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GAO-12-20R 1 (2011-10-27)

handle is hein.gao/gaobacfkw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: GAO Acona ity * Integrity * Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 October 27, 2011 Subject: VA Philippines Office: Maintain Operations, but More Information Needed to Determine Future Presence Congressional Committees The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) operates a regional office in the Republic of the Philippines-the only one of its 57 regional offices that is located in a foreign country. Over the last two decades, Congress has periodically reauthorized the office for an average of 3 years each time. The Philippines was a U.S. territory prior to World War II and was granted independence in 1946. Congress authorized limited benefits for Filipino veterans who served under the command of the United States during the war, and authorized VA to operate a regional office to administer these benefits. In 1958, the office expanded to include an outpatient health clinic. VA estimates that about 18,000 Filipino WWII veterans were alive as of 2010, down from an estimated 452,000 in 1977. In light of this declining population eligible for benefits, maintaining the office may no longer be warranted at some point. Public Law 111-275 extended the authority for VA to operate this office until December 31, 2011, and directed GAO to submit this report. Our objectives are to (1) describe the primary activities undertaken by the VA regional office in the Philippines, and (2) identify the estimated costs and benefits of maintaining this office in its current location versus moving its activities to the U.S. To address these objectives, we * reviewed VA's historical, current, and projected office workloads; * visited the Philippines office and observed its activities; * reviewed relevant reports from VA, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Department of State (State); * interviewed officials from VA, SSA, and State in the Philippines and in the U.S.; and * reviewed VA's actual costs for operating the Philippines office and its estimated costs for conducting some of the office's activities in the U.S. We reviewed these data and determined they were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. We conducted this performance audit from February 2011 to October 2011 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. GAO-1 2-20R VA Philippines Office

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