Audit of NCA's Rural Veterans Burial Initiative

In accordance with Public Law 113-6, Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, which requires VA’s National Cemetery Administration (NCA) to address Congressional concerns that NCA does not adequately serve the Nation’s rural veterans, we conducted this audit to evaluate whether NCA’s Rural Veterans Burial Initiative (Rural Initiative) identifies the number and percentage of unserved veterans in rural areas. NCA’s Rural Initiative does not adequately identify the number and percentage of veterans residing in rural areas who do not have reasonable access to a burial option. We determined that prior to the planned Rural Initiative National Veterans Burial Grounds, NCA was not providing reasonable access to a burial option for approximately 302,000 (34 percent) of about 888,000 rural veterans in the initiative’s 8 targeted states. When completed, NCA’s Rural Initiative is expected to decrease the total number of unserved rural veterans by nearly 120,000 (40 percent) to about 182,000 in these 8 states. NCA could not adequately identify the number and percentage of unserved veterans who reside in rural areas because it uses a methodology that identifies veterans residing within a 75-mile radius of a National, VA-funded State or tribal organization veterans’ cemetery and does not classify veterans as rural, urban, or any other designation. In addition, NCA lacked a specific performance measurement that evaluated NCA’s progress towards increasing service to rural veterans. As a result, NCA cannot evaluate the level of service provided to veterans and their families residing in rural areas throughout the eight targeted states and the entire Nation. Without this veteran population information, NCA cannot adequately report to Congress, and other stakeholders, its performance on serving rural veterans. We recommended the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs establish a methodology to identify the number and percentage of served and unserved rural veterans, publish a national map showing the areas and number of served and unserved rural veterans, and establish performance goals for the percentage of rural and urban veterans served. The Under Secretary concurred with the recommendations and submitted acceptable corrective action plans. We will follow up on implementation of the corrective actions.