subcommittee meets at 2:30 p.m. eastern. we will bring it to you on c-span 3. >> we are at the henry center which is 50 miles south and west of des moines. the wallace's of iowa consists of three generations of wallace's. the patriarch was known as fondly as uncle henry and he was the founder of farmer magazine. his father was u.s. secretary of agriculture under woodrow wilson and his son was born on this farm in 1880. andent on to become editor was asked why franklin roosevelt to serve out u.s. secretary of

agriculture which he did from 1943 to 1941 and 1941-1945, he presidentelt's vice and u.s. secretary of agriculture. he is known for the agricultural adjustment act which was the first time that farmers were asked not to produce. at first people could not believe the things that he was proposing regarding that but then as prices went up, they started to listen to him. still refer to him as the genius secretary of agriculture. >> explore the history and literary life of des moines, iowa. on book tv. and sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. on american history tv on c-span 3. >> a discussion on helping post-9/11 veterans transition to

civilian life. former president george of you fromand dr. joe biden dallas. this is one hour. [applause] >> thank you to each one of you who are in this room. our business professionals and ceo's and men and women who have worn the uniform. if it were not for individuals like yourself i would not he able to stand appeared today. running a3 2008 i was convoy in afghanistan. on that day there were two taliban individuals that decided to detonate roadside bomb. it detonated under the gearshift of my truck. crushedthe blasted

every bone in my face, every bone in my right arm, my right hand, my left hand, my hip, my right knee, my shin, and my right foot were all crushed. walter reed and spent a little bit of time there. i met some wonderful people that wanted to help out through nonprofit organizations. they helped me discover the game of golf. it is a frustrating game. it is. it motivated me. they give me that motivated -- motivation i needed and through the help of other nonprofit organizations i have been able to continue that success. to play in the

.irst warrior open in 2011 justine sterling gave me a call one day at work and i was so excited i literally knocked my computer off my desk. after competing in that first open i made the decision i had to move to texas. and for short months later i did. because the warrior open i met the woman of my dreams who she is still putting up with me today, believe it or not. i am a full-time student at the university of north texas. i am a senior. i am working full-time at a company in fort worth. they do a lot of military contract and do a lot of work with the governments i get to stay with my brothers and sisters which is awesome for me. blessing to have the help that i needed to be

successful in this transition for me. it is my pleasure to introduce to the second panel that will be coming up now. if i mispronounce or names i am sorry. i am from arkansas. it is my fault. [applause] jake would. -- wood. joe depinto. mayor alvin brown. [applause] jean case. [applause]

much.nk you so to have another woman up here. about thelked nonprofit sector and the private sector. we have representatives from business, education, the p, and the nonprofits. and we really want to take a deeper dive on all of this and i want to start with you. you are the ceo of 7-eleven. you have been hiring veterans, you know the value of veterans. i want you to talk about the challenges you have been hiring those veterans. they are fantastic success stories.

i agree with everything that was said earlier. we all appreciate the men and but wef the military need to look at how we are impacting them. i have the opportunity in my role to set a tone for the organization. the town as we will hire military because we appreciate what the military has done. we have got a lot of recognition. >> where does that come from? >> we have many for -- folks throughout our system that believe in that. the challenges we have, we are bringing folks and not only into the corporate side of our business, think about 5.25%

of our employees are military but we are bringing them into the franchise side. what we're recognizing is that military veterans have a real entrepreneurial spirit. the challenge in that side is financing. 10%urrently offer a discount to military folks were looking to go to 20% and we to join 7-eleven as an owner operator. -- financing.find they do not have the dollars to make up that 25%. and that to me is the biggest obstacle. we have talked about the value, the leadership mother can do attitude, the mission orientation they bring. it comes down to dollars. you are ceo of the case foundation. fill in to post.

what worries me when i look around and the atmosphere in the country, war weary, a little bit tired of hearing about veterans. thedo you keep this up with waning public interest because it is something we all have to admit, there is waning public interest. . see it will get even worse >> i am glad you asked that question. inlike to see that we invest people and ideas that can change the world and we are a little bit different than a lot of foundations because we are six blocks from the white house. saidimes where you determines a lot about the role you will play and we just found it to be a tremendous benefit to have the opportunity to lead public and private sector initiatives. as i listened to this remarkable

group of folks and moved around during conversation i am super optimistic. actually think the private sector has not been fully tapped for what the private sector is really good at. if you want a marketing campaign, if you want to get in the ether of pop culture, if you want to use technology to drive a solution you are usually not looking to government to do that. been are marble leadership efforts there really has not yet been a clarion call. when ken fisher talked about people raising the right-hand i am a believer that my colleagues in the p, my colleagues and business, my fellow citizens want to help. what has been lacking is a clarion call and on-ramp. where do i get started? this should be the most inside

group on this issue. we heard questions about where do i get started. i think $2.5 million is a solvable number. we have the benefit of building a little company called america online. only three percent were online at all. there were online in our week. if you fast-forward it was not long before society had changed and we're big believers in the power to leverage the private sector to do really big things. we have seen this happen in the nation should care about where we have seen billions of dollars and millions of people come out and be part of it. the president talked this morning about the goal of the center not really just being dialogue and ideas but taking those ideas to action. thatencouraged to the fact i do not believe it has been fully taken to action and i am

looking forward to what might come out from a day like today. >> one of the things you have done is focus jacksonville, florida on this issue. you have the largest invisible population of veterans in florida so there is a good reason you are doing that but how have you involved your community, your city? as mayork first of all of the city of jackson, once you serve your country with distinction, you should be able to get out and get a job and take care of your family. i am very humbled i ever military population. my two boys and my wife get to enjoy our freedom every day for the men and women who served and who have served so i think god for that. in jacksonville and made it a top rarity not only because we have a large presence but it has a $14.1 billion economic impact on our city. i made it a top priority by , a twoing an admiral

retired admiral. i want to see admiral guillory right there. raise your hand. [applause] did is the first thing i create invest in the infrastructure. so i have a full team of people and then veterans. not only director of military affairs, my director of the book works is a veteran, my director of state affairs is a veterans i brought them on. it starts from the top. secondly i made sure that we forge this public-hardship and i launched a partnership with the jacksonville military coalition and my goal was to put veterans back to work. those who were seeking jobs. is young man who had set up -- who had set up -- heads that

