TITLE: B-304718, Veterans Benefits Administration--Refreshments for Focus Groups, November 9, 2005
BNUMBER: B-304718
DATE: November 9, 2005
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B-304718, Veterans Benefits Administration--Refreshments for Focus Groups, November 9, 2005

   Decision

   Matter of: Veterans Benefits Administration--Refreshments for Focus Groups

   File: B-304718

   Date:  November 9, 2005

   DIGEST

   To fulfill its statutory mission, the Veterans Benefits Administration
   (VBA), Department of Veterans Affairs, conducts focus groups in which
   veterans and their families participate. VBA asks whether it may use
   appropriated funds to pay for incentives in the form of refreshments or
   light meals to increase participation in and the effectiveness of focus
   groups. VBA may reasonably determine administratively that providing such
   incentives encourages participation in and improves the quality of
   information gleaned from focus groups, and accordingly may use
   appropriated funds to pay for such incentives. VBA should provide
   incentives pursuant to an enforceable policy that ensures incentives are
   provided only when necessary and appropriate.

   DECISION

   The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) of the Department of Veterans
   Affairs (VA) has requested an advance decision under 31 U.S.C. sect. 3529
   on whether it may use appropriated funds to pay for incentives in the form
   of refreshments or light meals, as a means to attract veterans and their
   families to VBA focus groups, and to encourage participation in and
   improve the quality and reliability of the feedback from the focus groups.
   VBA conducts focus groups, to satisfy a requirement in 38 U.S.C. sect.
   527(a) that VA "measure and evaluate" its programs. We would not object to
   a VBA administrative determination that providing such an incentive to
   veterans and their families encourages their participation in and improves
   the quality of information gleaned from focus groups. Accordingly, based
   on such a determination, VBA may use appropriated funds to purchase the
   refreshments.

   BACKGROUND

   In recent years, to aid in its customer service efforts, VBA has been
   conducting focus groups wherein veterans and members of veterans' families
   provide feedback on VBA benefit programs and how they might be improved.
   Letter from James W. Bohmbach, Chief Financial Officer, VBA, to Susan
   Poling, Associate General Counsel, GAO, Feb. 11, 2005, at 2 (hereinafter
   Bohmbach Letter). VBA solicits feedback under direction of 38 U.S.C. sect.
   527(a), which requires that the agency "measure and evaluate ... all
   programs authorized under this title, in order to determine their
   effectiveness in achieving stated goals in general, and in achieving such
   goals in relation to their cost, their effect on related programs, and
   their structure and mechanisms for delivery of services." Id. While VBA
   obtains information from a variety of sources, including mail or internet
   surveys and telephone interviews, VBA has determined that use of focus
   groups, in many circumstances, is the best method of gathering this
   feedback. [1] Id. Focus group participants are not VBA employees but are
   veterans and family members of veterans served by VBA. Id. VBA usually
   pays the veterans and their family members who participate $50 each for
   their participation. Id.

   It is a common practice in the private sector for refreshments or light
   meals to be served to focus group participants as an incentive for
   participation and as a means to facilitate greater communication within
   the group. Richard A. Krueger and Mary Anne Casey, Focus Groups: A
   Practical Guide for Applied Research at 104 (3d ed. 2000). Referring to
   this practice, VBA argues that the provision of refreshments to the
   veterans and members of their families who participate in focus groups is
   very helpful both in attracting these participants and getting useful
   information from the focus group. Bohmbach Letter at 2-3. VBA also argues
   that because focus groups are held near the dinner hour, participation
   levels would be drastically lower if VBA did not provide refreshments or
   light meals as an additional incentive. Id. at 2. VBA states that allowing
   participants to leave the group for dinner and then return would disrupt
   the group dynamic and add considerable time to the event. Id. Finally, VBA
   stresses that providing refreshments relaxes participants, facilitating
   the flow of required information. Id. at 3-4.

