and met with vba employees without their managers there. met with them privately to get their feedback on how the transition was going. and i will say that they acknowledged that the process was rather rocky, but they feel as though the processing now in a paperless fashion is much more efficient and more accurate. and they describe it as, you know, a night-and-day difference. so, i do think that it's important that we acknowledge the progress that we have made. i do think that there is still more that needs to be done to make sure that we are processing these claims on a timely basis, you know, across the country and that we have -- get a better handle on the appeals process as well, so it's a, you know, a fail-safe service that we can provide to our veterans and obviously these benefits are very important to them and they have earned and deserve them. so, in following up on mrs. brown's questioning just to ask a few more specific questions. i know on the implementation timelines, this question is to ms. mccoy, one of the gao's chief conce

according to vba personnel, the st.ersburg regional office had more than 41,000 mail packages and over six and hundred boxes of evidence waiting to be scanned into the vbms at the scanning facility. that was the picture that the chairman alluded to. the scanning facility shows many boxes containing significant amounts of boxes waiting more .han 30 gay -- 30 days the v.a. contract requiring the contractor to scan all evidence into vbms within five days. has reported significant improvement, we cannot attribute that improvement to vbms. --s was one of more than transformation plan. we have observed and can attribute several practice this several factors. the a spent more than $130 million in mandatory overtime in 2015 and one is a $25 million in 2014. staff thatallocated affect the backlog. while sacrificing other types of claims such as those on appeals and non-rating claims issues. implemented a fully implemented claims process. as for vba's improved rate, this could be related and how they are khaki living rates overal

i'm incredibly proud of our vba employees, 53% of whom are veterans themselves. for all of the changes they have adopted and all of the work they have completed for veterans and their families through vba transformation efforts. so, what have they accomplished? this past fiscal year va reached an historic milestone in delivery of benefits and services to america's veterans and their families and survivors. we reduced the backlog of disability claims pending to a low of just over 71,000 claims at the end of fiscal year of 2015, nearly 90% reduction in the backlong as ranking member brown pointed out from its peak of 611,000 pending. and in fiscal year 2015, we provided disability rating claim decisions to nearly 1.4 million veterans. that is a new record as well. and we did not sacrifice quality. in fact, we improved national accuracy scores from 83% in june of 2011 to -- to nearly 91% in fiscal year 2015. and that's at the claim level. if you drill down to the individual contention, the individual issue level, we are at over 96% on our quality. at the same time w

last year, vba, vha and our veteran's experience team worked to redesigned the process using human center design and lean tech networks. by february we will have a baseline measure in place to measure the satisfaction and by the end of 2016 we will complete a rollout of initiatives demonstrating improvement of the experience with the exam. number seven, develop a simplified appeals process. we have driven down the claims from the peak in march of 2013. we transitioned from paper to electronic eliminating five thousand tons of paper a year. 1.5 million disability and pension claims were decided. in 2016, subject to successful legislation, we will put in place a simplified appeals process enabling the department to resolve 95% of appeals within one year of filing by 2021. number eight, continue progress to improve the veterans homeless problem. we placed almost 108,000 in permanent housing or prevented them from homeless. in 2016, we will continue reducing veteran homelessness and demonstrate progress to an effective end by assisting an additional 100,000 veterans and family members. number

last year, vba, vha and our veteran's experience team worked to redesigned the process using human center design and lean tech networks. by february we will have a baseline measure in place to measure the satisfaction and by the end of 2016 we will complete a rollout of initiatives demonstrating improvement of the experience with the exam. number seven, develop a simplified appeals process. we have driven down the claims from the peak in march of 2013. we transitioned from paper to electronic eliminating five thousand tons of paper a year. 1.5 million disability and pension claims were decided. in 2016, subject to successful legislation, we will put in place a simplified appeals process enabling the department to resolve 95% of appeals within one year of filing by 2021. number eight, continue progress to improve the veterans homeless problem. we placed almost 108,000 in permanent housing or prevented them from homeless. in 2016, we will continue reducing veteran homelessness and demonstrate progress to an effective end by assisting an additional 100,000 veterans and family members. number

last year, vba, vha and the veterans experience team worked to redesign the process using human center design and lean tech nieces. by february we'll have a baseline metric with the cmp exam process and by the end of 2016 will complete a national rollout of initiatives demonstrating improvement in the veterans experience with the cmp exam. number serve, develop a simplified appeals process and we've driven down the backlog to fewer than 200 in march 2013. fully transitioning processing propaper to electronic, eliminating 5,000 tons of paper a year. >> we decided 1.4 million disability compensation and pension claims for veterans and survivors and that's the highest for the va in a single year. in 2016, subject to the successful legislation we'll put in place a simplified appeal proses is enabling the department to resolve 90% appeals by 2021. number eight reducing veteran homelessness. >> we provided 365,000 homeless and at-risk veterans and placed almost 108,000 in permanent housing and prevented them from being homeless. in 2016 we'll continue reducing veteran homelessness and demons