deutsche bank. we had two companies putting veterans back to work. the private sector is the engine of our community and there is a great opportunity that you can leverage to get a return on investment. for your community. i launched the week of valor. .aving a job fair for veterans you cannot show up to the job fair nonetheless you have a job for veterans. it is important, having activities during that week was also important. and then an annual summit for national issues and local issues, particularly local issues that is -- as it relates to veterans and the concerns of the military it earns my city. last year it was on suicide prevention. we worked with the local colleges and universities,

bringing all the stakeholders together to address that issue. i brought all the ceo's together who run the hospitals like st. vincent's to deal with those issues and come up with best practices. >> they see veterans working and that it is successful. >> absolutely. i have met several of them and afghanistan who are just incredible people. when you hear this and you are jeaning on veterans and sees this as an opportunity that there is not really waning

interest. do you see the same thing? -- most of my colleagues fear the withdrawal and with that will mean for funding. i think the cream of the crop and we have heard the number 46,000 turnaround today as the number of organizations with some charge in their mission to help veterans come home. i think the best in class are trying to figure out ways to do better at measuring showing progress. at the end of the day the

veterans service organizations face is a very young space. it is not like cancer research or a lot of the other nonprofit organization spaces. they have sophisticated ways of measuring their ryegrass. this is a post-9/11 â. there are thousands of organizations and there is a new focus, an unprecedented focus on veterans issues. as a vertical and the nonprofit center we have to do a better job of measuring impact. the ones that will survive and the ones that will continue to grow at this five-year window will make it work and that is within anspace organization that has resource constraints. it is hard to set up the systems

in the programs and dedicate the man-hours to measuring output. to measuring progress. often people are ill advised on what outfits they are measuring. a lot of times we find our organizations that are measuring inputs. they used to be a sophistication. they could make a case for why the investment should be given to that organization so there is a lot of growing in the space that needs to be done. we have done a good job over the last two years. we are a four-year-old organization. we have been doing a good job of we go outour impact. and deploy, we can go back to our donors and show the economic impact inonomic disaster zones. a response that would cost us on the order of $400,000 to employ

military veterans in response to the tornado, and economic -- there is something that we can returnhad a seven times on investment. we need to do a better job of doing -- measuring the effect and impact we have on veterans coming home. we are trying to harder with organizations like idmf and other organizations that do data well. company made a real

commitment to veterans not only in hiring veterans but as abc television has made a commitment to us covering veterans issues which is fantastic that i am involved in the bob woodruff foundation. my colleague bob woodruff was inribly injured in iraq 2006. he and his wife have devoted their lives to helping veterans but one of the things the woodruff foundation does is exactly what you're talking about and we have worked with you as well. trying to find where you have to to do duemoney and diligence on her to give it to and who is getting results. that is something we really do have to continue. i want to turn now before we go on each of these topics to the chancellor of texas tech university system. we heard a lot about education and how some of the veterans are

the money that they get from the g.i. bill. a lot of it seems to be going online. what can you do in the colleges? the resources put and. .> you do have that accent >> you do. -- i do. one of the things that if you do not put the resources and you're not going to get a rate of return. said that will be throughout the organization. had one person, we have 12 now. the last three years we have had a national football game.

laid kansasar we state and it was verbal hard night. we had more people with a purple on theward that was field. we had 326. his dad was on the field. he was there representing his dad and got a purple heart. we emphasize that we have 1600 veterans and dependents at texas tech. wheree one place you go we do not care what your question is. we will be able to help you. the average student that comes as a veteran we allow the average is 26 hours that they transfer and. some of those they took but a lot of them are things that they did when they were in the service. if someone, if young person has

been a medic to my there is no sense in making them repeat courses if they are going to nursing school. we let them have credit for what they have done. they are in the field doing it. when the graduate they have a cam oh stove and we introduced them and they get a standing ovation. every year for seven years. we introduce the people, and we appreciate their service. and we also have a program, and they are certified as green zone. and they have a door hanger that goes on their door to let students know that that is someone you can talk to about whatever problem, and we have a

bunch of them among -- >> so what about the other colleges and universities? there is a woman i know who went to college, not in texas, and her graduation speech, in 2007, she started college in 2003 when the iraq war started. no one mentioned the war in that entire commencement speech. it was never mentioned, which, to me, was pretty stunning, and some friends of mine noticed that. >> one of the things i would say, the amount of money that you are going to bring in, we brought more money in because we have got more students that are paying tuition with the g.i. bill, and it has been something that is positive for us.

it is positive for the veterans, but i think they are -- we talked about diversity in this country. if you love diversity, go into the military. bring veterans and. i tell my students -- i still teach one course -- that diversity is so important. i want to know veterans. i want to know people who can tell me what it was like in certain areas of work. for testing the united states, so i still come back to saying that you have to put the resources in. you have to be aggressive, and you have got to let people know. one of our 12 staff members told us a story. he bumped into one man. he looked like he was lost, and he said he was at texas tech, and he wanted to apply for admission, and he talked, and the reason was he had seen a football game where we honored the military veterans, and, you know, when we had the purple heart come out, it is a big

deal. i mean, we put on a great show. people leave, and they are proud, and we are proud of our students that are going into the military. we also introduce them separately. we have graduation ceremonies in may and december, and there are a lot of people there, 12,000, 15 thousand, and they always get a standing ovation. it is a proud moment. >> i am sure it is, and i have seen many of those proud moments. and, jean, i want to get back to you. we were talking about the foundation. how do you measure the effectiveness of some of these programs that you are interested

in, that the case foundation is interested in? >> right, if you agree, and i am hesitant to say it, if you are a veteran, and if you have a need, every day probably feels like a need. there is a lot of opportunities to do things. really, really good news is some of the research we saw. the worst thing for me is when you come together in an initiative, whether it is public, private, or just private, whatever, and you do not have the data. a lot of you out there participate in studies, so we

are starting to get clear data now, which is really, really great news, because we know what we need to target, and then as jake pointed out, if we can get smarter about where the impacts are with the investment, we actually need a small number of really, really great organizations having a significant impact, and i do think each organization struggles, and jake hit on it. >> you can see all of this event at c-span.org. more about veterans with the late-night kerry that ended on capitol hill half an hour ago. the house veterans affairs committee about a backlog of disability claims.

