Report 2009-108 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2009-108: California Department of Veterans Affairs: Although It Has Begun to Increase Its Outreach Efforts and to Coordinate With Other Entities, It Needs to Improve Its Strategic Planning Process, and Its CalVet Home Loan Program Is Not Designed to Address the Housing Needs of Some Veterans (Release Date: October 2009)

Recommendation #3 To: Veterans Affairs, Department of

Veterans Services should continue its efforts to pursue the SAIM system to enable it to monitor the quantity and quality of claims processed by the CVSOs, and ensure it meets legal requirements regarding auditing CVSO workload reports and verifying the appropriateness of college fee waivers. To the extent that Veterans Services is unsuccessful in implementing the SAIM system, the department will need to develop other avenues by which to meet its legal requirements.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From January 2016

CalVet has fully implemented the Subvention Accounting Information System (SAIS, named VetPro) to address this recommendation. All County Veteran Service Offices and the three Veteran Services Division District Offices have converted to VetPro.

VetPro gives CalVet the ability to expand its supervision of the claim activity down to the individual veteran representative filing the claim. CalVet is able to identify the quantity, quality and success rate of the claims being filed at the county level. This also allows CalVet to influence the quality of the claims and track outreach activities. In addition, this automated process will allow both CalVet and the counties to implement new changes from the VA systematically, which will reduce the training and lag time in getting these changes to the field. CalVet is also able to track the number of workload activities reported by each CVSO to provide a metric to track progress in increasing veterans' participation in C&P benefits.

CalVet monitors the quantity and quality of the CVSO claims through VetPro and the CalVet CVSO Auditor. The CalVet audit of the CVSO claims activities and verification of the appropriateness of college fee waivers fully meets legal requirements. The Veteran Services CVSO Auditor follows a very thorough and standardized procedure that has been solidified in a desk reference manual (completed December 23, 2015). The standardized audit process includes validation of the documents that are the basis of the workload activity reports including official forms and documents submitted for Subvention and Medi-Cal Cost Avoidance funding, as well as performing annual sample audits of both college fee waivers and other claims submitted by CVSOs for adherence to laws, policies, and procedures.

Completion Date: December 2015

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2015

CalVet has fully implemented the Subvention Accounting Information System (SAIS/SAIM) called VetPro to address this recommendation. All 57 counties with County Veteran Service Offices and the three Veteran Services Division District Offices have converted to VetPro.

VetPro gives CalVet the ability to expand its supervision of the claim activity down to the individual veteran representative filing the claim. This allows CalVet to properly audit workload units for subvention funding, influence the quality of the claims, and track outreach activities. In addition, this automated process will allow both CalVet and the counties to implement new changes from the VA systematically, which will reduce the training and lag time in getting these changes to the field.

The CalVet CVSO Auditor is currently implementing procedures for the audit functions to include periodic reviews of CVSO claims activities and College Fee Waiver Program. Written desk procedures for these processes will be completed by December 31, 2015. District Office staff continue to provide regular training and feedback to CVSOs including feedback on corrections made to incoming claims on a monthly basis, and will continue to provide training to all CVSOs at three training conferences each year.

Estimated Completion Date: December 2015

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Not Fully Implemented

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2013

(Note: While the BSA Report refers to this project as the SAIM, the official project title in the final FSR was revised to the Subvention Administration Information System (SAIS). To ensure consistency with other documents on the project the Department will only be referring to this project by the official title submitted in the FSR/RER)

CalVet completed the sponsored deployment of the Subvention Accounting Information System (SAIS) by arranging through the budget process for funding to offset most of the counties' implementation costs. CalVet also obtained the funding authority to offset participating counties' costs for ongoing operations and maintenance.

CalVet is now able to remotely perform audit functions for the counties that have implemented SAIS and is enhancing its audit capabilities by customizing logical functions in VetProWeb to provide additional automated reports to specifically identify workload reporting errors including duplicative college fee waiver issues. Additionally, because VetProWeb supports paperless claim files CalVet is now able to perform detailed review of case files in support of its audit functions.

Completion Date: March 2013

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Not Fully Implemented

In its response regarding the status of its implementation of this recommendation after the state auditor's report was published, CalVet asserted that it had fully implemented this recommendation. Based on our review of documentation provided by CalVet at that time, we assessed the recommendation as fully implemented. However, during a follow-up audit, which entailed a more in-depth review of actions CalVet has taken to address this recommendation, we found that CalVet has not fully implemented the recommendation. The state auditor issued its follow-up audit titled Follow-Up—California Department of Veterans Affairs: Better Collection and Use of Data Would Improve Its Outreach Efforts, and It Needs to Strengthen Its Oversight of County Veterans Service Officer Programs (Report 2015-505), in July 2015.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2012

CalVet is continuing to sponsor deployment of the Subvention Accounting Information System (SAIS) on a voluntary basis. CalVet is unable to make this conversion mandatory as that would invoke state mandated local program statutes requiring CalVet to fully reimburse counties for all implementation and use costs. CalVet has arranged through the budget process for funding to offset most of the counties' implementation costs, and will be seeking authority to fund to offset participating counties' costs for ongoing operations and maintenance.

As previously reported, an MOU was executed with the vendor for the SAIS software implementation. The specific software is known as VetProWeb. To date 50 out of 56 counties with CVSOs and the 3 Veterans Services Division District Offices have converted to SAIS. There are 2 additional counties currently in the implementation process. Those counties should be fully implemented by December 2012. The remaining counties have yet to make decisions regarding the transition.

Full implementation is dependent upon counties agreeing to participate in SAIS; CalVet anticipated having all 56 counties implemented by the close of FY 2011-12. Because implementation is not proceeding at the pace originally envisioned, CalVet is considering regulatory changes that would address its inability to fully audit non-participating counties' records.

Estimated Completion Date: June 2013

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Not Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2009-108

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.