Veterans Benefits Administration: Better Staff Attrition Data and Analysis Needed

By the year 2006, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) projects it will lose a significant portion of its mission-critical workforce to retirement. Since fiscal year 1998, VBA has hired over 2,000 new employees to begin to fill this expected gap. GAO was asked to review, with particular attention for new employees, (1) the attrition rate at VBA and the soundness of its methods for calculating attrition and (2) whether VBA has adequate data to effectively analyze the reasons for attrition. To answer these questions, we obtained and analyzed attrition data from VBA's Office of Human Resources, calculated attrition rates for VBA and other federal agencies using a government-wide database on federal employment, and interviewed VBA officials about their efforts to measure attrition and determine why new employees leave.