>> we are reviewing the viability of some of those targets which the former secretary established several years ago and 100 15 days to complete and 95% accuracy on the claims. we're going to delve into the has taken to vpa declare victory on disability claims and we will endeavor to determine what price is being employees,erans, human capital, and by the american taxpayers. significant time on veterans health in recent weeks and have exposed rampant disc -- corruption and the dishonesty and the workplace

spirit that has flourished. we seek answers on its part in creating the same, the very same environment we have heard about i haveits ranks. received correspondence from an employee who was with ups -- with us. detailing the 14 day schedule as standard in arbitrary. bh it needs to be restructured. it lacks transparency or accountability. and a corrosive culture has led to personnel problems, highlighting poor management, distressed between employees and management, and a history of retaliation to word employees of raising issues. employees stated if bha is replaced by vba and replace dby

these excerpts from the report apply equally to the vba. the -- to determine the scope of this statement the committee inquire whether employees nationally agreed or disagreed with the sentiment. in less than two days fast responses were received from 18 regional offices. regional office employee responded in disagreement. .6 agreed unequivocally let that sink in. is still running on this questionable path without a real plan, without a real change. let's begin tonight by reminding 's mission.ain of vba

to provide benefits and services to veterans and families in a responsive, timely, and compassionate manner. you have seen the perverse consequences of the mixed metric goals within the veterans health administration and tonight we will look at the targets and we will hear what is being done to push claims out the door. out the door at any cost. basedys and 98% claim accuracy would be a laudable goal if it were at all realistic. weeks before tonight hearing we vba to write an analysis conducted to reaching its goal. vba has declined to provide timely and complete responses. we got an e-mail a couple hours before this hearing. the purported response failed to answer the questions that were

asked and we will discuss that again later. directed or outcomes to make progress, they were call to action. however well-intentioned they have now become a distraction from accomplishing troop progress. employees have been working for a year on a 24 hour per month mandatory overtime schedule with no end in sight. outnow vba has not ruled increasing the overtime mandate. we will hear from gao about how 75% of the regional offices that they surveyed have agreements with the local unions that all veterans disability claims work done on this candle burning overtime shall be exempt from any quality review. fromk forward to hearing as on how that is being sold

a veteran friendly practice. essentially it is the equivalent of saying just make a decision and we will hope that the veteran does not appeal. decision and we will hope that the veteran does not appeal. chronic incidence of unchecked vindictive management within many of the regional offices to be honest expert input at vba employees has been silenced, ignored and at times punished. i am told the performance requirements on production and actors he had been westernized if you will to keep vba employees and check. to what and? it's certainly not in the name of service to americans veterans. it is instead to create an appearance of success. just as vha attempted to do by cooking the books on schedule times in our vacations involving disease. the va office of inspector general will testify to the

potential over $1.3 billion in improper payments. all claims that were two years old or older to be created within 60 days introduced a scheme called provisional ratings. this was another hard and fast deadline dictated by central office and vba promise don't worry, would you will get them done right. they won't be going out the door without service treatment records without medical exams if that's necessary. so what was found at the regional office? guidance that read and i quote the new vba exam request will have a negative impact on our ability to meet the goal that has been mandated by her leadership" map. so vba employees were directed to move forward even if a

medical exam was necessary to decide these aging claims. contained in the guidance and i ask you to look at the screen and members you should have this at your desk, i quote from an e-mail where it says i understand this may be difficult to do. it may appear to go against the values of how we do work" map. quote i want to assure you that and here it is typed in boldface, there will be no negative consequences for you. the employees as a result of following this guidance. the only possible negative consequences are those that exist if we fail to meet our goals for this project and for for any access that keeps us from doing so end quote. va oig support issued earlier today found that regional office staff and correctly processed

83% of the provisional rating decisions that were reviewed. who was paying the price for vba's self defined success? there are roughly 280,000 veterans languishing in three, four and five years of an appellate backlog and nearly 240,000 veterans waiting on their dependency award adjustments. we then have a complicated case, the old cases which were lost and subsequently found under a contrived and disingenuous interpretation of epa's guidance at may 20 and 2013. even more egregious vba has recently put out guidance to the regional offices that unless a veteran puts specific words on their claim form a form that doesn't provide any comment that the claim condition has existed,

that the claim condition has existed quote since service and a medical exam will not be ordered and the claim will be denied. denied. robert gates former secretary of defense recently released his memoir incorporated title duty which he dedicated to the men and the women of united states armed forces. he writes about the va and his feelings as former va secretary. the secretary notes i was staggered when he said the department wasn't was in good shape and had no problems and he continued i have been around long enough to know that one of the head of the department says the organization has no problems he is either lying or he's delusional. so i will close my remarks by speaking to vba directly. whatever when you attempt to

take credit for in 2015 you will not be celebrated. it has been clear that there is not a leadership that will not cut nor statistic that they will not manipulate to lay claim to a hollow victory. what we all want to see both my republican and democratic colleagues on this committee is progress, not deception. with that i now recognize the ranking member for his opening statement. >> thank you very much mr. chairman for having this hearing this evening. tonight we will have an opportunity to continue an important discussion we have touched upon in several of our previous oversight hearings. veterans benefits administration and their progress in reaching goals related to the claims backlog. the scandals at the veterans health administration weighing heavily on us tonight the committee wants to assess the current state of play at the

vba, the agency appears to be making some progress on its goals of the lemonade claims backlogs by the end of 2015. i do however have concerns in the va oig shares the concern that the resources needed to achieve va's backlogged goals are being directed and applied disproportionately ultimately harming other veteran services. i refer in particular to nonreading workload benefits delivery at discharge independent disability of valuation system and appeals to name a few. we have heard over and over again of the dangers and failures of a system geared towards defining success based on narrow fixed metrics. then as now -- not how good customer services deliver. that is not our veterans perceive success and why should

they? what good is it for a veteran if vba process his or her rating in an unacceptable period of time that then takes years to add a dependent? from july 2010 to july 2014 the number of backlogged dependency claims cases has gone from 9367 to 192,322. this represents a nearly 2000% increase. since march of last year the number of pending appeals has gone up 12% and continues to increase. there are personnel issues as well. we have heard reports of an unacceptable practices and challenges that many va facilities. at the baltimore va regional office that oig found as many as 9000500 documents including claims, claims related mail and

other various documents contained personal identifiable information. lacks measures and practices with records to veterans personal information is simply unacceptable. again, to me this is the focus on narrow performance measures are not realistic for defining success. veterans to find a good timely care and services on their whole experience from start to finish. that is what makes sense to read it as something we today's hearing and in the larger term as we continue on our important work to reform the va. the department of veterans affairs cannot morally claim success in delivering medicare to our veterans if the progress has come at the expense of delivering other key services to veterans in a timely manner.

this work takes an increased urgency as more and more veterans are coming home from service abroad and operation iraqi freedom and operation enduring freedom. to fix the current shortcomings in the delivery of service we need all of the facts and we need honesty, frank discussions. that is what i'm hoping to get out of tonight's hearing because if we do not base our form efforts based upon what is realistically achievable and what the facts are we are saying the department of veterans affairs race and and more importantly our veterans opt for failure down the road once again. i think we can all agree that this is not an option. so tonight mr. chairman i appreciate you calling this hearing because he gives us a chance to take a hard look at what vba needs to do to ensure that it provides the workforce with the training and tools

needed to deliver timely and accurate benefits to our nation's veterans and their families and all the areas of their responsibilities. i want to thank you mr. chairman and i yield back the balance of my time. ..