   VBA has asked if it may use funds appropriated for VA's General Operating
   Expenses[2] to provide refreshments or light meals for the non-employee
   participants in VBA focus groups as an incentive for participation, and as
   a means to more effectively carry out its statutory mandate.

   ANALYSIS

   Appropriated funds generally are not available for personal expenditures,
   such as refreshments. B-247966, June 16, 1993. However, in circumstances
   similar to the present case, we held that agencies may use appropriations
   to provide incentives to the general public when these incentives help to
   produce information necessary to the achievement of the agency's statutory
   goals. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
   (NOAA), exercising its statutory responsibility to conduct research to
   measure the availability and abundance of fish, tagged stocks of fish and
   asked fishermen to return to NOAA any tags found on fish they caught. To
   increase the return rate, and thus enhance its research, NOAA proposed to
   use its appropriations to pay a reward of $5 for each returned tag. We
   concluded that although in other circumstances the $5 reward might be seen
   as a personal gift barred by our decisions on personal items, NOAA's
   appropriation was available to make the rewards in these circumstances
   because the rewards were reasonably necessary to the accomplishment of
   NOAA's research. The rewards provided an incentive to the public to return
   fish tags that they might otherwise collect, display, or discard. 70 Comp.
   Gen. 720, 721--22 (1991).

   In another case, the General Services Administration (GSA) proposed to use
   appropriations to pay for prizes in a drawing held in connection with
   customer satisfaction surveys. B-286536, Nov. 17, 2000. GSA, responsible
   for the operation, maintenance, and protection of most government
   buildings, is required to survey the public building needs of federal
   agencies. 40 U.S.C. sections 611(a), (b). For several years, GSA had
   attempted to collect such information through customer satisfaction
   surveys of employees of its tenant agencies. Faced with a declining
   response rate, GSA proposed to offer prizes to individuals who completed
   and submitted the survey. Like NOAA's rewards, GSA's prizes in other
   circumstances would be viewed as personal gifts. We concluded that in
   these circumstances, GSA's appropriation was available to cover the cost
   of the prizes. B-286536, Nov. 17, 2000. Clearly, because of GSA's
   statutory mission regarding public buildings, it was necessary for GSA to
   collect sound information about the status of federal buildings and the
   needs of federal employees. Id. We found that GSA, using incentives, could
   encourage employees to participate in surveys they might otherwise ignore,
   thereby providing GSA with information vital to its statutory mission.[3]
   Id. Because there was a "direct connection" between the purpose with which
   GSA was statutorily tasked and "the use of prizes to increase the response
   rate" to GSA surveys, GSA could use appropriated funds for such purposes.
   Id.

   In both of these cases, the agencies established the need for incentives
   to stimulate production of information necessary to effectively carry out
   the agency's responsibilities, thereby justifying as a necessary expense
   the expenditure of appropriated funds. In a similar vein, VBA would like
   to use an incentive to stimulate the production of information. As
   discussed above, VBA uses focus groups to gather information from its
   constituents regarding its programs, pursuant to its statutory mandate
   under 38 U.S.C. sect. 527(a). VBA has determined that focus groups are an
   effective tool to obtain such information. Bohmbach Letter at 2. VBA
   points to several factors that suggest a significant benefit inuring to
   the government from offering food as an incentive.

   VBA notes that because many potential focus group participants work during
   the day, the time when VBA has the best chance of assembling a
   representative group is in the early evening, which is, of course, the
   time of day when most people usually eat dinner. Bohmbach Letter at 2.
   While VBA does provide $50 to participants, the incentive provided by an
   offer of refreshments serves to draw participants during the dinner
   hour.[4] Holding a focus group at a mealtime and providing the meal is a
   common incentive for recruiting participants. Thomas L. Greenbaum, The
   Practical Handbook and Guide to Focus Group Research at 113-14 (1990). See
   also David L. Morgan, Planning Focus Groups at 37 (1998) ("[i]f you are
   holding a session at the dinner hour, you must provide food for
   participants"); David W. Stewart and Prem N. Shamdasani, Focus Groups:
   Theory and Practice at 55 (1990).

