Improvements Needed to Ensure Final Disposition of Unclaimed Veterans’ Remains

The OIG examined whether VA has an effective governance structure for ensuring deceased veterans whose remains are unclaimed are interred with dignity in a final resting place, such as burial in a national cemetery. The review was initiated in response to reports that deceased veterans’ unclaimed remains were being kept in a funeral home’s storage for decades, and may be indicative of a nationwide problem. VA is required by law to ensure that deceased veterans without next of kin receive these burials. Yet, the responsibility for providing related benefits and services is dispersed among VA’s three administrations.The review team found ineffective governance in three key areas:• VA missed opportunities to collaborate with entities that tracked unclaimed remains to help identify deceased veterans or engage funeral homes and others to locate them. The review team identified more than 400 probable veterans with records in a Department of Justice database of unclaimed deceased persons. The team also noted 1,700 cases in which VA confirmed that veterans in an external database were eligible for burials, but could not demonstrate they had been interred.• The department could not identify potential fraud or duplicate payments for burial benefits and services because payments cannot be reconciled across administrations that can reimburse for similar services (for example, two administrations could reimburse the costs of transportation for interment at a national cemetery).• Oversight was hampered by the lack of a single VA office or executive responsible for coordinating approximately 27 offices that provide some benefits and services for these veterans.The result is the lack of an accurate count of veterans whose remains are unclaimed and the risk that those left unidentified could be placed in mass graves or stored for years unnoticed.VA concurred with the OIG’s 11 recommendations to address the issues identified.