>> officer of the inspector general. ms. halliday is accompanied by brent arronte director of san diego division. and then allyson hickey and she is accompanied by dianne rubens who is the former deputy for field operation and thomas murphy and we will hear from the

director of education awork' force and accountability office. i will yield to the colleagues for a brief introduction of our first witness. >> i would like to introduce ms. kristen ruell. she is a law school graduate and practicing attorney in pennsylvania. she works as a quality review specialist at the philadelphia regional office that serves hundreds of thousands in the community and throughout the country. she is a strong supporter of veterans and have been reporting various types of data manipuilation to anyone who would listen to her. she was frustrated in 2012 that the va wasn't responsive and

reached out to my office for help. i was inspired and honored to work with her to get to the bottom of this. she will tell her story of what can be described as no less than gross mismanagement at the philadelphia office. i appreciate her doing so. >> thank you very much. we appreciate you being here to introduce the panel. i would ask the panel to raise their right hand. do you swear the testimony you are about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. you can see seated. ms. ruell, you are recognized for five minutes.

>> my name is kristen ruell and i have worked for the department of veterans affairs. i work at the philadelphia regional office an authorization director. i poses a law degree. mr. chairman, community members, veterans and guest, i have been identified as a whistle blower. i started reporting glitches in the vet system, the system responsible for paying out va benefits since july of 2010. i discussed what i saw as mismanagement at the filled office and raised issues but not limited to the improper sledding of mail, beneficiary receiving inappropriate payments, data manipulate and other various misreadings of the law. i have been targed by the the va

despite the fact aig confirmed these reflections. the va's problem with a result of managers who have the power to and continue to ruin people's lives. i can speak from experience. i do not believe in manipulate the data while harming the veterans and survivors. the va listed fast letter 2010 and a simple reading established the claims would be few and far between and to qualify for a new data claim, rather than using the date when the claim was discovered, it had to be undiscovered and put in a memo folder. upon completion of the claim, an e-mail was sent to the office and understanding the claims and why it would have an alter newer

date. it was supposed to be tracked by a flash and this fast letter was a solution to solving the problem with the back log. philadelphia took the letter to mean they could change the dates of claim on every claim older than six weeks old regardless of the circumstances. when investigated, the managers pled ignorance. a veteran should have a date of claim in 2009 but instead they used the date of claim of 2014 appearing it to be new and they have a new priorty claim it it will not show up on reports for claims pending longer than 120 days.

i have been suspended because i was unable to work overtime and by management. no one else was given that severe of a punishment for such behavior. i wasn't given a job that i was qualified and i was followed around by management, i was accused of slander and lied to many times. my name was reported to the people i turned in and my car was dented and there was coffee all over my car. i have no proof who did it but i don't put it past the workers there. i contacted numbers thinking i

was doing something the department of veterans would appreciates. the management nor the central office had any interest in hearing about the problems at the agency regarding the extend. i whistle blew when i realized it could be in the millions. what i thought was happening the taxpayer and the veterans and the beginning of a horrible nightmare i have been living. i know the va covers up to gain bonus and target anyone that steps in the way. many employees were depressed and upon seeing me stick up others began to tell me horror stories. i now spend free time representing the employees who have been treated poorly. the people that serve the country and the employees that

serve them deserve more respect than the veterans affair is giving. the agency is unable to police themselves and operating out of control at the veteran's expense. the requirements placed on employe employees have required them to decide what is right and wrong. they are bullied into doing thick things they are doing. they make unattainable goals set by people that don't progress claims. i will be available by e-mail to answer any questions i have experienced and welcome the community to meet with anyone who is interested in fixing the problem. >> thank you very much, ms. ruell. mr. robinson you are recognized.

>> good afternoon chairman, ranking member and members of the community. on behalf of my comrades and employees thank you for the opportunity to discuss the evaluation of administrations goal that was established in 2009 by eric shinseki and had 125 days at a complete and 98% claims accuracy. serving veterans shouldn't be about unclaimed goals but how can we serve them better? it has been proven that setting unrealistic and unplanned goals with long-term targets without short and immediate targets to validate effectiveness is a disaster. acting secretary gibson visited and it was refreshing to hear

the top leaders say it isn't abo about matt but it is about building trust one veteran at a time. he addressed transparency, accountability, retaliation of employees. he acknowledged it was his job to create conditions for employees to be successful. he is setting the tone for changing the culture for lack of accountability and retaliation and va talking points. in october 1995 when i arrived at the columbia vro as a work study there was a poster in the hall on the hallway that read making a difference with accountability, integrity and i

was impressed and embarked on the journey to make it a reality. in february of 2013 i visited the hauls and the same paper was there but the words on paper are meaningless without corresponding. this is a service organization created to serve veterans, widows and orphans. we serve those who made the ultimate sacrifice and seen horrific acts of war and need comfort, those who have been mentally and physically disabled and need health care. those who are homeless and need support and shelter. those thinking about suicide and need a lifeline and all of the authoritys who have honorable and faithfully served our

country. this is about serving those who served and the va providing the leadership and the tools in creating an environment for employees that are conducive to providi providing accuracy and timely decisions to our customers, veterans, survivors and their families. when unrealistic goals throw out leaders to throw out common sense and analysis out of the window it is time for a reassessment and shift the focus back on our own mission. to care for those who owned the battle and his widow and orphan. president roosevelt on the day he signed the gi bill stated the members of the armed forced have been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice for the rest of us.

and they are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems. ladies and gentlemen of this committee, i served 20 years serving this country. we need tools to do our jobs. we need to be lifted up. not pulled down. and this is done not by anybody else but the failed leadership of our organization. it is our organization as well.

