The VA Inspector General and members of the House Veterans Oversight Subcommittee are questioning $24 million awarded in bonuses by the VA to technology office employees over the course of only two years. Some individual bonuses were more than $70,000. During just the last fiscal year, VA executives received more than $4.3 million in bonuses.
At a subcommittee hearing Wednesday morning, Subcommittee Chair Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) said, "We all know that the Department of Veterans Affairs has some of the hardest working and dedicated employees. However, there are concerns about the VA bonus process and how the VA matches pay to individual and organizational performance."
This scrutiny comes after two Inspector General (IG) reports cited "abuses" and "questionable circumstances" such as nepotism, abuse of authority, improper hiring, and inappropriate employee relationships in investigations of VA bonuses. WSLS Channel 10 in Virginia also uncovered issues with the way performance bonuses are awarded after obtaining VA salary data through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).
Lawmakers at the hearing specifically urged the VA to tie bonuses to performance tied directly to providing better services to veterans. Mitchell says the Subcommittee is very concerned about the recent report findings and wants to "ensure that these reports don't point to a potentially bigger problem within the [VA]."
Deputy VA Secretary Scott Gould told the Subcommittee that recently revised rules reduces the cap on bonuses to $30,000, but Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) pointed out that he represents a district where the unemployment rate is as high as 17 percent in some areas. He says the VA should keep economic conditions in mind when setting bonuses, because "that is more money than a lot of people see in a year."
According to WSLS, Steve Bast, who recently retired from the Roanoke VA Regional Office, says VA employees who process claims receive performance awards when they significantly exceed claim-processing performance requirements, which, he says, means reaching decisions on claims whether those decisions are approvals, denials, or requests for more evidence.
Critics charge that a quantitative-only measure of performance for those who process claims leads to faulty processing, long delays for VA services, and a higher number of appeals, which in the long run could cost the VA more. These critics want to see qualitative measures added to the performance bonus system to ensure that claims are not just processed quickly but also correctly.
Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) says, "The members of congress who were [at the hearing] felt strongly that bonuses should be secondary to getting the backlog of claims processed ... Even in the cases where performance bonuses were warranted, the veterans should be taken care of first."
Adam Bozzi, a spokesperson for Mitchell's office said on Thursday, "Veterans should have confidence that VA funding is going to provide the best services and that bonuses will not be tied to inappropriate measures."
The IG reports are available here and here.
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Mr. Regean the People are the Government and the People ARE NOT THE PROBLEM !!!!!!!!!
And now, now that they have left the uniformed services with the singularily honorable distinction of being a "Veteran," their paperwork for the programs, care, and assistance promised them during -and for- their service, is being processed by people who are encouraged to 'work fast' [in order to earn personal bonuses]? Accuracy is secondary to the goal of rapidly getting the claims filed and out of the 'pipeline'? How disgusting.
The veteran is paid lip-service by the nation as to how 'important' they are, 'valuable' they are, 'revered' they are - the actions (and/or inactions) of the VA 'authorities' and processors have managed to make it all about their [personal] pockets, not about the veteran. There's something wrong with that picture. Terribly wrong.
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And reading that the "recently revised rules reduces the cap on bonuses to $30,000" doesn't give too many warm fuzzies, either. An E-5 with between 6 and 8 years of active duty, has a base pay of $2,405 a month. The 'lowered' cap on bonuses is more than that service member's full-year's base salary!
If the VA could recover these bonuses paid on flimsy pretext, that money could go to under funded programs at VAMC & VAOPC's.
These are people who not only sacrifice their own lives, but live through the deaths of countless numbers of comerades-in-arms and yet continue to put themselves in harm's way every single day so that ... what was it? Oh, right, so we're fighting them over there and not over here.
To spend that amount of money on bonuses is appalling. VA employees could still receive very generous bonuses of thousands and thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands even, but those millions should be going into the treatment of our veterans, not the pockets of technology officers and executives.
I know, I know, "If we don't pay them they won't perform!" Well, I know personally that such a misconception is not always the case. I volunteer with Organizing for America and work damn hard for absolutely no money at all. I can't deduct my volunteering hours from taxes, despite what some underinformed people say [that's only 501(c)(3) orgs and we are a 501(c)(4)]. I could spend the time working at a job to get paid, but I am privileged to have the spare time to work on what I see as bettering the nation.
If all that work goes towards padding the bank accounts of VA executives, then stop the country because I want to get off.
With respect,
Alex Brant-Zawadzki
Volunteer
Organizing for America