VA audit’s methods lead to questions

EARLIER this year, we wondered what officials were to make of an Oklahoma Department of Veteran Affairs audit that consisted mostly of hearsay and admitted “rumors.” Since then, more information has come out regarding that audit’s methods. It doesn’t bolster confidence.

The report, prepared by the office of the state auditor, found no financial mismanagement or illegality. Instead, it proclaimed a “culture of fear and intimidation” existed at the Oklahoma Department of Veteran Affairs, based in part on anonymous surveys of current and past employees. The audit argued better internal communication was needed.

ODVA officials subsequently sent a letter asking if the auditor’s office would provide the data in two separate reports, one regarding survey responses, comments and statistics associated with current agency employees and another dealing with former employees. Given that former employees may be disgruntled, it makes sense to give greater priority to the perceptions of people still working at the agency.

The ODVA’s general counsel made clear the agency does “not seek individual identities” and asked that the two reports be provided “in the same format previously furnished” to preserve respondents’ anonymity.

The agency also asked if the auditor’s office could be certain surveys were filled out by current and former agency employees, since the auditor’s office distributed a link to the survey electronically and “the transmittal encouraged recipients to forward the link to others.”

The auditor’s office responded that auditors didn’t “track employment status” and did not require participants to provide such information. Furthermore, auditors “do not track responses by email addresses” and respondents didn’t have to provide demographic information.

The auditor’s office conceded there was a “risk of multiple submissions” from participants, but said responses were limited to “one submission per IP address.” Thus, a person wanting to submit multiple responses would need to use different devices. No assurances were provided regarding the possibility the survey was forwarded to non-employees of the ODVA (such as employees’ friends or relatives) who then filled it out.

The IP limit would create only a slight, and hardly insurmountable, inconvenience for those wanting to submit multiple responses to skew survey results. And one hopes relatively little weight was placed on responses from a survey link emailed haphazardly to people who may or may not have been agency employees.

The state auditor, in his letter of response, insists survey responses were in line with data obtained via field work. If interested in current employees’ thoughts, the auditor advised that VA officials to “go straight to the source” and ask employees directly. That response reduces the value of the audit, which implied employees would be less forthcoming with agency leaders than with outside auditors.

The auditor’s office charged the agency $130,000 for the audit, money that could have otherwise gone to veteran care. For that sum, one expects more than unsecured email surveys and an “ask them yourself” response regarding associated survey data.