It must look like the studio audience at an Oprah show, some days at the Department of Veterans Affairs. “You get a bonus! You get a bonus! You get a bonus! Everyone gets a bonus!” According to the USA Today, in FY 2015, nearly 189,000 VA employees split a total of $177 million in bonuses. At the top, some 300 senior executives received $3.3 million alone, averaging about ten grand each. Those not so “senior” average averaged about $900 each.
In an agency plagued by construction cost overruns, waits of months and years for vets to receive treatment and clear evidence of a culture concealing wrongdoing and errors, why is anyone receiving a bonus? Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has introduced legislation that is intended to make changes at Veterans Affairs. “Instead of using bonuses as an award for outstanding work on behalf of our veterans, cash awards are seen as an entitlement and have become irrelevant to quality work product,” Miller has said.
Wages and salaries at the Department of Veterans Affairs are set by law with nearly all subject to Civil Service limits. Congress has permitted the VA to offer bonuses in an effort to retain outstanding employees who might otherwise leave for private jobs. The USA Today discovered that no executive at the VA has been rated as “Unacceptable” or “Minimally Successful”, the two lowest performance ratings, in the last four years. That is a remarkable record that every non-governmental employer would love to have in its executives.
The VA’s Merry Band of Bonus-Earners
Stella S. Fiotes, executive director of VA’s Office of Construction and Facilities Management, was seemingly not rated “Unacceptable” or “Minimally Successful”. Under her management, the VA facility under construction in Denver is $1.1 billion dollars over budget. In January 2015, she received a bonus of $8,959, and a year later her bonus went up, to $9,120.
Dr. Darren Deering, former chief of staff of the Phoenix VA Health Care System, received a bonus of $5,000 in February 2016. He was fired four months later for “negligent performance of duties and failure to provide effective oversight.”
In a November 13 editorial, the Miami Herald endorsed the Miller proposal. It would shorten the length of time required to discipline a VA employee, remove civil service protection from senior executives, add more protection for whistle blowers, and give the Secretary the authority to take back bonuses and relocation expenses from disciplined employees. The Herald states: “All of these actions are needed because the VA has proved time and again to have all the worst characteristics of a bureaucracy: Protection of the status quo at any cost with passive-aggressive tactics.”
The change in administration, with the incoming President’s promises to improve how America treats it veterans, holds out some hope of reform. Vested interests will fight much of this reform, however, and the outcome is unknown.
