A high-ranking Department of Veterans Affairs official defended the agency’s decision to reinstate two embattled VA employees Monday, months after an inspector general accused the pair of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government.
“This is being done as a reflection of my confidence in both of them,” Sloan Gibson, deputy secretary of the VA, told reporters on a conference call Monday afternoon.
Gibson slammed the VA watchdog for what he has characterized as an unfair report that cost Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves, the two regional managers in question, their reputations.
“I’ve been very critical of this particular report,” Gibson said. “Right now I’m quite frustrated with the IG.”
Gibson has repeatedly criticized the inspector general for laying out allegations against Rubens and Graves that he said were not supported by the evidence he reviewed.
According to the report, which was made public in September, Rubens and Graves manipulated an employee relocation program by creating vacancies for themselves in far-away cities and collecting $400,00 in moving benefits to fill those positions.
Both officials invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing about the alleged fraud in November.
While VA leaders have acknowledged Rubens and Graves’ actions created the appearance of impropriety and have vowed to issue some sort of disciplinary action at some point, they have declined to recover the relocation benefits or remove either employee from management positions. Rubens and Graves returned to work Monday.
“The IG continues to produce reports that are based on information that’s a year old, that’s 18 months old, two years old,” Gibson said. “And quite frankly, when stories get written about those particular IG reports, they don’t happen to mention the fact that this was in the middle of 2014.”
“I hope you guys have figured out by now, I’m going to call it like I see it,” he added.
Pressed further, Gibson admitted he was referring as an example to a Feb. 11 inspector general report that alleged a VA suicide hotline had a tendency to go to voicemail and leave veterans’ pleas for help unanswered.
The allegations that sparked the inspector general’s review of the failing suicide hotline dated back to May 2014.
The VA has faced intense criticism over its seeming inability to hold officials accused of misconduct accountable. Since a nationwide scandal over fake patient waiting lists and long delays in care erupted in spring 2014, only three VA employees have ever been fired. Falsified waiting lists were discovered at 110 facilities around the country.
On the call Monday, Gibson acknowledged “the challenges associated with being able to enforce accountability in certain circumstances.”
“It is an extraordinarily high bar,” he said of the evidence required to punish a federal employee.
Gibson said he is still waiting on key documents that could allow him to issue alternative disciplinary actions against Rubens and Graves that do not involve terminating or demoting them.
“The fact that it’s taken longer than expected, I just felt like we needed to get back to the veterans’ business,” the deputy secretary said of his decision to reinstate the two employees before receiving a final report on their actions.
