Colorado’s new Department of Veterans Affairs hospital costs have exploded from $600 million to $1.7 billion even as every other major construction project in the agency is behind schedule and over budget. But the official in charge of the department’s construction has received tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses
That’s why House Committee on Veterans Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller of Florida called Wednesday for the immediate firing of Glenn Haggstrom, the department’s construction principal executive director, and Stella Fiotes, executive director of the department’s office of construction and facilities management.
The department’s Las Vegas facility is $260 million over its construction budget. Its Orlando hospital is $362 million over budget. And its New Orleans project is $370 million in the red, according to the Government Accountability Office.
“No reasonable person could conclude” that the people in charge “are doing a good job. Therefore, I am calling upon VA’s leadership to fire them immediately,” Miller said in a statement.
“As part of the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, Congress gave VA leaders the authority to immediately fire VA senior executives for poor performance. It’s well past time for the department to fire Haggstrom and Fiotes or explain to America’s veterans and American taxpayers why these individuals have earned the right to continued VA employment,” he said.
Top officials have told Congress that bureaucratic rules prevent them from firing bad employees, but the decision makers, many of them political appointees, weren’t enthusiastic when Congress gave them new powers to remedy the problem.
Workers’ unions, as well as a lobbying group for top managers, have banded together to oppose any increase in accountability measures aimed at either group, with the Senior Executives Association opposing legislation introduced by Miller to allow recision of bonuses awarded to managers found guilty of a felony in connection with their duties.
Despite multiple statements from Veterans Affairs leaders promising change in the troubled department, nobody has lost their job. All but one of the top department officials at the center of the waitlist scandal in Phoenix are still on the payroll.
Veterans department brass bragged about taking back the bonus of former Phoenix VA director Sharon Helman, who then led the facility. But the Washington Examiner reported exclusively last week that the bonus has since been returned to her following an order from an administrative law judge.
A prominent veterans’ group has said that the department shouldn’t be building new hospitals anyway, because most veterans don’t have combat wounds and are merely receiving routine medical care. Concerned Veterans for America says the department should simply steer them to ordinary doctors’ offices and run only a small number of specialized facilities.
