um strong internal controls mitigate what Mr self was indicating the human error that is the purpose of that is one purpose of

0:47:17

the internal control I I just why not why not Mr arante why do you think they don't because I think they're they're the based on our work I see they they put a lot of emphasis on processing claims and I understand that commitment

0:47:34

they have to make a business decision right that that they're trying to get claims out and get benefits to Veterans as fast as they can I think that there's tension there between speed and quality yeah absolutely and I think there's

0:47:47

tension between speed and internal controls and I just sometimes I don't think they they they test processes to break them to find out where they need to have internal controls instead I think they they Implement a process or

0:48:02

they Implement a program and then as things break down the road they fix it that that's where I think you said you've been doing this for a long time and this is this has been a long-standing problem is that correct yes um so clearly this problem is

0:48:20

getting worse have you ever seen anybody in the VA held accountable yes yes can you give us some examples of that so sure um uh actually this was Miss Sullivan and I a couple years ago we received a tip from senior VBA

0:48:37

leadership that they were looking at one of their internal reports and they felt that there there was fraud ongoing fraud at one of the Regional Offices so myself and one of Miss Sullivan's staff we went down there and we investigated and not

0:48:52

only did we find one staff committing fraud we found two and those those folks were we referred those to our criminal investigators they followed their process they determined there was fraud they took it to the the US attorney and

0:49:07

both of those gentlemen were released from okay but those those are probably pretty small examples of fraud we're not talking to the tune of you know $2.1 billion overpayments in fiscal year 23 I'm talking about at the high level like

0:49:20

you got uh Mr Burke in here miss Graham in here have you ever seen anybody at high levels of Veterans Affairs held accountable for this unbelievable amount of waste and abuse with the American taxpayer money I'm not familiar with any

0:49:36

instance sir yeah and that's why you continue to see this happen over and over again which is why you know so many people don't want to see as few things put under the control of the federal government as possible because it's

0:49:49

inherently known for having such high rates of fraud waste and abuse and nobody ever gets held accountable right not at the senior level like you were implying sir I have not seen that yeah um Miss Graham do you accept any other

0:50:06

responsibility um for this unbelievable amount of waste and abuse sir in the time that I have been in this position as the Chief Financial Officer it is incredibly important that we get this right and that we do all that we can not what I asked you to

0:50:22

mitigate do you take any accountability or any responsibility yes or no and if you don't you don't just let me know do you do you yes or no yes I take full responsibility because I am the Chief Financial Officer okay so when we're

0:50:35

talking sums of money like that when we're talking $1.3 billion in fiscal year 22 and now $2.1 billion overpayments in fiscal year 23 why why are you still in that role ma'am if you're taking responsibility and ownership why why are you still in that

0:50:55

role sir I was just put in this role okay like 30 days ago well that makes sense and so exactly okay so um but nonetheless I am in the role and I take resp responsibility for being in this role there's a lot that we are trying to

0:51:10

do going forward to try to mitigate um any type of overpayment for veterans um in general there's a lot that we're doing to try to ensure that they receive due process and that we correct it and we use all of the statutory obligations

0:51:25

govern to us about how we process thatt to eliminate that and mitigate that to the best of our abilities Well ma'am you definitely have your work cut out for you and I apologize for not knowing that you just took the job 30 days ago but I

0:51:37

hope you can straighten this out because at the end of the day this money is doesn't belong to me doesn't belong to you it belongs to the American taxpayer and this happens all day every day up here and nobody ever gets held

0:51:49

accountable and it's why we continue to see this fraud waste and abuse continue to be out of control thank you Mr chairman I yield back thank you Mr Green M Graham um I do not in be the ruck sack that you're going to have to

0:52:04

carry around for the next couple of years uh you decided that the VA does not have to sample and audit the compensation payment data why under the payment and integrity act um for the thresholds that are required um the compensation had met those

0:52:24

thresholds and were not not required to um report to om or be published in our agency financial report however they do conduct annual risk assessments to determine if there are still any um overpayments being committed or um

0:52:40

obligate within that organiz they don't seem to be working is that a fair statement well they are below the thresholds that are what's the okay maybe okay what's the threshold the thresholds are for significant payments it's 1 and a half%

0:52:54

of program outlay and $10 million of activity or $100 million the programs must report $100 million seems like a pretty long stretch shouldn't it be like I got it I know know I'm just saying if we're in if we're in this hole

0:53:12

that we're in it seems seems to be that the numbers may be skewed a bit so this is the guidance that is put out by om circle of A123 and I need to go after I need to chat with om is their guidance sir so we follow their guidance in terms of what we

