Senate Panel Approves More Tools to Hold VA Employees Accountable

Misbehaving federal managers at the Veterans Affairs Department could soon see their pensions clawed back and less paid leave while awaiting discipline, with a Senate committee approving such provisions on Wednesday as part of its ongoing push for more accountability at VA.

The Increasing VA Accountability to Veterans Act received unanimous support in the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, which members of both parties praising the bill for giving the department more tools to deal with managers involved in misconduct. Many of the provisions in the bill would affect only Senior Executive Service employees -- a subset of about 350 individuals that Congress has consistently targeted since allegations of patient and wait list data manipulation were unveiled last year.

The bill will “give VA the tools necessary to deal with problems in management,” Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said at the markup. He noted VA brass had asked Congress for more authority to hold its managers accountable.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who only signed on to the bill as a cosponsor last week despite its January introduction, said certain compromises included in the measure would improve oversight of management “without infringing on constitutional rights.”

The bill would give the VA secretary the authority to reduce the pensions of SES employees removed from the agency who were convicted of a felony. Any senior executive fired for performance or misconduct would not receive credit, as it relates to their annuity calculation, for the time they worked since the incident began that resulted in the firing. The measure would also prohibit VA from placing any employee facing potential disciplinary action from going on administrative leave for more than 14 days in a one-year period unless the secretary provided a detailed explanation to Congress.

Managers would have to affirmatively state that any employee coming off a probationary period “demonstrated successful performance” in their initial time at the agency. Performance evaluations for supervisors would take into account their ability to deal with employees’ poor performance and misconduct, as well as their ability to maintain high levels of engagement. The VA secretary would create an annual performance plan for all political appointees.

The bill would require VA to hire a contractor to review the performance appraisal system for SES employees. That review would include recommendations for improving training and performance management, comparisons to other federal agencies and a survey of the morale of VA employees.

VA officials leaving the agency would be restricted in the involvement they could have with VA contractors after their employment, and contractors would face restrictions in hiring them.

Unlike the original version of the bill, VA will not be capped on giving top ratings to SESers in annual evaluations. The measure also no longer requires automatic reassignments for the top managers every five years.

Blumenthal said the bill was a “profoundly important step forward,” but warned if other measures are necessary, the committee would advance those as well.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, the committee’s chairman, called the legislation a “no excuses bill.” He encouraged the committee members to talk up its merits while meeting with constituents over the holidays.