Strained VA hands out five-figure bonuses

[kentek]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put veterans' health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.

Congressional leaders on Thursday demanded that the Veterans Affairs secretary explain the hefty bonuses for senior department officials.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee on oversight, said he would hold hearings to investigate.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, who heads the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said the payments pointed to an improper "entitlement for the most centrally placed or well-connected staff." He has sent a letter to VA chief Jim Nicholson asking what the department plans to do to eliminate any bonuses based on favoritism.

"These reports point to an apparent gross injustice at the VA that we have a responsibility to investigate," said Mitchell, D-Arizona. "No government official should ever be rewarded for misleading taxpayers, and the VA should not be handing out the most lucrative bonuses in government as veterans are waiting months and months to see a doctor."

One member of the House committee, Rep. Phil Hare, D-Illinois, called for Nicholson to resign.

A list obtained by the AP of bonuses to senior career officials in 2006 documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among those receiving payments were a deputy assistant secretary and several regional directors who crafted the VA's flawed budget for 2005 based on misleading accounting. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.

Also receiving a top bonus was the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps manage a disability claims system that has a backlog of cases and delays averaging 177 days in getting benefits to injured veterans.

The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated -- if not deliberately misled taxpayers -- with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid the burgeoning Iraq war.

Annual bonuses to senior VA officials now average more than $16,000 -- the most lucrative in government. All bonuses are proposed by division chiefs, then approved by Nicholson.

A VA spokesman said the payments are necessary to retain hardworking career officials. "Rewarding knowledgeable and professional career public servants is entirely appropriate," spokesman Matt Burns said.

Several watchdog groups questioned the practice. They cited short-staffing and underfunding at VA clinics that have become particularly evident after recent disclosures of shoddy outpatient treatment of injured troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"Hundreds of thousands of our veterans remain homeless every day and hundreds of thousands more veterans wait six months or more for VA disability claim decisions," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. "The lavish amounts of VA bonus cash would be better spent on a robust plan to cut VA red tape."

In a letter to Nicholson, Akaka also asked the department to outline steps to address disparities in which Washington-based senior officials got higher payments than their counterparts elsewhere.

"Awards should be determined according to performance," said Akaka, D-Hawaii. "I am concerned by this generous pat on the back for those who failed to ensure that their budget requests accurately reflected VA's needs."

Burns, who said the department is reviewing Akaka's request, said many of the senior officials have the kind of experience that would be hard to replace.

"The importance of retaining committed career leaders in any government organization cannot be overstated," Burns said.

VA officials characterized the agency's Washington-based jobs as more difficult, often involving management of several layers of divisions that would justify the higher payments.

In 2006, the VA officials receiving top bonuses included Rita Reed, the deputy assistant secretary for budget, and William Feeley, a former VA network director who is now deputy undersecretary for health for operations and management.

Also receiving $33,000 was Ronald Aument, the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps oversee the strained and backlogged claims system that Nicholson now says is unacceptable.

In July 2005, the VA stunned Congress by suddenly announcing it faced a $1 billion shortfall after failing to take into account the additional cost of caring for veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The admission, which came months after the department insisted it was operating within its means and did not need additional money, drew harsh criticism from both parties and some calls for Nicholson's resignation.

In urging Nicholson to step down, Hare cited problems with accounting and data security that contributed to the loss of 26.5 million veterans' personal data last year.

"Time and time again, Secretary Nicholson, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, opted to offer political spin instead of preparing for the inevitable influx of new veterans entering the system," Hare said. "Veterans deserve a secretary that will fight for them."

The investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, determined the VA had used misleading accounting methods and claimed false savings of more than $1.3 billion, apparently because President Bush was not willing, at the time, to ask Congress for more money.

According to the White House Office of Personnel Management, roughly three of every four senior officials at the VA have received some kind of bonus each year. In recent years, the payment amount has steadily increased from being one of the lowest in government -- $8,120 in 2002 -- to the most generous -- $16,713 in 2005.

In contrast, just over half the senior officials at the Energy Department in 2005 received an average bonus of $9,064. Across all government agencies, about two-thirds of employees received bonuses, which averaged $13,814 in 2005, the most recent data available.

Wouldn't you like to get a bonus for sc***ing up your job? I've been taking my father to the VA for many years and I've noticed a steady decline in service and timeliness, mostly due to budget and staff cuts (the people are, by and large, dedicated and professional). Our local hospital used to have room for about 200 patients (it serves eastern Washington, northern Idaho and parts of Montana and Oregon). They now have 42 beds and vets commonly wait for six months for an appointment with a PA.

[Slug]

Good post kentek.
I don't know what to think sometimes.
I read this article about the VA, and then there will be another article that praises it.
Whatever the case may be, it's not right to short veterans.
I think about all of this, when recruiters come in to talk to my classes about the benefits of being in the military.

[CPangracs]

While those bonuses may seem exhorbitant, why is everyone so hot to slam workers who are being rewarded for a job well done? Why isn't anyone up in arms about the perks and pay raises those same congresspersons vote themselves in midnight sessions with the CSPAN cameras off?

Seriously, 33K is nothing in the scheme of even government jobs, and to keep good people in the government sector from being lured away by the private sector, IMHO, it is likely money well spent.

Believe it or not, not everybody in the VA hierarchy are bumbling idiots. I am a disabled vet, and I have a stake in what the VA does or doesn't do. Unless the people that rec'd bonuses can be identified as undeserving, I think this story ISN'T a story but for sour grapes and axes to grind.

Just my $.02

[dhuffjr]

I spent a week in a VA hospital in the lab as a student. I can tell you first hand they they were short staffed yet overstaffed at the same time. A little trimming in the employee department in some areas is/was overdue. I still remember the 30 minute breakfast breaks, followed up with an hour lunch break, and then the 15-30 minute afternoon "snack" breaks. There were so many people and so little work the long breaks was not a problem in the department I was training in. In the collections area they were so short and the employees refused to do phlebotomy to cover that the students were forced to essentially work for free 4 or more hours a day for their whole rotation, shortchanging their clinical learning experience.

There always are some who don't deserve a bonus they receive. Sounds like some agencies are using a bonus system to get around the government pay scale limits to try to retain employees. I don't think that is bad if you consider how much worse the VA would be if they lost a lot of those people to more attractive jobs.

[Centrix Vigilis]

Being a disabled service connected vet i use their services when required, other wize i go elswhere.... some of their staff is competent some are shitbags..

bureacracy is rampant and individual stellar achievement is also often found...

the drunks and the junkies and wacked's (in the substence abusive and mental health wards or domicillaries) making the poppies are cool and the little old ladies handing out coffee and cookies is good.

trade that off for the 2-4 hour wait to see ya Primary care physician, after a four hour drive to get there, or having him/her changed three times in a year without being notified..

like any fed agency it depends on location, director's budget usage at the service level etc...

sounds like the government...nothing new here