I've been told by somebody who's been around longer than I have that there have always been backlogs at Veterans Affairs. I know when I arrived there were backlogs. I arrived in December 2013, and there were backlogs then. In those days, in 2014, we finished the year at about 36,000 files in adjudication. The backlog by memory was probably in the 6,000 to 7,000 range. Actually, it was a bit higher than that. We did a big push to bring it down.
As new programming comes in, more demands come in. I think I've told this committee here before that my personal calculation is that we will hit over 60,000 files in adjudication this year. I may be off by a couple, and please if I'm wrong don't...but I think we're going to be pretty close. Last year we had 52,000 and the backlog now is higher than the 6,000 it was. The backlog is just under 14,000.