Just for i. T. When all that money has been unaccounted for and the revelation under oath was were using 1985 software. I think that is shocking and i think the american taxpayers deserve an answer as to where their money go and how can they trust you with another 17 billion or just 1 billion in i. T. Upgrade . Either of you. I was listening for a question there. Any question is how can the American People trust you for more money, een a billion . Be glad to give you a lay down of the work that i. T. Does on an annual basis, the projects that are undertaken, the systems that are both maintained and developed, and the functionality thats delivered. So i guess mr. Chairman if i can indulge one final question. I guess the information we heard that day from the. I. T. Was incorrect. It cannot have been correct information for us to find out under a hearing that were using 1985 outdated sced ewing software, when he simply sat there to see we need no more money, were compliant, were fine. Thank you very much. The informing he gave us wasnt true, correct . I think he gave you a honest answer. I think what you heard was the result of an organization thats managing to a budget as opposed to an organization thats managing to requirements. I would tell you one of things we need is a scheduling system. Weve got it built into our budget in 2015 and 2016. According to your professional, it was built into the budget for years and we were funding it and we were trusting that it was used for the allocation that was requested. There was a highly reported failed Development Effort that occurred back years ago, where v. A. Invested a substantial amount of money into a scheduling system and it wasnt able to deliver and i would tell you in the years since that time, starting in 2010, when v. A. Developed the project management accountability system and i would refer to you and ill make sure that we get you a copy of the recent report, where seven different departments were look at and the progress they have had in i. T. , v. A. Was the only one of the seven departments that passed the grade with gao. I appreciate it. The other question lots of if that guy who is in charge of your imple t. Got a bonus, im curious for the information that hes provided for the lack of adequate resources that you have. I want to know if he got a bonus. We actually were going to have an oversight hearing this week in regards to i. T. We were not able to do it because the person who is responsible for i. T. Is out of the country on a long planned Family Vacation and so we canceled in hopes that he will be able to attend. Mr. Waltz, you are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I for one am thankful and grateful that this nation still produces citizens like yourself. Ive had the privilege of working with you in other capacities and your commitment is unquestioned and i think when you started out, mr. Secretary, when you talk about, i agree with you on this, this is one of our greatest opportunities to make lasting improvement. What we do possibly within the next weeks and months will have decades long implications. Thats important why we get it right. Not just get it done. They are hand in hand. Ive been advocating whats been missing is a priorities being set. What im hearing and i think what you are hearing the concern on this is this nation is committed to getting it right and providing the resources but we also have the commitment to ask that every dollar be spent in a wise manner, and they are not exclusive. I want to clarify when we talk about the private sector, lets be clear, eight out of ten wizes businesses fail out in the private sector. This over simplification and the government is going to get it right, that clouds it, it takes us away from the mission is, theres best practices there are things that are out there. I would ask you this and this is what i would like to get your take on, mr. Secretary. I have the privilege of representing the number one hospital in the nation in the mayo clinic and ive watched and ive looked at and i understand how mayo has done this and one of the things that mayo has always of course been focused on is the patient first, just like were talking about the Veterans First but systems analysis from the very beginning over a hundred years ago has been at the mantra of what they have done and these things as far as bald ridge criteria and performance drives what they do. It starts with leadership and it ends with results and so my question is in mayo they have a quality academy, the levels correspond to six sigma. Mayo was founded on battlefield medicine. They are deeply ingrained into battlefield medicine. They have partners with you. They are asking what they can do. My question is when the under secretary sat here, she talked about certification. If they can come back and answer where this is from. What are you suggesting or what can be done in the vha to ensure a bald ridge type mayo six sigma type performance so then we know if we give you the money how its going to be implemented . Interestingly enough, when we did a review of scheduling practice ses and access practices we invited folks from may yo to come and brief us. When we look at water Safety Practices in the v. A. , we invited mayo to come. I think one of things we need to look at, i agree with your characterization, we should look at it as a system and look at our entire Health Care System as a system, not just focusing on a metric here, a metric there, but looking at concepts like throughput, being veteran centric, how do we measure, manage, assess that. I think over the next couple of months were going to take a look at some of our productivity work that weve done. Weve briefed dr. Wenstrep on that. Does this work . Can we deploy it . Test it, measure it, use the principles of measurement for the long term sustainablity, there used to be these academies that weve let erode. We have to invest in them to succeed. Thats what we want to hear. This corresponds and it stems from there. This is an opportunity to build the hybrid. The core mission of the v. A. Needs to remain intact. There are certainly positive lessons out there. We heard last week that offered up positive suggestions. There was a great one