   VBA also states that the offer of food produces better results for VBA in
   the form of increased levels of conversation and creation of an
   "atmosphere most conducive for information collection." Bohmbach Letter at
   2-4; Morgan, supra at 37. VBA points out that when participants receive
   refreshments, they are more relaxed and comfortable, and the quality of
   information VBA receives is enhanced. Bohmbach Letter at 2-4. Thus, by
   offering refreshments as an incentive for non-employee veterans and their
   families to participate in focus groups, VBA also reaps a material benefit
   in the quality of information it receives, enhancing VBA's ability to
   fulfill its statutory mission.

   To the extent VBA concludes that it needs to offer refreshments and light
   meals as an incentive to maximize participation by nonemployee veterans
   and their families in focus groups to fulfill its statutory requirement,
   we have no objection to VBA's use of its appropriated funds to do so.
   Whether the expenditure is reasonably necessary to carry out an authorized
   function or, as here, will contribute materially to the effective
   accomplishment of that function is, in this first instance, a matter for
   the informed use of agency discretion. Our review of such discretionary
   judgments is deferential, inquiring, among other things, whether the
   relationship of the proposed expenditure to the appropriation is so
   attenuated as to take the proposed expenditure beyond the agency's
   legitimate range of discretion. B-301367, Oct. 23, 2003. VBA's
   determination in these circumstances is not so attenuated as to be beyond
   the legitimate range of VBA's discretion.

   We caution, however, that VBA should provide incentives pursuant to an
   appropriate, enforceable policy with procedures for approval. Such a
   policy should ensure that incentives are only provided when necessary and
   are used strictly for nonemployee focus groups (not for internal employee
   meetings or focus groups). Procedures should include appropriate approval
   mechanisms to ensure that the policy is adhered to. This policy will
   ensure that VBA judiciously uses its appropriation when providing
   incentives at focus groups.

   CONCLUSION

   If VBA determines that providing incentives in the form of refreshments or
   light meals to nonemployee veterans and their families encourages
   participation in and improves the quality of information gleaned from
   focus groups, we would not object to its use of appropriated funds for
   this purpose.

   /signed/

   Anthony H. Gamboa

   General Counsel

   ------------------------

   [1] VBA believes that focus groups have some distinct benefits. For
   example, moderators can ask hypothetical questions and participants can
   express detailed opinions and raise issues that the researchers did not
   anticipate. Bohmbach Letter at 2.

   [2] These funds are available "[f]or necessary operating expenses of [VA],
   not otherwise provided for, including administrative expenses in support
   of department-wide capital planning, management and policy activities."
   Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-447, 118 Stat.
   2809, 3289 (Dec. 8, 2004). VBA is presently funded by a continuing
   resolution that expires on November 18, 2005. Joint Resolution Making
   Continuing Appropriations for the Fiscal Year 2006, and for Other
   Purposes, Pub. L. No. 109-77, 119 Stat. 2037 (2005).

   [3] The employees involved in the GSA drawing were not GSA employees, but
   employees of other agencies, and were "under no statutory, regulatory, or
   employment-related requirement" to participate in the survey; they did not
   receive prizes for something they were already required to do. B-286536,
   Nov. 17, 2000. The participants in the VBA focus groups are not government
   employees. Rather, they are veterans and veterans' families served by VBA.
   Bohmbach Letter at 2.

   [4] Independent commentators advise that scheduling focus groups near the
   dinner hour can be critical for the focus group's success. See, e.g.,
   David L. Morgan, Planning Focus Groups at 101 (1998). The blocks of time
   that are likely to be convenient for participants are "roughly from 5:00
   to 7:00 and 7:00 to 9:00." Id.