A top Veterans Affairs official who steered millions of dollars of federal contract work to friends and lied about it to investigators was publicly praised by the VA as she left the agency to take an even bigger job at the Treasury Department.
In 2012, the VA Office of Inspector General received multiple tips that Iris Cooper, a career Civil Service procurement executive, had awarded a contract to Ohio contractor Tridec Technologies LLC without proper bidding and that the spending was unnecessary.
“We substantiated the allegations that Ms. Cooper … steered the contract … to Tridec and that Ms. Cooper had a personal relationship with individuals associated with Tridec,” the IG wrote in a final report published this month.
“Further, we found that as the Competition Advocate, Ms. Cooper allowed the requirement, which thus far was valued at more than $15 million, to be broken down into units under $5 million to ensure the requirement could be awarded sole-source to Tridec. In addition … Ms. Cooper … engaged in a lack of candor during [her] interviews with OIG.”
In February 2014, the Federal Times reported that Cooper had left the agency to become a “senior procurement executive” at the Treasury Department. She is now also a member of the governmentwide Chief Acquisition Officers Council in the Executive Office of the President.
Wendy McCutcheon, then associate executive director of the VA’s Office of Acquisition Operations, also was implicated in the scandal. She retired with benefits, and the VA praised both women.
“VA spokeswoman Josephine Schuda said in a statement that the agency was sad to lose the executives and had benefited greatly from their years of experience,” the Federal Times said when they departed in February.
The VA IG published an initial report on the matter in September 2013, so officials were aware of the questions surrounding the contracts at the time.
Cooper did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
“Treasury was not aware of the matter referenced in the report before Ms. Cooper was hired. We are aware that the Treasury Inspector General is in possession of the report, and we will be discussing any appropriate next steps with the inspector general,” a Treasury Department spokesman said.
VA did not respond to questions about why it did not fire Cooper or inform Treasury of the problems during customary reference checks to ensure taxpayer funds were not placed at risk at other agencies.
Instead, VA spokeswoman Genevieve Billia sent a statement to the Examiner saying that “the department is in receipt of the published report and is in the process of reviewing the facts presented in the report. After reviewing the report, the department will decide what the next course of action will be.”
Cooper circumvented procurement regulations in awarding a sole-source contract to Tridec to develop a Virtual Office of Acquisition, according to the IG report.
“Ms. Cooper said in the interview that she did not recall when or how Tridec knew that VA was looking to create VOA. It is difficult to comprehend that Ms. Cooper could not recall her significant involvement,” the IG wrote.
She said she awarded it after conducting “market research,” which investigators determined consisted of searching unnecessarily specific and arbitrary phrases in a database of contractors. Emails showed Cooper corresponded with Tridec before she began her market research.
“The emails clearly showed that Ms. Cooper’s discussions with Tridec related to VOA and that she promoted Tridec for the VOA project prior to any market research or other actions initiated that are part of the normal required procurement process.”
The IG determined that the software work was being done outside the office responsible for VA technology projects, that VA already had a functioning acquisition system, and that the effort wasted $13 million of taxpayer funds.
“There was no assurance of price reasonableness. VA paid whatever Tridec proposed,” the IG wrote.
The situation is a virtual reprisal of the case of Susan Taylor, who also was a top procurement official at VA accused of leaking inside information to favored contractors.
As VA officials were moving to fire Taylor, she got a job at the Energy Department. After the Examiner reported on the Energy job, the agency rescinded its offer to Taylor, who then asked for and was granted her job back at the VA. She then retired with benefits.
Top VA executives have faced almost no repercussions for poor performance and misconduct at the troubled agency.
All of VA’s hospital construction projects are behind schedule and are collectively more than $1 billion over budget, but Glenn Haggstrom, director of VA’s Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction, has received $20,000 a year in civil service performance bonuses on top of his $180,000 annual salary.
