The VA Must Have the Very Best Executives in Government!

On June 17^th, I addressed the perils of whistleblowers working in government, how the law really doesn’t protect them when they do their sworn duty and alert their superiors of serious misfeasance or malfeasance in their midst. It is, as I suggested, an unwritten code of conduct within too many government agencies that parallels the “don’t rat” code among convicted incarcerated felons. It costs the taxpayers billions, deprives agencies of their ability to deliver their mandate and demoralizes civil servants across the board. But there is a bigger consequence to making whistleblowing so difficult to do.

When a cost-cutting Congress makes it impossible to deliver the required government services many agencies are charged to provide, how can those supervisors – used to receiving nice bonus checks based on good annual evaluations – keep getting those stellar benefits? Simply, by lying… by misreporting statistics, putting matters and people that cannot meet required deadlines into statistical boxes where failure isn’t measured… or simply by transferring those elements about to fall into a “failure” category in a new category to start the clock over again. It’s the American way, and if anything, it defines a broad ethos in too many Veterans Administration medical facilities. At what other agencies is this the unwritten rule?

While the VA was saved from direct cuts during the Congress’ “Sequester,” unfortunately for the VA, they depend on too many other agencies, the military itself, for essential aspects of their operations. Those other supporting agencies were not spared cuts. Making old, worn out VA computers respond to excessive new demands, when they really need to be replaced, doesn’t come out of the VA budget. Too many medical services are military budget items and not VA budget items. So the system begins to implode as demand increases (more military and more dependents from recent wars, many entitled to lifetime benefits because of retirement or because of service-related injuries) without offsetting increases in support and funding.

But as reports continue to pour out of the VA, showing that as many as 10,000 veterans were/are waiting for treatment were hopelessly delayed. The VA itself has admitted that 23 veteran patients died because they were effectively denied necessary medical treatments, having been placed on waitlists with no real doctor or treatment ever being scheduled at all. But if you look at the VA supervisor evaluations, the VA would have to be one of the best administered government agencies ever!

“A top VA official confirmed to a congressional committee on [June 20^th] that 78% of VA senior managers qualified for extra pay or other compensation in fiscal year 2013 by receiving ratings of ‘outstanding’ or ‘exceeds fully successful,’ and that all 470 of them got ratings of "fully successful" or better.” CNN.com, June 20^th. “[And] at least 65 percent of the executives received performance awards, which averaged around $9,000. Only about 20 percent received the middle of the five ratings.

“Veterans Affairs officials sought to play down the data, saying that only 15 senior executives across the entire federal government had received either of the two lowest ratings in the most recent year — suggesting that the high ratings enjoyed by V.A. officials were not out of line with those of their counterparts at other government agencies.” New York Times, June 20^th. 15?! Out of tens of thousands?! This suggests that the bonus system needs to be replaced, that evaluations need some greater objective review and that supervisors who create or support false data within their departments should either be fired for incompetence or, if they really pushed the results into false categories, be required to face immediate criminal prosecution.

“But the data, which were a focus of a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, angered lawmakers who said they provided further evidence that the highest reaches of the department were out of touch with problems in the system and that there was a lack of accountability for poor management… In all, the department paid performance awards to senior executives that totaled $4.7 million in 2010 and $2.7 million in the most recent fiscal year.

“The bonus system was originally intended to reward high performers and to help the department retain its best employees, and it is widely viewed as having helped professionalize the V.A. in the 1990s. As reports of problems accumulated this year, the department suspended the awards for senior health care executives.” NY Times.  CNN (June 23^rd) reports that the Office of Special Counsel (the recipient of whistleblowers’ reports) has sent a letter to the President stating that despite the VA’s denial that there was any further harm to patients based on delays, Special Counsel does not believe that the VA is sufficiently investigating the “harm,” that there are 50 additional serious claims coming from whistleblowers and presented an example of a veteran with serious mental illness issues who was reevaluated for eight years!

Maybe it’s time to increase accountability, not just with the supervisors who fudge their numbers, but among the members of the House (where all appropriation bills must, under the Constitution, originate), who really seem unable to do their jobs either. Yeah, the same butt-heads who are holding committee meeting to shift the blame entirely to the VA, when the buck has to stop with the House itself! According to a Gallup Poll, Congress gets a 13% approval rating from the American voters. Why is that rating so high?! Yes we need civil servants who serve taxpayers, but we need more a Congress that actually cares more about the United States of America than their little fiefdoms of power.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s time to wake up America and ask them why they continue to elect people to Congress who are rather consistently operating to end the viability of the entire nation.