How do you mistakenly spend billions of dollars?
The Inspector General for the Veterans Administration, says the VA's payment system is so flawed that the agency lost 2.2 billion dollars in 2012.
That comes at a time when veterans wait extended periods for medical treatment, job training and education.
That's in spite of more scrutiny from the Inspector General's Office and VA money managers.
VA brass blames the mistakes on an out-of-date, manual payment system.
Brad Kalbfeld is with our investigative media partner, the Washington Guardian.
"To get a handle on the scale of this, the amount of money the veterans Administration made in improper payments last year is more than half the money the Navy was asked to cut from its expenditures as part of the sequester," Kalbfeld explained.
The Inspector General says once an erroneous payment is made, it's nearly impossible for the VA to recover it, constrained by both law and ability.
How long will it take for the VA to clean up it's payment mess? The answer can be found by going to the link to the Washington Guardian on our home page.
