Review of Second Instance of Employee Data Manipulation at the Houston VA Regional Office

On December 13, 2014, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) received an allegation from Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) senior leadership in VA Central Office that a Houston VA Regional Office (VARO) employee inappropriately removed veteran benefit claims controls from their electronic record. VBA uses electronic system controls to identify types of claims, and manage and measure its pending and completed workloads. Generally, such controls should remain in place until all required actions are completed on claims, including providing notices of benefits decisions to the claimants. Similarly, the OIG received, and confirmed, an allegation of data manipulation at the Houston VARO several months earlier by another employee. However, the periods of each employee’s alleged data manipulations did not overlap. We substantiated the most recent allegation that the employee inappropriately cancelled and cleared controls in the electronic record used to track and identify benefits claims without taking proper actions to complete the claims. VBA’s internal review team determined the employee incorrectly cancelled and cleared system controls in 81 (89 percent) of 91 claims pending in Fiscal Year (FY) 2013. The VBA team’s review was limited to FY 2013 as a specific inventory goal was in place that year, and as the employee’s number of cases cancelled in FY 2014 was determined to be significantly lower. We sampled 32 of the 81 (40 percent) cases and determined the internal review team accurately identified cases that were not completed properly. The employee conceded the actions were inappropriate, and stated the actions were the result of attempts to improve the appearance of the pending claim inventory for the employee’s team. Furthermore, the employee stated he had no knowledge of any other employees manipulating data. These inappropriate actions misrepresented the VARO’s claims inventory and timeliness measures, and impaired its ability to measure and manage its workloads. Further, some veterans may never have received decisions on their claims if the VARO’s internal review team had not discovered the improper actions by the employee. However, as VBA completed over 1.1 million claims in FY 2013, and the Houston VARO completed over 38,200 in FY 2013, the 81 cases determined to be incorrectly cancelled and cleared by the employee does not materially impair VBA’s data integrity associated with its reported pending workload of claims nationwide. Therefore, we recommended the Houston VARO Director take immediate action to correct, as appropriate, all actions the employee took to cancel and clear controls so that veterans claims are accurate moving forward. We also recommended the Director confer with VA Regional Counsel to determine the appropriate administrative action to take, if any, against this employee. Finally, we recommended the Director submit the remaining and previously unavailable claims the employee cancelled in FY 2013 to OIG for our review.