>> mr. soto, you are recognized for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman, ranking member and esteemed members of the community for the opportunity to be here. my statement relates to my experience at the saint petersburg florida regional office which i will refer to at st. pete. the problems, in may opinion, results from setting goals that are fantastic and unrealistic that the result could have been predicted. management focused on creative number crunching and not the veteran. i point out i tried bringing out problems to management to verifyious

once the claim is given a provisional rating, it is not counted for the backlog. however, the claim has no final reading. it is still unresolved. employees work hard to show veterans and complete their work competently. however, we have found that quality appeals because of --

we believe that, if employees were not afraid to appeal these errors, the total number of claims with errors overturned may be troubling. overturned maybe troubling. to date, to excuse the backlog and another processing problems, many employees are on performance improvement plans were we were interested in and checked. the total number of errors overturned can be great we just have to check no body is checking. any employee that complains is met with severe consequences. once again i would like to thank the committee for providing the opportunity to share my views and i will be happy to take any answers.

>> thank you. >> thank you very much. we will start a round of questions and each of us have five minutes to ask. mr. soto, i will start with you and answer in a yes or no fashion, if you could. were you rated anything less than fully successful with the regional office? >> no, sir. >> did you receive a promotion in 2013? >> yes, sir. >> and i have letters signed by kerry whiting who you talked about and i want to ask you about them. july 24, 2013 is the first where a letter contested your transfer of official time which notes having readers taken on a regular basis hampers the flow of work. did you get a copy of this? >> yes. >> the second is a letter dated

february 26th where the director denied your leave to attend training saying you were needed to the all-hands initiative. did you receive this document? >> yes. >> and the third is from the 23rd of june. it reads the leave without pay is granted at the discretion of the department and i understand they are preparing for various changes within the organization and engaged in various projects mr. soto is a full-time rating as a representative and is needed to provide his duties in that capacity. did you receive this document? >> yes, sir. >> what happened after june

24th? >> i purchased a report containing the quality review and the vsr operations. on june 26th it was distributed to management. during this time i received calls saying management is looking into your folder, specifically bonnie wax called and said don't tell anybody but look at this. on june 30th, for lackf a better definition, and i think the legal definition, i was laid off. i received a letter that said your services are no longer required and that was the end of my employment. >> mr. ruell, do you believe the policy that philadelphia

violated the policy direction given in the fast letter 13-10? >> definitely. >> and how did they violate that policy? >> in our office, we would receive e-mails as we got closer to 2015 that the e-mails would change. they were instructing us to change the dates of claims on any claim regardless on the circumstances if they were older than a certain date. >> did you believe the management violated this on purpose or was it a misunderstanding as the va has said publically? >> i believe, and i think it can be proven, that management intentionally violated the fast letter. the management will allege they didn't understand what the first part of the fast letter said however their actions show otherwise. the other paragraph in the fast letter explain that you are supposed to control the memos by

placing a flash in a program called map d. that is the way to track how many memos philadelphia was issuing for changing dates of claims. you were supposed to e-mail washington after you processed the claims and explain the circumstances for changing the dates of claims. philadelphia didn't do either of those. it is my belief you have didn't understand the top of the letter i would question why you are charged this if you don't understand the language in the fast letter. and why then did you prohibit any type of control on those claims so that if they were to be looked into at a later date no one could find them. similar to the vha paper waiting list our memos were on all paper. so if you wanted to find out how many memos were done in philadelphia, you would have to go to the file room and find the claims and memos if they are

still there. map-d isn't a program that the managers are not familiar with and e-mailing they do everything day. they e-mail us list non-stop. i think they understand the bottom portion and they failed to do anything to control it. i think it was to hide it. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. the first few questions are a quick yes or no and starting with mr. soto and going down the panel. did you believe that production is being driven over quality? >> absolutely. >> yes. >> definitely. >> and did you believe that non rating workload is being provided enough resources to be done in a timely and accurate manner? >> no.

>> definitely no. >> no. >> and do you believe that vbms is making va more efficient than when you dealt with paper? >> at the present time i would say it is debatable. >> i say it is no because all the work arounds that we have negate the progress that they are making. >> i don't currently work on vbms but anything that is electronic at the department of veterans of affairs has many problems. if i do a claim with a paper folder i can see the paper and page through it. in the computer there is multiple entries for the same document and waste a lot of time and sometimes the program freezers and it halters us from getting our work done. i would much rather use paper.

>> ms. ruell, to follow up on the chairman's question his question was do you believe the va ignored, you know, the pension and ignorance -- well let me back up. you suggest the philadelphia center pleaded ignorance with regard to the found or discovered claims. did you believe the va findings were not correct in suggesting the center misapplied or misunderstood the policy and procedure from the oig? >> i believe that is probably not hundred percent accurate because they only found 30 memos. but if they stay a lot longer they would probably find thousands and see the instances that the claims were changed and some had no reason at all. they just changed the date of claim. that is not what the fast letter

said. >> do you have proof? >> i photo copied a few of the memos but if you ask employees how many they did on a weekly bases you would definitely find out. >> in our testimony, you highlight that you believe a large number of documents were improperly shredded. can you walk us through recommendations that more needs to be done? >> do you want to describe the shedding? >> yes. >> okay. i was working and receive an employee from the triage clerk and they have to look at a claim and figure out in a short time what type of claim it is and identify it with the veteran in the system. a lot of people mail claims in

and may not put their full name, forget their social security number, their birthday -- a lot of people have the same names in the system. if you are on production and you have to open the mail and look at the things and decide what claim it is in a very quick time period there is not time to investigate or try to identify who that person really is. so what was happening, and various employees told me the clerks were trying their best to identify these things but the ones that took longer because they were lacking the identifying information were put aside in a separate pile that was stored in boxes eventually. i went down to the file room that night after i got this e-mail and i wanted to see for myself what was going on. i saw the boxes that were labelled 2010, 2011 and 2012 claims to be shredded.

i opened them and saw things that were not supposed to be shredded. so i reported it to washington. i took pictures. apparently they stopped the shredding of those. there was a total of 96 boxes. their answer was it is a military and return maim mail and the process is after you hold it for a year you can shred it. but the law is if you try to identify it first. because of the production requirements the clerks had a choice to pitch it to another box and hopefully get to it later or lose their job and do it the right way. so most people had good intention and put these aside.

then they had gift cards they were gave -- giving -- away to those who could process the most mail. i saw the boxes with my own eyes and what was in the boxes and a lot of that stuff shouldn't be shr shr shredded. when i did research about the shedding truck i was informed that for the mail to get shreded it gets shreded on the truck and i would have been shreded with it. so i cannot say i saw it being shredded because that would be impossible. >> mr. lamborn you are recognized. >> thank you for your leadership on this vital issues.

