VA Is On Lawmakers’ Radar as Congress Returns From Recess

This story has been updated with comments from the VA.

A House panel on Wednesday will consider whether to subpoena the Veterans Affairs Department for information about its spending on artwork, as well as documents related to an investigation into a delayed, way over-budget hospital construction project.

The committee wants unredacted documents – totaling thousands of pages – related to the construction of a new VA medical center in Aurora, Colo., which started in 2011 and was supposed to cost roughly $600 million. The project still isn’t done, and so far has cost more than a billion dollars. The department has provided a 31-page summary of the investigation to the committee, but some lawmakers don’t believe the VA has been sufficiently transparent.

“The VA’s own conclusions in the summary memo essentially place all the blame on individuals who have conveniently now retired,” said Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., who represents the district where the hospital is being built. “This is unsurprising considering the VA has consistently refused to hold anyone accountable for the many failures on this project.”

This summer, an investigation by Open The Books and Cox Media found that the VA had spent $20 million on artwork at facilities across the country between 2004 and 2014. During that time, the department was overwhelmed and understaffed in many facilities; the scandal over veterans waiting too long for medical appointments erupted in 2014.

The VA did not respond to a question for comment on the impending subpoena vote but did provide statements on the committee's request for information.

"Fully recognizing the significance of this matter to veterans and the taxpayers, over the past two years, VA has provided the Committee thousands of pages of documents related to the Aurora construction project," wrote VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson in an Aug. 19 letter to Coffman. Gibson then listed several documents the department had provided regarding the matter.

As for the artwork expeditures, VA  said it is developing a national art policy to include commissioned artwork. "While we must be stewards of taxpayer dollars, we also know that providing comprehensive health care for patients goes beyond just offering the most advanced medical treatments. Artwork is one of the many facets that create a healing environment for our nation’s veterans," the department said in a statement.

Also on Wednesday, the House panel will hold a hearing to discuss the congressionally-mandated Commission on Care report, which recommended several reforms to the Veterans Health Administration, including in the areas of health care delivery, governance, leadership and workforce management. Last week, President Obama said he agreed with 15 of the Commission on Care’s 18 recommendations. He rejected a proposal to restructure the VHA governance, including the creation of an 11-member board of directors to set the agency’s long-term strategy.

VA Secretary Bob McDonald sent letters to the leadership of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees at the end of August asking them to move forward on several legislative proposals the department views as critical to improving how the VA does business, manages its workforce, and delivers benefits and services to veterans. In addition to urging lawmakers to pass a fiscal 2017 budget for the department before Oct. 1, McDonald outlined several other priority items for the VA, including a House bill that would reform the department’s appeals process; a major accountability bill stalled in the Senate that would ease the hiring and firing of VA employees; and approval of special pay authority to recruit and retain medical professionals. McDonald told lawmakers that the department “needs action from Congress now” on the priorities he listed.

“We are at a critical tipping point in the MyVA transformation where, without action from Congress, the problems and difficulties we are facing in areas that require legislative change are only going to worsen over time and it will be veterans and their families and survivors who will suffer the negative impact,” McDonald wrote.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has been trying to bring the Veterans First Act – which the VA supports – to the floor for an up-or-down vote. But the bill has its detractors, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and it’s now stalled in the chamber. The legislation, crafted by Isakson and the panel’s ranking member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., among other things would take away the rights of VA senior executives to appeal major disciplinary actions, including firing, to the independent Merit Systems Protection Board. Instead, under the bill, affected senior executives would have the opportunity to appeal adverse actions to an internal department review board, giving the VA secretary more authority over removals, suspensions and demotions.

In the House, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of that chamber’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee, introduced in July the 2016 VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act, which would make it easier to fire and demote all VA employees, and would prevent department senior executives from receiving any bonuses over the next five years. The measure also would give the secretary clear authority to rescind bonuses, retirement benefits and relocation expenses from employees under certain circumstances.

The House plans to consider Miller’s employee accountability bill this month, according to an Aug. 31 memorandum to House Republicans on the September agenda from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.