Panel Backs Bill Establishing that Yes, VA Can Claw Back Bonuses

A House panel on Thursday morning approved legislation that would give the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department clear authority to order employees to repay bonuses.

H.R. 280 would require notifying affected employees before they had to repay the money, and would give them an opportunity for a hearing conducted by the secretary. House Veterans Affairs’ Committee Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., amended the legislation during the markup to allow employees to request a hearing by a third party after the secretary’s decision, to ensure “a fair and open process.” Before Miller’s change, the bill said the VA secretary’s decision would be final and not subject to a subsequent review.

The Florida Republican, who sponsored the legislation, also amended it to include a provision directing the secretary to publish regulations describing the bonus rescission process so that employees know their rights under the bill.

The idea behind H.R. 280 is to give the VA chief another tool to punish those engaged in misconduct – in this instance by allowing the department to revoke bonuses those employees have received. But the legislation does not specify criteria that would be grounds for ordering a repayment, giving the secretary broad discretion. The bill also is aimed at clearing up any confusion over whether VA has the authority to claw back bonuses.

Miller introduced similar legislation during the last Congress. A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a measure in July during the 113^th Congress that specifically targeted bonuses given to VA employees found guilty of manipulating patient wait list data -- the action that sparked the start of a massive management overhaul last year at the department.

Last year, a USA Today report found that VA awarded $380,000 in bonuses to “directors and top executives” at 38 hospitals under investigation for falsifying records.

Then-VA secretary Eric Shinseki in May rescinded an $8,500 performance award given in 2013 to Sharon Helman, a bonus that the department said was awarded because of an administrative error. Federal employee advocates as well as department officials, however, have questioned whether the agency actually has the authority to rescind an employee bonus for malfeasance.

Helman, the former career senior executive who ran VA’s Phoenix health care system when the scandal over falsifying wait lists erupted last spring, was fired in November, and then appealed her case to the Merit Systems Protection Board. Chief Administrative Judge Stephen C. Mish in December upheld Helman’s firing because she improperly accepted more than $13,000 in gifts from a lobbyist and failed to report them, not because she engaged in misconduct related to manipulating data to conceal excessive wait times for vets seeking health care.

A separate Miller bill would allow no more than 30 percent of VA’s senior executives to receive top performance ratings and qualify for bonuses. H.R. 473, which is still in committee, also would give the secretary the power to strip pension benefits from VA senior executives who are convicted of a crime that influenced their job performance and fired. 

On Thursday, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee also reported out three other bills. H.R. 189 would extend until 2016 a program that provides foreclosure protections for service members; H.R. 294 allows the VA until 2018 to transfer certain veterans unable to live independently to non-department run medical foster homes; and H.R. 216 directs the VA secretary to submit annually to Congress a budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year and also requires “each program to set forth a five-year VA plan” to meet the department’s mission of helping and providing for veterans. 

(Image via Maryna Pleshkun / Shutterstock.com)