last week we had another hearing involving whistle blowers. it is so important we have employees who for forward and disclose what they have seen with their own eyes. it can be critical to exposing things that need to come to the light of day. thank you for your work and your service and your putting it on the line to do that. and i want to ask you and i think i know the answer to this but let's do it for the record. have you experienced or do you know others who experience retaliation in response to bringing things forward has a whistle blower in the va? ms. ruell we will start with you. >> unfortunately, yes. >> yes. >> absolutely, yes. >> mr. soto, let's talk to you for a second, you probably saw the letter, the memo from acting

secretary gibson dated june 13th saying we will not stand for retaliation against whistle blowers. in this memo there is a great line that says protuckecting employees is a moral obligation and a priority for the department. we will take action to hold those accountable for those engaged in behavior identified as whistle blower and that provides punishment. so the memo says those who punish whistle blowers can be subject to treatment. congress protected whistle blowers 25 years ago. mr. soto, is it true you were retaliated against after the memo came out? >> i believe so, yes. >> could you explain that, please. >> i was, again, and i am still

trying to piece it together. i believe i was laid off june 30th. i believe that e-mail and other memos. >> the memo i quoted from was june 13th. what was the reason given for you being laid off? >> my services were no longer required. >> had you been acting as a whistle blower prior to that time? >> yes, sir. >> can you explain what you did? >> i put out notices of wrongdoing concerning violations of due process and veteran's claims and how they are processed. i put out to accuracy reports concerning the quality review process at st. pete. one was in december '13 involving the raters and how there is a conflict in how we define various laws and

definitions of evidence that results in due process of the veterans. june 26 it was distributed and addressed the sars and the problems they were having in terms of receiving inconsistent quality review. >> i have the letter given to you when you were discharged and there doesn't seem to be a reason for you to being let go. >> correct, sir. >> how often does the va fire people for any cause number one? and for number two without giving a cause? >> being involved in the union i cannot say -- i cannot answer that question. >> have you ever seen that happen? >> i have not heard of somebody being told their services are no longer required. >> without a reason?

>> yes, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> ms. brown, you are recognized. >> ms. soto, i am from florida and i am florida with the system in st. pete and you process most of the case work in florida. it has improved. we were having kickback with processing it and it wasn't going through so i think it is very important to have goals. how long did you work at the center in st. pete? >> four years. >> you worked there for four years. have you seen improvement in the system in the four years? >> that is a difficult question to answer -- >> what is the number of cases you were processing? for a long time we were having

serious problems because you all processed most of the cases in florida and we have a very high number of cases in florida. >> yes, i did studies and part of those studies that i just mentioned and essentially we have not corrected errors that have been occurring in the past three years no matter what type of training it isn't effective and we were repeating the same errors over and over. so i would say no, we have not improved to answer your question. >> you haven't improved? >> we have not. >> june 30th was your termination date? >> yes. >> and without cause? >> i was terminated because my

services were no longer required. i am not sure what that means. >> i am not either. but i am going to find out. mr. robinson, thank you for your service again. you indicated that you all could do a better job if you had better leadership at the top. are you talking about congress when you say the top? what exactly are you talking about? i have worked with every va secretary we have had and some leave a lot to desire but i think the last va secretary did a lot based on what he had to work with with the congress. >> when i talk about the top i am talking about the our leadership.

being asked military, you take things to the chain of command. retired, iwo when he reported, sent letters to the v.a. chain of command. >> it wasn't working like the military. >> it isn't the military.

it is about leadership. being the retired first sergeant i think i know a little about leadership. it wasn't the directive that was the problem. it was the system that allowed him to do what he did. when i talk about leadership at the talk, when you have a problem and you allow it to go on, even to the point of discrediting the president of the united states by placing his photo in a place where no one could see, in a little folder like this, when that happens, i know there is not an accountability issue. >> you indicated, ms. ruell, you think pay -- paperwork is the best -- we said over and over again we don't want paper, we

want the computer system and want the va to get with the modern systems. even though i am not there yet we want the va to get there. of course that is going to take training, working with the employees, and what would you recommend? because, you know, you cannot process the number of cases and caseloads that need to be processed by hand. >> i totally agree. the problem is the computer system that the va uses are outdated and they don't work correctly so i would rather use the paper folder system than the computer system. the va had computer systems like maybe if apple designed them it might work better. i can do more on my i-phone faster. >> we have given them money to upgrade. we have discussed it over and

over and over again. that is not acceptable. we have to take them into the next century. we have to have the new technology. >> i totally agree with you. but if you sat down next to us you would see why there is a backlog. we have to click on a large amount of documents and sometimes hundreds you need to look at in the computer. when you click to open it and sometimes it doesn't open, sometimes it is the wrong person's information and you have to move it, sometimes the computer systems go down and you not sure when you will get back up. so you have thousands of employees sitting there and they cannot do their job because the only way you can process the claims is with the information. >> little babies, two-year-old children can work the computer system, we have to move to the

next level with the va. thank you and i yield back the time. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for the testimony and your courage. ms. soto, your testimony spoke to the manner that production and accuracy measures create hostility in the work place for empl employers, quality reviewers and management. can you relate how management's focus on the metrics is affecting the veterans who have claims pending? >> the production is the problem. they want the numbers and for whatever reasons the numbers seem to validate what they are doing. it tends to show, i gather but don't see it, they are

progressing in the backlog fight. they are starting to push and bullying employees into simply following changes and rules that sometimes may not serve the w t veteran. and one thing i saw, for example, is for whatever reason to ensure we clear the backlog we shortened the evidence collection period. our decisions are based on evidence of record. there is nothing of record. we deny the claim and it is seen as a shorter duty to assist periods and shorter periods together and evidence from private providers. and that is how we are moving. >> next question for the panel. there has been talk about how

vba manipulates the data using certain endpoints. define, whoever want to go first, define end products and how vba manipulates their use and what consequence this has on the veteran. >> an end product is a three-digit code that identifies what type of claim we have. for example, if i say a 110 that represents an original claim with less than eight issues. i i say an o2o that represents a claim that the veteran submitted after he submitted an original claim. you only get one original code

and everything is an input from there. you have use 930 from there and that is rate decisions that were prematurely decided. it doesn't include a rating bundle. so the 9-30s which the majority of them are claims that were rated prematurely and they are not counted in this inventory of blacklog claims. that is just one example. >> anyone else wish to comment? >> i agree with them. >> i don't have as much experience with that sort of processing because i worked the rating side but i agree. >> question for the panel. starting with ms. soto. can reacting secretary, mr.