0:53:28

report and whether or not the programs meet the threshold okay thank you Mr papz thank you Mr rant you mentioned um some information about uh training uh on how to interact with uh oig and fraud alerts that you send out could you tell

0:53:49

me a little bit more about how long that's been in place and uh the effectiveness in your view of uh those Communications to employees good question sir I uh I can't tell you about the effectiveness because this is fairly

0:54:01

new for us okay um as of last year for both I can tell you the the U the last fraud alert that we sent to VA has to deal with disability benefits questionnaires and there these are public facing documents that veterans can take to their private physician

0:54:18

their private physician can delineate what they think is wrong with with the veteran then theet submits that to VBA for um as EV medical evidence of a disability uh one thing that we are we we we haven't found it I can tell you

0:54:36

our criminal investigators are working on on on certain situations that we have become aware of and some of those situations VBA has has notified us about um where there may be some bad actors out there and and trying to take

0:54:50

advantage of veterans and these dbqs what we're asking um VA staff have to look at is when they are reviewing evidence to determine uh if a disability exists and what the level of disability is if they receive these dbqs to check

0:55:05

them for for possible indicators of fraud such as no signature um uh unreal uh uh The Physician being one that we have seen where the uh The Physician was a chiropractor and he was providing a heart diagnosis those are the types of

0:55:23

indicators that we have asked staff and we're making staff aware of that across the VA please please look at these these indicators and help us so you're generating information both from VBA in terms of what they're seeing on a

0:55:37

day-to-day basis and also from your investigations and what they're finding absolutely now how how does that information stay relevant with respect to Trends in overpayments um and is that part of the training um that you're

0:55:49

offering yes so how that how that uh affects the trends is if it's the if the DBQ is fraudulent and you have this chiropractor giving somebody a heart condition and providing information this veteran could be entitled to benefits

0:56:04

that they are not entitled to and then there's where the overpayment begins okay and Mr Burke could you comment on how you think uh how effective you think this has been for VA employees yes sir actually I think it's been uh uh

0:56:18

effective to this point and will continue to be effective you know VA has hired thousands of new employees that have no PR interaction or involvement with how to respond and interact with the office uh of Inspector General so I

0:56:31

think the fact that we're taking the advantage of the required training and now many more of our employees are getting that I think it's a good start to their career to learn how to detect these you know fraudulent opportunities

0:56:43

and interact with the IG appropriately and in the end that will help reduce things like overpayments and underpayments and so does this supplement other information that you're putting out to employees internally that

0:56:54

will help them them sort of i' you know work on best practices uh find areas where there are you know errors uh that um you know can be generated and help them learn from mistakes that are made yes sir in fact while we're sitting here

0:57:08

today we have all of our division level veteran service center managers in Atlanta at a training Symposium and they are learning about quality Trends findings and we are talking about um overpayments underpayments and things of

0:57:21

that nature and training opportunities so we do take those best practices we share those with one another and we do work and focus on reducing uh errors and improving quality well thanks for giving me some background on that we've

0:57:33

got to see that bear some fruit here as we move forward and uh I hope you'll keep us updated on the progress there iel back thank you Mr papis Mr self would you care to go or do you want Mr s to step it thank you Mr chairman I do have

0:57:49

duties on the floor soon so I appreciate your D Indulgence uh just three quick questions uh have can you give me any GAO recommendations that you have closed recently because I know you always have outstanding GAO recommendations quite a

0:58:07

few sir I'm more than happy to report back with uh any go closures with re with relevance to this topic happy to do that outside the hearing sir I would appreciate that and uh Miss Graham uh can you share with us where your

0:58:20

predecessor I'm following up on Mr Crane's questions where did your predecessor Mr tap uh get a signed he works for Gartner for Gartner thank you he's retired and uh uh Mr Burke you started your your testimony was saying you do

0:58:42

not illegally spend taxpayer dollars so the the the issues that we're talking about here are still under the law are legal under the law is that what you're telling us that's not the way I would that it's not the way I would interpret what we're

0:59:02

talking about here yes sir with all due respect I don't want the term we're not spending it illegally to come across flippant what I mean by that is I do want to emphasize a record 4.23 million award actions at a less than 7% improper

0:59:19

rate I'm not saying 7% is what we're happy with we want to drive that lower merely articulate where it falls with reporting requirements and to just make sure that Congress is aware that even though we're not reporting under the

0:59:32

piia requirements we're doing Special focused reviews quality assessments risk assessments random sampling um my my point sir is just you know please um uh uh understand that we are taking this seriously yeah I and and my point is the

0:59:50

the the law is how we spend taxpayer dollars is very clear so I appreciate your efforts but I I'm not sure that's an AC totally accurate statement with that Mr chairman I yield back thank you Mr s Mr Crane you recognize for five minutes

