Christopher Wilber, Counselor to the Inspector General
WASHINGTON, DC — Two pieces of new legislation would provide VA’s Office of the Inspector General with greater investigative power and employees with a better understanding of how OIG works and what their responsibilities are when asked for assistance by investigators.
The Strengthening Oversight for Veterans Act, which passed the Senate in April and the House in May, will provide the OIG with subpoena powers, allowing them to compel witnesses to participate in its investigations. While the OIG can currently force VA employees and contractors to testify, it has no authority on former employees. In some cases, employees connected to investigations have quit partially to avoid testifying.
OIG officials have also noted that VA is continuing to rely more heavily on community care, and that, not being federal employees, community providers cannot be compelled to participate in OIG investigations.
This lack of subpoena authority was highlighted in an OIG report released last year on the homicides of seven patients at the Clarksburg, WV, VAMC by a former VA nursing assistant. In the report, which examined the leadership failures that allowed the murder to continue undetected for so long, investigators noted that their lack of testimonial subpoena authority limited who they were able to interview.
“West Virginia veterans have experienced the horrific impacts of top-down VA leadership failures,” declared Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on the bill’s passage in the Senate. “The OIG currently does not have testimonial subpoena powers, which resulted in the OIG having limited authority during the Clarksburg VAMC investigation. Our bipartisan legislation addresses this oversight.”
Another piece of legislation would help OIG by giving VA employees a better understanding of what the watchdog organization does, what their rights are as employees when it comes to contacting them, and what their responsibilities are during the course of OIG investigations.
Respond Openly
The VA OIG Training Act, which passed the House in May, would mandate that all VA employees complete training on their duty to respond honestly, promptly, and fully to OIG requests for information. It would also allow the inspector general to send at least two messages a year through VA’s email system to all personnel on how to engage with OIG in reporting wrongdoing.
“While the vast majority of the OIG’s interactions with VA personnel are positive and appropriate, there have been instances in which the OIG has been informed that staff has been told they cannot share information with OIG investigators without first clearing it through supervisors or leaders–contrary to the Inspector General Act of 1978,” explained Christopher Wilber, counselor to the inspector general, in his written testimony to the House VA Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. “[Also,] in several instances, VA personnel have provided incomplete, significantly delayed, or misleading information to the OIG.”
One example Wilber gave was a recent OIG investigation into the training that VA employees received on the new electronic health record system. During that investigation, staff at the Office of Electronic Health Record Management initially provided what appeared to be misleading summaries of the data instead of the underlying raw data that OIG requested.
“The training the OIG has developed and what would ultimately be required by [this bill] might have prevented the issue because it would empower VA employees by making them aware of their duties and responsibilities.”
The twice-yearly emails would be equally important to helping OIG, Wilber said.
“Anyone can be a key to reporting—whether it is the person cleaning a VA facility, checking in patients or providing VA care and services,” he declared. “But many VA personnel do not report serious misconduct, failed systems, and suspected crimes in a timely manner—in part because they lack a basic understanding of the OIG’s authority and their duty to cooperate with the OIG.”
The VA has come out against the bill, saying that it’s unnecessary, since secretary McDonough signed a directive in September 2021 mandating that employees complete one-time OIG training.
“We are now in the process of memorializing these actions in a VA handbook. We are working on that now,” VA Deputy Assistant Secretary Harvey Johnson told the subcommittee in April. “We do believe this will be permanent and irreversible. That’s why we don’t believe the legislation is necessary at this time.”
However, Wilber later noted during that hearing that placing the training requirement in a handbook would not guarantee its permanence as part of VA guidelines.
“Future secretaries can rescind this directive, even if put in a handbook,” he told committee members. “The VA directives can be changed. And our recent experience in OIG, both with a prior secretary and a prior acting secretary, showed that not all VA leaders share the same commitment to our mission and our oversight that the current secretary may demonstrate.”