gibson, succeed with the current vba leadership or should we hold this current vba leadership accountable and start with new leadership? can the acting va secretary succeed with this leadership? >> my answer would have to be i don't know. they have been in office for some time now. if the problems are still persisting it is time for a change. that is my opinion. >> no. >> ma'am, would you like to respond? >> i think the people under the secretary are letting the under secretary down. i don't think they are being truthful to the under secretary about the regional offices.

i feel someone is responsible for the va and all of the problems but in my office there are far too many people to hold accountab accountable. >> thank you for your testimony. >> mr. soto, i understand you worked at this office for four years, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> had you served the va in this capacity prior to other offices? >> yes, but i prefer not to discuss that. >> i want to get a sense of how long your served the va? >> 15 year i have been a government employee. >> all at the va? >> no. >> how long at the va? >> ten years. >> and mr. robinson, you have been at the office nine years, did you serve at the va in other

capacities? >> i have been in the columbia va office for 18 years. >> and the past nine years you have been in the current capacity you are in now? >> yes. >> ms. ruell? >> i worked at the va for seven years this august 20th. >> let's just start with you ms. ruell. has the situation with these metrics and management measurement, which is focused on concern outcomes in which could only be described as preverse incentives, have they existed for the last seven years? >> yes. >> so there wasn't a time that was better?

>> no, our office used to ha have -- we started doing original claims a few years after i got there so philadelphia didn't have as much jurisdiction. we had a lower volume of claims and i believe we were able to give more times to the claims. we didn't have to know how to do so many different types of claims because each claims has so many rules and laws that go with it. if you have 15-20 types of claims it is like being a lawyer with 15-20 specialties. so the more claims that philadelphia has i have noticed it is much harded to know more laws for all of these types of claims. >> they grew in complexity and variety since you got there.

is that what you are saying? >> i believe you can never figure out how complex a claim is. sometimes people think this is a small folder so it should be fast. because each veteran service representative is responsible for doing so many claims and doing them perfectly the more we inherit the less democrat i believe it is. >> can you tell me something about what kind of performance bonuses were available to employees at your grade level? >> our grade level -- you had to achieve a rating higher than fully successful to get a bonus. so if you received an outstanding or excellent you got a small bonus of a couple hundred dollars >> for the entire year? >> yes. >> what was at stake for

employees at your levels? maybe a couple hundred? >> yup. >> mr. robinson, can you answer? >> in my office the bonuses were up to $2,000 and over. they had three ways that you could get a bonus. it was production, they had a numbering system 1-3. if you got a 3 or a 9 you would get a higher bonus and you would get three for production, three for accuracy and three for auto support. it was over $2,000. it was based on grade so the higher the grade the more money you got. >> mr. soto?

>> similarly. we had outstanding and they are supposed to be given based on a point structure. the lower level employees that didn't receive points were declared successful. a few employees were given outstanding -- without reaching the outstanding criteria and the middle group that made production and accuracy were lumped in and made fully successful but no use of the unique appraisal. >> thank you.

>> there are different ways to file claims at the va. one way to inquire is to file a program through iris. and you can call or e-mail a claim in and then a report is generated and we call an iris. you are supposed to read these and you are supposed to figure out what the claimant needs and address it. and in our office, somebody reported to me, a couple months

ago that we were not doing these at all and there were 32,000 pending. it is a concern because some are calling in and it can be an informal claim. if we tonight process the iris we don't know the claim for those people. not everybody calls in for iris and asks the status of their claim. >> the follow, i know ms. ruell testified to this but the staff at columbia and st. pete did they violate guidance provided in the fast letter 1310? >> i don't have an incident that it did. i don't know. >> same here. i am not sure.

i know they say the duplicate payments don't happen and what a problem this is. >> we say it is fixed and it is fixed but obviously it isn't. >> there is many ways that the va that you can receive a duplicate payment. prior to certain year veterans stop receiving service numbers. a lot of the veterans are in the system with a service number. when that same veteran or one of their survivors submits a claims they put the veterans social security number on the correspondence. when we put a claim on an end product, we create a duplicate record for the veteran. so the person has the same

number and one service and one claim number and that can cause the veteran to be paid twice. there are other ways it happens. there is an operating system and everybody is looked at by a personal identification number and that is how the benefits are paid based on this number. if you apply for benefits and we put your claim under control with just your name and you didn't provide your social security number because you submitted an informal claim and were not aware you had to we will put a claim under control with a mary smith and no social security number. when mary smith comes in and provides her social security number we put a claim under control with her social security number. our computer system has two different pid numbers for that mary smith and she can get two checks. i worked on claims where one claimant got five checks per

month. the va will tell you the problem is corrected and they have data mining programs to find the duplicate payments. i would disagree. usually every week i find some. i stopped reported them because for two years i collected and reported them and nothing changed. i really cared about it because if we have the wrong social security number for a claimant that affects other benefits through government matching programs. we had a case of someone trying to apply for food stamps and it looked like they were getting money from the va but they were not. the va has dup licate reports

and they can be paid twice. >> thank you. >> mr. bradley, you are recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for being here with us this evening. mr. soto, i am just shocked to hear your story of being laid off on june 30th. we have had a lot of committee hearing over the sourcourse of last month and talked about the need for the va to improve and to become a good, positive organization and there is going to have to be real cultural change. we talked about the vha a lot. i wanted to ask you and the other panelist have you felt any sense of change coming down from the top around the work

environment? how we want to improve, encourage, and serve the veterans and be a veteran-centered operation. >> have you felt that change in culture in your department? >> no. >> mr. robinson? >> i have a new director now. so i am not going to lump all of the directors in one pool because i don't like to paint with that kind of brush. she is new. we have been able to get along and together. >> up until that point? can you answer up until that point? >> up until that point no. it was awful. employees suffered. and the reason it disturbed me that the va chain of command knew and allowed it to be.

