{"id":14223,"date":"2016-07-15T09:57:22","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T13:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=14223"},"modified":"2016-07-15T09:57:25","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T13:57:25","slug":"barrar-rips-depasquale-over-va-audit-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=14223","title":{"rendered":"Barrar rips DePasquale over VA audit report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1232\" src=\"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/BarrarDePasquale-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"BarrarDePasquale\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" \/>A local State Representative is taking state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale to task over his audit of care for the commonwealth&#8217;s military veterans.<\/p>\n<p>DePasquale&#8217;s office audited the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and cited various issues with waiting lists, admissions and other issues preventing Pennsylvania&#8217;s veterans from getting the medical care they need.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThis audit exposes flaws at the DMVA that led to delayed care to Pennsylvania veterans,\u201d DePasquale said. \u201cWe identified problems in its waiting list and admission procedures as well as deficiencies in how staff at veterans\u2019 homes handle complaints about resident care and living situations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But Stephen Barrar (R-160), a U.S. Navy veteran and Majority Chair of the\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee said Thursday that DePasquale&#8217;s analysis was based on a wild assumptions and a handful of clerical errors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe auditor general\u2019s claims that the care and treatment of veterans was affected by limited clerical errors is outrageous and his comments smack of grandstanding,\u201d Barrar said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">DePasquale argued last week that the state&#8217;s six facilities were regularly making errors when it came to waiting lists.\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">DePasquale argues that\u00a0DMVA\u2019s &#8220;outdated and inflexible&#8221; policies have led to state veterans homes not administering waiting lists consistently at all six homes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cReviewing a one-day snap shot, we found 14 veterans were in the wrong order on the waiting lists,\u201d DePasquale said. \u201cBecause of our audit, DMVA fixed these 14 errors. However, unless DMVA improves its oversight and monitoring of waiting lists, other veterans could be affected.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Barrar countered by suggesting the audit was fr too limited in scope and didn&#8217;t show the real picture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important to point out that the audit did not review the state veterans\u2019 homes strategic plan or studies of bed allocations so the auditor general\u2019s references about lack of planning on the part of DMVA were simply sensational comments he made that were not based on any facts uncovered by the audit,\u201d added Barrar.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A local State Representative is taking state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale to task over his audit of care for the commonwealth&#8217;s military veterans. DePasquale&#8217;s office audited the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and cited various issues with waiting lists, admissions and other issues preventing Pennsylvania&#8217;s veterans from getting the medical care they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4047,5346,5347,485],"class_list":["post-14223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-audit","tag-auditor-general","tag-stephen-barrar","tag-veterans-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14224,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14223\/revisions\/14224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}