Review of Alleged Shredding of Claims-Related Evidence at the VA Regional Office Los Angeles, California

We substantiated that VARO Los Angeles staff were not following VBA’s policy on management of veterans’ and other governmental paper records. We found 9 pieces of claims- related mail that VARO staff failed to properly process. Eight of the documents had the potential to affect veterans’ benefits, while one had no effect on a veteran’s benefits. Although we could not substantiate that the VARO inappropriately shredded some claims-related documents, we found sufficient evidence to conclude the VARO staff likely would have inappropriately shredded the 9 documents we found. Our review determined that the Los Angeles’ VAROs implementation of VBA’s established processes for the disposition of paper records were not adequate. We found that the Los Angeles VARO Records Management Officer (RMO) position was vacant from August 2014 until our inspection in February 2015. This was because the VARO’s Assistant Director had determined that it was not necessary to fill the RMO position when the incumbent was promoted. Not filling the RMO position eliminated the final certification in the VARO’s authorized shredding process, which VBA established to prevent improper shredding of claims-related documents. If not for our review, it is likely that the VARO staff would have inappropriately destroyed these 9 claims-related documents we found. We recommend the VARO Director implement a plan and provide training to ensure all VARO staff comply with VBA’s policy for handling, processing, and protection of claims-related documents and other Government records. We also recommend that the VARO Director take proper action on the eight cases that had the potential to affect veterans’ benefits. In order to determine whether this is an isolated problem or a systemic issue, we have initiated surprise inspections at 10 selected VAROs across the nation. These 10 sites are Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD; Chicago, IL; Houston, TX; New Orleans, LA; Oakland, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Reno, NV; San Juan, PR; and St. Petersburg, FL. We expect to publish a final report and offer additional recommendations for improvement once the results of the 10 VARO inspections are complete. We will request the Under Secretary’s comments and publish the Los Angeles VARO Director’s action plan when we publish the summary results of our surprise inspections.