How many disability compensation claims could the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) pay out with $700,000? How many veterans could avoid foreclosure on their homes, prevent bankruptcy proceedings, and pay grocery and medical bills? These were the first thoughts that crossed my mind when I read the VA’s Office of Inspector General’s report (the Report) on the $700,000 wasted at two VA training conferences held in Orlando in 2011.
The September 28, 2012 Report follows an administrative investigation prompted by allegations of wasteful expenditures relating to the two VA conferences. You may have heard about this on the news – the VA received a lot of flak, particularly for the $50,000 spent on a parody of General George S. Patton (video not publicly available). It also didn’t help that the public was already hopping mad over the allegations of waste at a 2010 General Services Administration (GSA) conference in Las Vegas. These latter allegations forced GSA Chief, Martha Johnson, to step down.
The September 28, 2012 Report’s conclusions are hardly surprising. It found that while the conferences were held to fulfill valid training needs, the “VA’s processes and oversight were too weak, ineffective, and in some instances, nonexistent.” In fact, the VA could not even provide sufficient accounting to reconstruct the costs of the conferences – the total cost is estimated at $6.1 million, but the Report noted that it could not gain reasonable assurance that the figure reflected a complete accounting for the conferences. Also, some of the costs weren’t sufficiently documented, which made it difficult to clearly justify them, show their necessity, or prove reasonableness in price.
Waste, insufficient oversight, and poor planning weren’t the extent of the Report’s observations. It also concluded that during the pre-selection of hotels for the conferences, VA employees accepted “illicit gifts” from hotels and hotel employees. These included meals, lodging, room upgrades, transportation (including one helicopter ride), spa treatments, and gift baskets. These tokens were considered in the Report as “illicit” gifts from federal government contractors, as these hotels and their representatives may have used these gifts to attempt to secure future contracts from the VA (ie, to sway the VA to use these hotels for future conferences).
As a result of the Report’s findings, John Sepulveda, the Assistant Secretary for the VA Human Resources Department who oversaw the conferences, stepped down. Other members of VA leadership may soon follow, as the Report lists many of the key figures by name. (In particular, the Report notes the names of those who received gifts from the hotels). Accordingly, the Report assigns individual accountability to the persons responsible for the waste and abuse that occurred at these conferences.
While the VA (and the taxpayers) will not recover the monies wasted at the conferences, as noted by George Opfer, the VA Inspector General, “as VA moves forward, this report should serve as lessons learned that all VA management officials and staff share responsibility and accountability for meeting program objectives in an economical manner and reflect proper fiscal stewardship of taxpayer funds.”
In light of this firm hand taken by the VA Inspector General, as well as the public backlash, let’s hope that the waste and abuse at these conferences are not repeated. The money would be better spent elsewhere – such as on our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Report may be accessed at: http://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-12-02525-291R.pdf.
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