A bipartisan group of senators demanded the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs hold VA executives accountable for a “shockingly unethical” plan to give themselves raises.
Led by Sen. Johnny Isakson, chairman of the Senate VA Committee, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the committee’s ranking Democrat, the lawmakers urged VA Secretary Robert McDonald in a letter Tuesday to “live up” to promises made during his confirmation hearing last summer and rid the agency of employees who break the rules.
The senators cited a September inspector general report that they said “outlines an orchestrated scheme … to skirt salary and bonus limitations … by unnecessarily relocating executives and using those moves to justify increases in their pay.”
That report had found a number of VA executives created job openings for themselves in other cities, then volunteered to fill the positions by taking advantage of a VA program that pays moving expenses for agency employees.
In some cases, the new jobs entailed fewer responsibilities, but executives were allowed to maintain the same six-figure salaries on the taxpayer’s dime.
According to the letter, one VA official said the relocation program was nothing more than a way for the agency to “get around pay freezes and bans on performance bonuses” for its top officials. Alison Hickey, the undersecretary for benefits, also admitted the program was often manipulated to pad the paychecks of VA executives.
In one example cited by the lawmakers, a VA employee netted $274,000 in moving expenses for a less-demanding job she had created for herself in Philadelphia at the same level of pay as her previous position.
The relocation scheme is just the latest in a long series of scandals that have plagued the VA for more than a year.
Some of the controversies, such as the agency’s alleged manipulation of patient waiting lists to cover up long delays in care, prompted the VA to ban the very performance bonuses officials are now gaming the system to obtain.
