A criminal investigation is underway after 69 boxes of Arlington National Cemetery burial records were discovered June 10 in an abandoned storage unit in Northern Virginia.

The discovery, made public at a House hearing on Thursday, raises privacy issues and is another sign of management problems at the Army-run cemetery.

Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s veterans disability and memorial affairs panel, who disclosed the records discovery, said the boxes include copies of grave cards used to record burials that appear to have been given to a contractor who was supposed to help create a database of burials.

What happened to the contractor and why the records were left in a public storage unit is unclear, Runyan said, adding that the subcommittee was notified when the records were found.

However, he described himself as “less pleased with the lack of follow up and public disclosure.”

Kathryn Condon, executive director of the Army National Cemeteries Program, said the Army learned of the misplaced records when the owner of the public storage facility called a cemetery hotline. Army criminal investigators seized the files, and a determination was made there was a “low” risk of privacy concerns because little personal information appeared on the cards, she said.

A major U.S. Army survey of leadership and morale found that more than 80 percent of Army officers and sergeants had directly observed a “toxic” leader in the last year and that about 20 percent of the respondents said that they had worked directly for one.

The survey of about 22,000 Army leaders was conducted by the Center for Army Leadership and comes during a year when the Army has removed or discipline three brigade commanders who were en route to, or returning from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Selection to command a combat brigade, which consists of about 5,000 soldiers and is commanded by a colonel, is highly competitive in the Army.

The survey also found that 97 percent of officers and sergeants had observed an “exceptional leader” within the Army in the past year.

The Army defined toxic leaders as commanders who put their own needs first, micro-managed subordinates, behaved in a mean-spirited manner or displayed poor decision making.

About half of the soldiers who worked under toxic leaders expected that their selfish and abusive commanders would be promoted to a higher level of leadership.

“This may create a self-perpetuating cycle with harmful and long-lasting effects on morale, productivity and retention of quality personnel,” the survey concluded. “There is no indication that the toxic leadership issue will correct itself.”

The Army began conducting annual surveys of its leaders in 2005 to determine trends in morale, the overall quality of leadership and the willingness of Army leaders to stay in the military until retirement.

The strain of combat in Afghanistan, which has seen an increase of about 65,000 troops since President Obama took office, did not appear to cause a major drop in morale. Overall, about 43 percent of active-duty Army leaders serving in Afghanistan reported high morale in 2010, compared with 47 percent in 2009.

About 55 percent of Army leaders in the United States reported high morale in 2010, down from 63 percent in 2009, a sign that some leaders, accustomed to repeated battlefield tours, may be chafing at the regimented and rule-oriented nature of garrison life as the pace of combat deployment slows.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who was recently selected to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has led a series of initiatives aimed a producing quicker-thinking and more flexible Army leaders.

As part of that effort, the Army is exploring whether subordinates’ views should be factored into the evaluations of commanders being considered for higher-level posts.

“We are looking at the command selection process asking how can we introduce 360-degree evaluations,” Dempsey said in a meeting with reporters this spring. “We can ask a battalion commander, does the senior commander [over him] engender a climate of trust.” Such an approach could help weed out toxic leaders.

Army officers and enlisted leaders have spent much of the last decade shuffling between the war zones and home. It is not unusual for sergeants to have taken part in as many as three or four combat tours in the past decade.