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
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[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.