The Veterans Affairs Department is spending millions on employment call centers where workers have handled as few as one or two calls a day eversince the facilities opened in October 2011, according to a recent inspector general report.
The two centers are operated and staffed by a private contractor and were opened to increase the number of veterans working for the department. However, the June 25 report concluded the department acquired “excess services” toward its goal and in fact turned the centers into 24/7 operations despite the low volume.
The centers handled an average of 180 calls a day -- equal to about 2.4 per operator – through December 2012.
The highest daily-call average was in July 2012 when operators handled an average of 4.5 calls a day, according to the 21-page report.
The average number dropped to 2.3 calls daily by September. But the department officials still decided the next month to expand hours of operation to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week based on contractor projections.
The average number of calls per operator dropped to 1.4 by December 2012. And one call for every 12 projected was made over the next 13 months -- an overestimate of more than 1,000 percent, according to FierceGoverment.com.
The centers are overseen by the department’s Veteran Employment Services Office, established in July 2011 to recruit and retain more veteran employees. They were established by the department expanding an agreement with the Office of Personnel Management.
The report concluded the over-expansion was the result of the VESO failing to routinely request call data from the contractor.
The department spent $2.2 million in 2012 on the centers and is projected to spend at least $13.1 million through fiscal 2015, which brings the total to an estimated $15.3 million.
The report is among the latest to find high costs and inefficiency within the department. In March, roughly 70 percent of veterans' claims took longer than 125 days to process while the department’s budget has increased by about 40 percent over the past four years.
The IG report also found the employment services office awarded a one-year, $4.4 million contract for human resources support services that in fact “duplicated VESO’s own internal capacities.”
The agency’s acting Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration Rafael Torres said in the report the agency will take corrective action and that it will likely spend less than the projected $4.4 million on human resource efforts.
The report said the excessive acquisitions occurred because the department’s Office of Human Resources and Administration “did not conduct a thorough analysis to justify the need for the services.”
Read more: Audit: Workers at costly Veterans Affairs job center took average of 2 calls a day | Fox News
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, there's a government run program that's efficient and profitable.
Now if we can only figure out how to arrive in that locale.
Senator Tom Coburn had documented government waste for a number of years. It's almost inconceivable.
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, there's a government run program that's efficient and profitable.
Now if we can only figure out how to arrive in that locale.
Senator Tom Coburn had documented government waste for a number of years. It's almost inconceivable.
Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in “Wastebook 2012” include:
• Tax loopholes for the National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL) and Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) – professional sports leagues that generate billions of dollars annually in profits ($91 million in taxes)
• Moroccan pottery classes (part of a $27 million grant from U.S. Agency for International Development)
• Efforts to promote caviar consumption and production ($300,000)
• Robotic squirrel named “RoboSquirrel” (part of a $325,000 grant from the National Science Foundation)
• Promotion of specialty shampoo and other beauty products for cats and dogs ($505,000)
• Corporate welfare for the world’s largest snack food producer, PepsiCo Inc. ($1.3 million)
• Government-funded study on how golfers might benefit from using their imagination, envisioning the hole is bigger than it actually is ($350,000)
• “Prom Week,” a video game that allows taxpayers to relive prom night ($516,000)
• Oklahoma’s layover boondoggle, a scarcely used airport in Oklahoma receiving nearly half-a-million in taxpayer dollars only to transfer funds elsewhere in the state ($450,000)
• The 2012 Alabama Watermelon Queen tour paid for in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “to promote the consumption of Alabama’s watermelon through appearances of the Alabama Watermelon Queen at various events and locations” ($25,000)
Read the $18 billion summary here: http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public...&File_id=77c257a6-adc8-4e38-87a5-85c86d7ed4a5
Can you just imagine the waste in government spending? No, I don't think we really can . . .
Thoughts?
the point pf programs like that are not to actually help people,but to employ people in someones home district in order to boost favorability.just think about it,if they increased efficiency,they wouldnt get more money to hire more people to do nothing,thats how the game works.
Why does nobody complain about the contractor stealing from the taxpayer, but the government for letting itself be ripped off?
This is the challenge with both parties. They all do it. They like to gripe and spit and point fingers at the "OTHER" side, but never admit they are doing the same thing.
I've had a number of email exchanges and telephone conversations with my Representative and my Senators on this very subject. Sometimes effective, sometimes just the usual political lies. It's frustrating.
I guess, if you are serious with this statement, I'd only say, it's usually the responsibility of the one paying the bill, to be the more responsible party. I mean, if you got a five thousand dollar bill for a haircut, you'd pay it and then bad mouth the cosmetologist for stealing your money??
yikes.
Can you just imagine the waste in government spending? No, I don't think we really can . . .
Thoughts?
Can you just imagine the waste in government spending? No, I don't think we really can . . .
Thoughts?
Anecdote: the mother's milk of conservative thought.
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