offered up from indiana. He knows on any given day they are only using 79 of their capacity. Lets tap that other 21. So mr. Secretary. I was going to say i was in st. Louis on tuesday and had the opportunity to visit our Training Academy on and on that side of the business and cited that as an internal best practice that we need to import into the vha, because we dont have the kind of Talent Development and succession planning inside of vha that you would find in a private sector. The older members here will remember this, the crisis out at our sem terrys out at arlington and others, and the focus thats been put on there. We can do this, but if we miss this opportunity or dont rise to the occasion, then shame on all of us. So i yield back. Mr. Runyan, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. Im going to throw out a couple of receipt tory kal questions and some an nal you didnt see. I want to throw it out there and see if you can respond why someone would even ask, is v. A. Too big to fail . I mean, thats something that weve dealt with in other sectors in the last decade. I think its a legitimate question. And when we talk about trust and processes, how are we going to get there . As representative flores said earlier and you follow up answering mr. Hulskamp question about process. Your quote was you need a set of facts to act on. That can be done in a budgetary process. Ill use the analogy. Your girlfriend broke up with you, you made up the next day but you didnt ask her to marry her that day. The legitimate processes of gaining trust over time, and to go to that, and i love the fact that you brought up manage to requirements. Theres eight members on this committee that serve on armed services. And mr. Wals brought up quad drinal defense review. They tweak the requirements to make the budget. They dont lay the whole thing out to congress and allow us to say at some point were going to have to prioritize what were going to do theres only so much to go around. We have to know whats out there. When were dealing with a crisis like this and i ask the question to under secretary last week, i said when were attacking Something Like the claims backlog, thats a category of claims. Now, when you do your analysis to say we need this much money to solve this problem, are we going all the way back into everything from i know it changed on a daily basis, could you do it by a quarterly basis or biannual basis to say to eliminate all of the claims in whether its death benefits, bur yals, education, you know, pension, all that kind of stuff, is that even possible to move the overlay of what were making definitions of putting claims in piles to say do you have an idea of even what that number is v. A. Wide . Because youve alluded to it on several patient aspects, but in an overall claims, because when we continue to were only going to ask for this much because i put this overlay on it, what is the overall big picture . What is that requirement to eliminate this once and for all . I dont think these questions really get asked and or answered on a regular basis. And you are talking about on the claims side on the benefits side . Im not sure. Just to boil the whole thing down. Lets just say claims. Every single one of them that is sitting on a desk in an r. O. Somewhere, what is that number and what is that fiscal number that goes to eliminate that . You talk a lot about modeling and all that. Your models you are using filters and layers to actuate the numbers that come out of those models. What is the big picture . Is the crisis bigger than we i think were realizing its bigger than we thought it was a year ago, but can we did at point push all this back and really say we really got to step back and take a look at this and realize that this is a bigger problem and we really need to dive into this deep . I think as it relates to both to the claims side of the the benefits side of the business, if you will, and the health care side of the business, part of what you are seeing is this regular weekly publication of detailed information, not just about the disability claims, but also now detailed information about all the nonrating claims buckets, so that people have that complete picture. The same thing on wait times. You know, up until six weeks ago, we werent pushing detailed wait time information out on every single location. Care quality and Patient Safety information out on every single location. So that were creating that kind of openness and transparency so that people can understand the magnitude of the problem. I sit here and say its 641,000 veterans that got appointments that are more than 30 days than they wanted to be seen. My time run out and ive experienced this in my four years in congress, as you build trust and we say were going to do it one step at a time i dont think theres anybody on this committee that would have a problem you tackling 10 million at a time. I dont think they would and make sure we get it right and have that set of facts that we can act on as you said. So with that, ill yield back, chairman. Ms. Can you sayd cuss ter, thank you for taking on this extraordinary task. I want to echo the comments of my colleagues. I think youll find that this is one of the very rare bipartisan committees that where we strife to work together. I want to mention on the issues of ethics of accountability. What my concern is while i wholeheartedly believe that we naed to do every possible thing to ensure that our veterans get the care that they deserve, i have a hard time addressing the funding request before we get into how the v. A. Is going to fix this underlying systemic of integrity and in particular the testimony that weve heard here about this scandal of people receiving bonuses based upon manipulated data, frankly, lack of truthfulness, truthiness if you call it. Honesty and integrity that not only the veterans deserve but frankly the american taxpayer deserves and so if you could address, before we get into the additional funding, how do you intend to restore that level of integ grit throughout this system and what will be the actions taken for deceit and failure to abide by basic, basic issues of integrity . Yes, maam. When the president told me he was going to