>> thank you, mr. robinson. and ms. ruell, have you felt any change recently? >> no. actually i believe things are getting worse. i took it upon myself to help employees that were targeted by manageme management. they are terrified to stand up for themselves and they i don't want to be treated like that. i have a family to feed and i cannot afford to be fired. i promise them i would spend every moment i have and represent them against the agency if they need to file a claim. i feel like the agency let me down because they promised you can come into work and have a discrimination-free workplace and that is not the case. and i spent two years helping employees get their jobs back because the va isn't doing it. it is only getting worse. i get probably 4-5 calls a week

begging for my help and honestly there is not a lawyer out there who will help you. at the early strange you would have to pay them $15-$20,000 and most don't have that money. if something doesn't change soon i don't know if there is going to be any good workers left in the va. >> thank you. i wanted to ask your reaction when the higher ups talk about notable progress and reducing the claims backlog? the ranking member mentioned the numbers in his opening comments of 630,000 plus down to 270,000. what is your reaction? did you believe the progress was made ms. ruell? >> no. >> mr. robinson? >> no, because we don't analyze the numbers we are counting. the va is saying -- or we say

because this is my organization as well. we say the backlog is down 50% but if you look at the number it isn't down 50%. numbers can be manipulated. when i see dependency claims over $200,000, okay? when i see appeals increase to over $297,000 -- these are veterans. somebody would have to be asleep at the wheel to not realize they were going up. you can look at numbers anyway you can't to but for an example what i have seen during this time. i have seen failed initiatives

such as contracting claims development and the idea that created the fast track for processing agent orange claims. i saw procedures doing that and all hands on deck to include suspending quality reviews, provisional ratings, unlimited overtime and 20 hours mandatory. i have seen refresher training and we shutdown offices and had 30% of the workforce coming back. that should have been accounted for. we had changes in performance standards twice. we have changed the money report twice, excluded the 930 from the rating bunding. we used ep 400s and changed that

and abused that to request evidence. >> i think my time is up. so thank you and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to thank you for being here today and your compelling testimony. i agree with ms. probrow and we have been told the backlog has been worked on and making progress and you are saying that is baloney and they are concerned about numbers and not veterans.

and changing the date of a claim is common practice to reduce the ba backlog. it is unbelievable this is going on and no one is responsible for it. i am hoping we will make progress through the hearing and make it happen. i have a question for you. and maybe each of you. name the top two things that you would change if you were in charge ms. ruell to make things better. how do we change the culture here to make it better? i understand rules for bonuses is a big problem but tell me what you think if you were in charge. >> i think that if management does something wrong that they need to be held accountable. they have no problem holding an employee accountable.

many managers in my office have fired people over illegally. they should have to pay their legal fees should they be found to be guilty of an illegal firing. they use regional counsel as their own private attorneys and i am spending my own time representing employees because they cannot afford an attorney. so i feel like the biggest problem is accountability for the people in middle and upper manageme management. >> it has been my experience you can never find out the name of the person that implemented the problem. mr. robinson, what are your top things if you were in charge to make the culture better? >> make the veteran the object of business. he comes first. and the employees need to be given effective tools, training,

and leadership and we cannot do that without leadership. >> mr. soto? >> i agree we have to start with policies that place the veteran before the numbers and secondly we have to completely think about restructuring the training programs for raters and vsr's. it is time to change that. >> let me ask another question. for the men and women returning home from the service who would you recommend to them in order to get their claim process? what should they do? is there something that everyone should do to make the claim go better? you have any ideas on that? >> i think one of the main problems with the va expects is a completed application is different than what the regular

person thinks. they have ruled that zero isn't an answer on the income validation. we have to ask you if you met zero. so there is really strange rules that we have to follow at the va. an average person who fills out an application wouldn't know. so going through a congress member or call thiing the media the only way to get them to your application faster. >> we have to educate the veterans and do outreach and explain the process because we get documents we don't need. the veterans goes to the doctor and he is claiming a knee

condition and he goes to the doctor and he will send in the documents pertaining to everything and the knee. if we can simplify and get the veterans to file medical evidence that per tains to what they are claiming i think that would be a great health in educating the veteran in the process. i think that will make a lot of money doing that; educating veterans. >> i am out of time but i appreciate you being here today. thanks. >> ms. kirkpatrick you are recognized. >> this culture of intimidation has to stop. i introduced hr 54 which is the whistle blower protection act because i want to make sure there is not retaliation against them. thank you for being here and we would not have the information without your courage and

commitment to the veterans and that is what it is about: take caring care of the veterans. i would like to know for each of you when you started at the va were you given a policy that directs you how to file a claim if you see something you are not happy with? >> we are all told to review, let's put it that way, this thing called the no fear act. we are told not to have fear. it doesn't work. >> mr. robinson? >> i came to the va 18 years ago and it was a lot different then. i didn't get anything at that time. but we have to read the policy or whatever but that is about it. >> ms. ruell? >> once a year we get the annual

whistle blower no retaliation e-mail. that is why i reported the duplicate e-mails. >> there is no grieving policy? >> we have a union but it took two and a half years to get the suspension off my record. the decision maker when you go through process were the people that punished me. so i realized i am not going to go through the grievance process because why would i want to a bias decision maker and i then tried the eeo avenue. unfortunately that takes a year and a half to even possibly get a court date and sometimes it is up to three years. when you are being tormented at work every day that is not a solution. you can report to the office of

special council but they accept 5% of the cases. i felt like there were laws out there to protect us and i was fooled by them and they have all let me down. it is kind of like if you say your husband or wife is abusing you and the police give you a piece of paper that says you need to stay away. that doesn't protect you from getting beat up from your spouse. >> i am from arizona and i am a former prosecutor and we have a difficult time getting people to report child abuse and neglect until we had an anonymous hotline. and would it be beneficial to have an anonymous hotline for patients and workers outside of

the system that knows to somebody outside of that system to address and look into it. i would like to know your thoughts about that. >> i think it would be a good start but the people you need to report to have to be far removed from the people involved. ...

if the same person is still in power i'm just going to get more i agree 100%. if employees and our own organization can't expect it to protect them that is the problem. we have to protect our employees like i said to the acting secretary, he said he will do that. now we will see whether he does it not. the will be watching to make sure we are doing what we say. >> five seconds. i would like to see. >> thank you. my time has expired. thank you, mr. chairman. >> you are recognized for five minutes. >> i just want to thank you all for your courage in coming forward. i think without the

whistle-blowers' the employees at the va who really care about meeting our nation's obligations to men and women who have served this country, without you all we would not have any idea really what the magnitude of the problems within the veterans affairs. one question. let me say first that i think there is an emotional component to your stories and the way that you are treated once you are identified as a whistle blower within the organization. i think you have all expressed that. ms. kristen ruell, you gave some very specific examples about how tough it is to go into work every day when things like that happen to you. we talked about your car being damaged and the other things that occurred. one question that i