Henry a. Wall asms the wallaces of iowa consist of three generations of wallaces. The patriarch was known fondly as uncle henry, and he was the founder of wallaces farmer magazine. His son, henry c. Wallace, was u. S. Secretary of agriculture under woodrow wilson, and henry c. s son was born on this farm in 1888. He went on to become editor of wallaces farmer magazine. He was then asked by Franklin Roosevelt to serve as u. S. Secretary of agriculture, which he did for eight years from 1933 to 1941. In 1941 to 1945, he was roosevelts Vice President as 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 couldnt believe the things that he was proposing regarding that, but then as prices went up, they started to listen to him, and people still refer to him today as the genius secretary of agriculture. Explore the history and literary life of des moines, iowa, today at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv n cspan3. John quincy adams was the second adams to be elected to the white house. He was the second northerner to be elected to the white house. He was only one of two antislavery president s to be elected to the white house. He was deeply feared by the uth, worried that his vision of a unified country in which the federal government and the states were partners in a relationship that en abled the federal government to play a leading role in binding the country together through infrastructure projects, through supporting manufacturing and so on, that he was deeply suspected by the Southern States who thought indeed that he wanted too much power from the federal government. Fred kaplan on the life of our sixth president , john quincy adams, tonight at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Three whistle blowers from the Veterans Benefits administration testified at a recent hearing on the process for evaluating Veterans Benefits claims. In their testimony, they spoke about misappropriations and the threat of retaliation for reporting wrongdoing at the v. A. Department. This is part of an Ongoing Investigation by the Veterans Affairs committee after reports of misconduct at v. A. Facilities. This portion is an hour and a half. 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 vas problem with a result of managers who have the power to and continue to ruin peoples 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 email 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 wasnt 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 dont 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 veterans 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 dont progress claims. I will be available by email 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 shouldnt be about unclaimed goals but how can we serve them better . It has been proven that setting unrealistic and unplanned goals with longterm 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 isnt 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 i will discuss many example. There are many. The rules simply hid wait times. Once a claim is given a provisional rating, its not counted toward the back log. However, the claim has no final rating. Its still unresolved. In summary, at st. Pete, the employees work hard to serve veterans and complete the work competent incidently. However, we have found that employees avoid appealing quality error calls, because they fear reprisals. When employees do clear the airs, theyre overturned at least 30 of the time. We did some figuring out, and we believe that if employees were not afraid to appeal these errors, the total number of claims with errors overturned may be troubling. To date, to excuse the back log and other processing problems, many employees are Performance Improvement plans. We were interested and we checked. Not one manager at st. Pete is on a Performance Improvement lan. The total number of errors have been overturned can be great. We just need to need. Any employee who complains is met with severe consequences. Once again, id like to thank the committee for providing me the opportunity to share my views. I will be happy to take any answers. Thank you. Thank you very much, mr. Soto. Were going to start a round of questioning and each us will have five minutes with which to ask our question. Mr. Soto, i will start with you, sir. If you would, just answer in a yes or no fashion. Did you receive a promotion in 2030 . Yes, sir. Andy got some documents here that are letters signed by the Regional Office director, who youve talked about this evening, so when i ask you them, the first is a letter dated july 24, 2013, where the r. O. Director contested transfer of your official time which notes having raiders taking from the recuring duties on a regular basis hampers the flow of work. Did you get a copy of this . Yes. The second is a letter that is dated february 26, 2014, with r. O. Director denied your lead to attend training, citing that you were needed due to the all hands initiative. Did you receive this document . Yes. And the third letter dated the 23rd of june, just three weeks ago, from the director again, which appears to respond to an a f. G. Leave without pay request for you, which reads in part, leave without pay is granted at the discretion of the department. While you understand that its preparing for various changes within its organization and engaged in various national projects, mr. Soto held a Fulltime Position as a Ratings Veterans Service representative and is needed to perform his duties in that position. Did you receive this document . Yes, sir. Could you tell the committee what occurred after june 23 of 2014 . Well, on june 24, i published a v. S. R. Accuracy report concerning quality review and v. S. R. Operations. On june 26, it was distributed to all employees and anagement. During this period i received calls telling me that management was looking into your folders, specifically bonnie wax from Human Resources called our coaches and said dont tell anybody, i need to you look at this, etc. On june 30, i was, for this, and i think the legal efinition is laid off. I received the letter saying services are no longer required, and that was the end f my employment. You had the policy that philadelphia violated the policy direction given in the letter 1310. Definitely. And how did they violate that policy . In our office, we would receive emails as we got closer to 10 that the emails would change, but they were instructing us to change the dates of claims on any claims regardless of the circumstances, if they were older than a certain date. Do you believe that the management at the Regional Office intentionally violated the letter or was it simply a misunderstanding as v. A. Has said publicly . I believe, and i think it can be proven, that management intentionally violated the fast letter. If you read the fact letter closely, the management rule alleges that they didnt understand what the first part of the fact letter said. However, their actions show otherwise. The other paragraphs in the fact letter explain that youre supposed to control these memos by placing a flash in a program called map d. Thats the way to track how many memos philadelphia was issuing for changing dates of claims. You were also supposed to email washington after you processed the claims and explain the circumstances for changing the dates of claims. Philadelphia didnt do either of those things, so its my belief that if you didnt understand the top part of the letter, number one, i question why youd be paid a gf15 or 14, number charge of the amount of money that our office is in charge of if you dont understand the language in the fact letter, and why then did you prohibit any type of control in those claims, so that if they were to be looked into at a later date, no one could find them, similar to the v. H. A. , paper, waiting list, our memos were all on 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 open all the claim folders to find these memos if theyre still there. But map d is not a program that the managers arent familiar with, and emailing, they do every day. They email us lists nonstop. So if they didnt understand the fact letter, at least the top portion, i know that they understood the bottom portion, and they failed to do any of those things to control it. So i think it was to hide it. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. The first few questions should be a quick yes and no, and ill start with mr. Sot sando just work down the panel. Do you believe that production is being driven over quality . Absolutely. Yes. Definitely. And do you believe that nonrating workload is being provided enough resources to be done in a timely and accurate manner . No. Definitely no. No. And do you believe that vbmf is making v. A. More efficient than it was when you dealt with paper . At the present time, i would say thats debatable. Id say that its no, because all the workarounds that we have negates the rogress that it is making. I dont currently work on vbmf, but anything that is electronic at the department of Veterans Affairs has many problems, and if i do a claim with a paper folder, i can see the paper, i can page through it quickly. When i look at whats in the computer, theres multiple entries for the same documents, it wastes a lot of time, and sometimes the program freezes and it halts us from getting our work done. I would much rather use paper. Ms. Ruell, to follow up on the chairmans 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 email 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 o