tap me to be the acting second, dont expect me to behave like acting is in front of the job title and i have tried not to do that consistently. We have moved out on every front that we can conceivably move out on, so its been a process of working not sequentially on attacking different issues but working across a much broader front at the same time. Working to get veterans off of wait lists and fix scheduling issues and simultaneously working to build the processes so that we can hold people accountable for willful misconduct and management negligence when it arises. As we went through this process, i perceived the need for additional expertise in that area which is why i went and recruited lee bradley and with secretary hagels strong support to come return to the department of Veterans Affairs. We have built underneath a Cross Functional Team of Senior Leaders across the organization. Part of the challenge were going through right now is just what it takes in the federal government to pursue personnel actions to have them done in a way that you at least hope its going to stand up in an appeal. The other challenge that were working through right now is really the recalibration of the departments yardstick if you will. That behavior that looks like this which in the past might not have had any accountability action associated with it as all, at all, may in the future be a deemed appropriate for removal from federal service or for a very extended period of suspension. So what weve done and as we have now, i mentioned earlier, gotten the first of these cases in from the ig, are now exercising that process. Following due process, but also managing through this reset that has to happen, this recalibration that has to happen toen sure that appropriate accountability actions are taken for the wrongdoing thats been identified. If theres anything that we can do in our capacity in congress, i know that including passing a bill to give you the authority to literally fire employees because i think that is the only thing thats going to bring this integrity back, and ij want to say for the record i had a tremendous honor this week. My constituent, Sergeant Ryan pitts received the president ial med dal of honor and i was there with at the ceremony and with his wife and his son, and when he was inducted in the hall the fame at the pentagon. I was very interested in his comments this morning on National Television when asked about his own care at the v. A. , that the care he has received in New Hampshire is has been very high quality. But i want to say for the record that every veteran deserves that care, and my time is coming up, but i do want to say that i hope you will pursue best practices because i think we have some exemplary care in New Hampshire and i would like to see that throughout the country. So thank you on that i yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Second, i apologize. Some members are going to have to depart to go to a Conference Committee meeting over in the Visitors Center which is at 12 00 noon. We tried everywhere we could to find a time that was agreeable for everybody, but im going to turn the chair over to to someone else at this time. Thank you for your service and candor and i look forward to continuing to work with you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i appreciate that. I recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Secretary, thank you for your service to our country. Mr. Second, are you aware of this incident that occurred on monday in orange county, florida, facility, where a marine, a veteran was actually waited for three hours for care, did not receive that care, and then he was subsequently locked into a facility during closing time, so it was inadvertent obviously . What are we going to do about this . This is accountability. Are you investigating this, will the people and straight tors be held accountable . All i know about it is what i read in the clippings this morning. It will be an object of intensive review to investigate what happened. Can you report back to me mr. Secretary with regard to that. Yes, sir, will do. I mean its outrageous as far as im concerned. You have directed that an independent external audit of v. A. Practices perform. What do you expect it to reveal . Has a contract been awarded and how long do you anticipate this to go on and then i have a couple of other questions. The contract has not been awarded yet which is why im in a position to be able to reveal the entity that we are working wi with. I believe once its announced the reaction will be they must be pretty serious about making sure this gets done right. Quite frankly it doesnt tell us anything that we dont already know. I hope it confirms that we now have in place are scheduling practices that are aligned to our policies. I think to some of the earlier questions that were asked about the need for some verification, were publishing wait time valid every two weeks, is it valid data and for one of issues is for us to look at the scheduling practicing, have independent review, determine that they are sound practices aligned with our policy and therefore weve got Credible Data for external consumption as well as for our own internal actions. What is the expected costs of the audit . I dont have a number for you. Ill take that for the record. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Again, with regard to the bonuses, have any bonuses been reskinned rescinded so far due to willful misconduct or negligence management . Can you answer that question . I will give you the best answer as i know it. There were some bonuses that were rescinded recently that were associated with administrative error. The law allows us to do that. Where there is a something is learned after the end of the performance period and after the performance contract has been officially the Performance Review has been officially approved, we dont legally have the ability to go back and change that performance evaluation and, therefore, claw back that particular bonus. We do have the ability to go and reduce salary and take other actions which would be the typical actions upon some subsequent learning of some subsequent information that affected performance du