1:00:05

sir thanks again Mr chairman also appreciate you putting me on the site again thank you for that all right um Mr Burke how long have you uh been uh the deputy secretary for policy and oversight I was appointed to this position April of

1:00:26

2021 2021 so you've been there a little bit yes sir couple years yes sir okay Mr Burke uh who's accountable for ensuring that effective internal controls are in place for mitigating improper payments of compensations as I alluded to earlier

1:00:41

every VA employee is responsible for accuracy uh I have program operation responsibility across vba's business lines so if yours is who's responsible at that who's ultimately responsible is it you well ultimately responsible in

1:00:53

our organization is the under secretary for benefits however most of what is being talked about today falls under my umbrella so I'm taking responsibility and happy to work with Congress um to um continue Dialogue on how we improve oh

1:01:07

so so you're ultimately responsible then at the VA for this uh ultimately the secretary was responsible for all things ultimately the secretary but this falls under really your jurisdiction okay got you um Mr Burke you keep touting this

1:01:23

under 7% stake rate okay and I understand that when you look at 100% And then you subtract 7% of it it seems like a really small number we all get that but what we're actually looking at and what I think you should be looking

1:01:39

at is the amount of money that's being overpaid it'd be one thing if this under 7% was costing the American people I don't know a million dollar maybe we you could pat yourself on the back but when we're talking about um the amount of

1:01:54

money that we're talking about a billion dollars annually um and we we already discussed we went from under your tenure from what I assume from what you just told me we went from about $1 billion to over $2 billion is that correct uh yes

1:02:11

sir okay so I if I were you I would I would maybe ease off the throttle on touting that under 7% mistake rate because that less than 7% mistake rate is costing the American people about a billion dollars annually that is

1:02:29

completely unsatisfactory sir and you know if if this does fall under your jurisdiction and the Secretary of Veterans Affair who was just in that chair this morning trust you to do this job in my estimation you're not doing

1:02:43

your job and if there's no doubt in my mind sir If This Were the private sector sector you would be fired immediately for that type of fraud waste and abuse but again here we are in the federal government govern and nobody ever gets

1:02:55

held accountable and it's it's bothersome now you don't strike me as a type of man that would you know look at that those type of numbers and think oh it's no big deal but the numbers are what the numbers are and it's pretty

1:03:09

it's pretty despicable and it's once again one more reason why we're $34 trillion in debt and nobody seems to care what do you have to say to that sir yeah first as far as what kind of man I am I'm happy to talk talk about that

1:03:25

outside of a hearing in my professional capacity I can tell you um I'm not going to take my foot off the gas touting the amazing work that our Workforce does um and you've heard me say that you think that's amazing costing the American

1:03:38

taxpayer over a billion dollars annually you think that's amazing we have room for improvement certainly and I've said that during this hearing what I am touting is the remarkable amazing work of our VBA employees which I don't think

1:03:50

anybody questions we have improvements to make we no nobody in here is questioning it that's not why we're having this hearing and you know it you know we're having this hearing because of the fraud waste and abuse within the

1:04:00

VA and how much it's costing the American taxpayer nobody's talking about the services that you all provide I think that's very clear we're talking about the waste and abuse to the tune of a billion dollars annually because of

1:04:14

Mistakes by the VA in overpaying veterans that's unsat and you keep saying amazing amazing amazing there seems to be a disconnect and maybe that's why we've gone from 1 billion annually to two billion annually for the for the record sir when

1:04:39

I say amazing the next thing comes after that is our employees I'm not saying that 7% is an amazing number in fact I've said during this hearing we have improvements to make and we are making those we're not content with where that

1:04:52

is we're not happy with that amount um simply answering why we don't report in some of the lanes I am proud to say that we only have one business line that still meets that requirements but we're not happy that we're reporting even on

1:05:04

one it's not acceptable how can you say improvements though sir if you guys went from in fiscal year 2022 1 billion o in overpayments to in fiscal year 23 over two billion well again I I think part of what I'm trying to articulate too is

1:05:19

that we are doing record setting numbers of decisions that come with record setting numbers of dispersements those numbers are elevating again not making excuses I'm trying to explain but I will say we're not going to leave this

1:05:32

hearing content with 7% I'm merely trying to put it in context we have work to do and we are doing that work thank you Mr chairman I yield back thank you Mr K MRIs M you recognized for five minutes sir thank you Mr chair um and

1:05:47

thank you all for coming before the committee to testify you know the office of Inspector General has identified concerning practices very concerning practices within the veteran benefits Administration particularly regarding

