Review of the Fiduciary Program’s Misuse Allegation Process

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to help protect vulnerable beneficiaries from fiduciaries’ misuse of their VA benefits payments. The OIG team examined whether fiduciary program staff in the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) took action that was consistent with governing guidance for about 1,600 misuse allegation cases completed from April 2024 through March 2025. Properly recording fiduciaries’ potential misuse of beneficiaries’ funds and investigating credible allegations against fiduciaries are vital to stopping financial abuse and reimbursing misused VA benefits to beneficiaries.

The OIG found that fiduciary program staff did not always accurately record the earliest date when misuse allegations were received and did not advance all allegations of potential misuse for investigation consistent with requirements. Contributing causes for these issues included staff’s confusion about applying unclear provisions from the VA Fiduciary Program Manual and incorrectly applying standards of evidence. The OIG team found there was no systematic national monitoring of misuse allegations to detect staff’s missteps. Without clearer guidance about how staff should record and investigate misuse allegations, the risk of financial abuse will continue undetected. In addition, comprehensive oversight of allegations about misuse of funds would provide greater assurance that staff are correctly managing misuse allegations.

The OIG made four recommendations to clarify and improve guidance so allegations about fiduciaries’ misuse of benefits are correctly recognized, recorded, processed, and advanced for investigation. The principal deputy under secretary for benefits concurred with all four recommendations. The OIG considers recommendation 4 closed and will close the remaining recommendations when VBA provides sufficient evidence that it has addressed the risks identified in the report.