VA Claims Being Shredded Nothing New To Veterans

This is what happened in Florida

The policy comes as the VA continues to investigate improper shredding at a St. Petersburg veterans benefits office and 56 other regional offices in nearly every state.

The policy calls for the appointment of a records control team in Washington, D.C., to oversee the handling of documents. It also would lead to the hiring of records officers in each benefits office to do the same on a local level.

And before shredding any document, two VA employees, including a supervisor, would have to sign off, according to a draft of the policy obtained by the St. Petersburg Times on Friday. The policy comes after the discovery last month of nearly 500 veterans' claims documents improperly set aside for shredding in 41 VA benefits offices.

The documents, which had no duplicates in VA files, could have been crucial in deciding if an individual veteran received a pension or disability payment.

That total includes 13 documents found in shredding bins in the VA's busiest benefits office at Bay Pines in St. Petersburg, where the agency's inspector general is still conducting an audit.

Bay Pines is the home benefits office for Florida's 1.8-million veterans and the 330,000 who live in the Tampa Bay area.

When did it happen?
VA hopes new shredding guidelines protect claims seekers, By William R. Levesque, Times staff writer, In print: Saturday, November 1, 2008

Yes, you read that date right. Back then there was a lot of "outrage" that didn't change a damn thing. Looks like Congress needs history lesson on Veterans' Claims again.

Department of Veterans Affairs
INTERIM REPORT
Review of Alleged Shredding of Claims-Related Evidence at the VA Regional Office Los Angeles, California

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On January 20, 2015, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) received an anonymous allegation that staff at the Los Angeles VA Regional Office (VARO) were shredding mail related to veterans’ disability compensation claims. The complainant also alleged that supervisors were instructing staff to shred these documents. In February 2015, we conducted an unannounced inspection at the Los Angeles VARO to assess the merits of the allegation.

We substantiated that the Los Angeles VARO staff was not following Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA) January 2011 policy on management of veterans’ and other Governmental paper records. Although we cannot quantify or identify claims-related documents that the VARO may have shredded prior to our review, we found nine claims-related documents that VARO staff incorrectly placed in personal shred bins for non-claims related documents.

Eight of the nine documents had the potential to affect veterans’ benefits and one had no effect on the veteran’s benefits. Since VARO staff placed these nine claims-related documents in shred bins for non-claims related documents, these nine documents bypassed the first VBA control requiring supervisory review of claims-related documents before shredding. Of the nine claims-related documents, five did not have required initials of both the employee and supervisor and the remaining four had only the employee’s initials. If VARO staff and their supervisors followed VBA policy, these nine claims-related documents would not have been placed in personal shred bins that are designated for non-claims related documents.

In response to an OIG report on inappropriate shredding of veterans’ claims in November 2008, VBA created the permanent position of a Records Management Officer (RMO) to ensure the appropriate management and safeguarding of veterans’ records, to include providing oversight of the shredding of documents. The RMO serves as the VARO’s final control to prevent shredding of claims-related documents.

We found that there was no RMO at the Los Angeles VARO from August 2014 until our inspection in February 2015. The RMO was promoted to another position in August 2014, and the Assistant Director determined that it was not necessary to fill the RMO position. We found that Support Services Division (SSD) staff that took over the duties of the RMO lacked training regarding maintaining, reviewing, protecting, and appropriately destroying veterans’ and other Governmental paper records. The Assistant Director assumed that the RMO had provided SSD staff with training but did not ensure this had occurred. SSD staff stated they would only complete a “cursory review” as they dumped all collected documents and material in shred bins for contractor shredding. When asked to define “cursory review”, SSD staff stated they would observe documents as they dumped the documents into the bin destined for contractor shredding.
read the whole report here