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VA Investigating After Benefits Forms Found In Shred Bins

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By JOHN W. ALLMAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 23, 2008

TAMPA - The Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating how benefit claims documents nearly got destroyed at four regional offices, including Bay Pines Health Care System in St. Petersburg.

Officials have found 18 documents at the four offices that, if destroyed, would have negatively impacted veterans' claims.

Eight of the documents, including applications and change requests, were found in St. Petersburg in a bin of paper waiting to be shredded. None of them had been destroyed.

The regional office in St. Petersburg handles pension and disability claims for Florida's 1.8 million veterans, including veterans in Hillsborough County.

"Just the fact that we found the documents in these offices raises the concern, what has happened in the past," said Michael Walcoff, the department's deputy undersecretary for benefits in Washington. "It's something we're very, very concerned about."

The documents were identified during a routine audit of mailroom operations by the department's inspector general. Once vital records were found in shred bins in Detroit, St. Louis and Waco, Texas, the agency issued an order for all 57 regional benefits offices to stop shredding paper.

Inspectors are in St. Petersburg this week inspecting the mailroom bins, Walcoff said. The eight documents at Bay Pines were found last week by staff.

Officials at all other regional benefits offices are going through the contents of all shred bins to see if other claims documents exist.

The department in 2007 handled 900,000 claims across the country. On average, the agency receives 162 million pages of paper a year.

Walcoff said the department this week is discussing new safeguards to ensure vital records don't get shredded. Officials also are trying to determine how the documents ended up in the bins in the four offices.

"It's certainly a possibility the items were put there intentionally," he said.

Veterans can check on the status of their claims, and verify that all the information they submitted is on file, by contacting the department's call center at 800-827-1000.

Reporter John W. Allman can be reached at (813) 259-7915.

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