1:05:57

delays in processing proposals to reduce compensation benefits it's clear these delays not only result in appropriate payments to Veterans but also POS challenges for VBA managers task with fiscal stewardship my interest here today is in

1:06:14

representing the several thousands of veterans in my community in Southeastern Arizona so with that uh I'll open up our first question Miss Graham will the VA report the amounts of improper compensation payments resulting from

1:06:29

va's failure to process dependent updates in uh va.gov and E Benefits those payments in that information is typically um reported on payment accuracy. goov is where that information would be I'm not exactly certain that it would be on va.gov when

1:06:49

would that be available that information is available yearly so the last year for payment um accuracy. uhg information is out there from 20 yeah so so from 2011 2022 we haven't seen uh the the entire figures on that when will that be

1:07:11

available is that in reference to the pension information that's in that's in the compensation payments from from the failer to process that the pending updates I'll have to take that back and get an answer for you sir now Mr Burke my

1:07:30

understanding is that uh the VA cancelled in-person disability compensation exams during the covid-19 pandemic to reduce overpayments resulting from delay processing of proposed reductions of compensation now that inperson exams have resumed what is

1:07:46

the VA strategy to sustain the decrease in overpayments yes sir thank you for that question um whether it be a combination of increasing our staffing which we've done over the past two years um or the Improvement as as as discussed and and

1:08:04

kind of pointed out by the IG uh in our workload distribution and so we now have better workload distribution plans to assure that workload is being prioritized we've also increased our resources both in the veteran service

1:08:17

representative and our rating veteran service representative positions to handle not just um you know a particular particular type of workload but all workload relevant to Veterans and beneficiaries uh Mr bur you know on the

1:08:30

same line of question as before from the I understand that from 2011 2022 the VA received inaccurate income data from SSA we were discussing and uh that therefore VA relied on Veterans to self-report changes in income did VA Implement any

1:08:47

reasonable interim policy to verify income during that decade yes sir thanks for the opportunity to address that because I want to make sure that Congress understands there was not a lapse of 10 years with just taking self-reported information uh we did in

1:09:00

2011 discover the data quality issue but in 2013 and 2014 new procedures were implemented both an upfront verification process that took not just Social Security information but uh federal tax information from the IRS and we reviewed

1:09:16

that at the very beginning of a claim and also post award audits uh meaning after a benefit was provided we did samplings of cases to make sure that the benefit was granted uh properly um we also made throughout the years until we

1:09:31

got to turning the match back on improvements in the system requirements implemented special Focus reviews to detect that workload and also ensure that our employees had access to an online portal with the Social Security

1:09:43

Administration a very manual cumbersome process but we did all those things during that during that now now on that how do we know that the computer matching agreement with SSA is now fixed and that further hundreds of millions of

1:09:54

dollars of uh pension overpayments will not be award wasted and awarded anymore uh great question so uh what we did as we went through building the requirements to upgrade and strengthen the computer matching program uh we also

1:10:09

um I don't want to use the term overdid it because we can never overdo the testing but tested and validated the accuracy of that data match and so we have a high level of confidence that data is accurate and then the other

1:10:20

thing that we did is now we're going to receive that data on a quarterly basis which will allow the actual overpayment period to shrink lessening the overall overpayments when a situation does arise thank you I Y back sir thank you sir the VA what

1:10:43

yes yeah I'm going the VA is a remarkable machine you all are amazing individuals that that burden a a a heavyweight this is a silly problem to have everything that we try to do for our veteran Community losing money is

1:11:08

absolutely just the silliest problem to have Miss Graham I don't envy your path forward um expecting great things out of you next time that that you and your colleagues are sitting in front of this committee I have no doubt you're going to do great

1:11:21

things Mr Burke we have the list Mr rante and Miss Sullivan Miss Sullivan thank you for joining us today that they provided for us I can assure you sir next time that you're in front of this committee I'll have that list in my hand

1:11:35

and I want to see that some of those have been checked off is that fair the ranking member and I will be eagerly awaiting the letter thank you all for your service and coming here today rank member well I'll be brief just thank you

1:11:53

very much for your commitment here I think uh we all agree that more can be done and it can be done better and more efficiently uh both in terms of stewarding taxpayer dollars and making sure that uh veterans are getting what

1:12:05

they deserve and I know that's the mission of the department you take that role very seriously uh we're grateful for it but we do want to see some progress here over time and we want to know uh where we need to be providing

1:12:16

the right authorities and uh policy language to allow you to do uh the work that we're asking you to do so thank you very much for that commitment and yield back Mr chairman I ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days

1:12:30

to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material without objection so orders hearing is adjourned for

1:13:52

sir you

Key Points

Chat with Gemini