House Appropriators Approve VA Senior Executive Bonus Ban

Senior executives at the Veterans Affairs Department would not receive bonuses in fiscal 2017 under a major House spending bill approved by an appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday.

The fiscal 2017 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations measure now heads to the full House Appropriations Committee, and includes a provision that prohibits the department from using any funds in the legislation for senior executives’ performance awards. It’s the first time the language has been included in the base MilCon-VA spending bill. An amendment banning bonuses for all VA senior executives was successfully added to the fiscal 2016 MilCon-VA legislation, but was not included in the eventual omnibus package Congress had to pass at the end of last year to avoid a government shutdown. There have been other legislative efforts over the past few years to limit or prohibit VA’s senior executive corps from receiving annual performance awards, which they are eligible for under Title 5.

Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., said during Wednesday’s brief markup that he was “not particularly pleased” about the measure’s inclusion in the overall bill. “As I’ve stated over the last three years, this language will not provide any solution in the short term, and in fact may have more long term consequences and compound the very problem it attempts to address,” said the ranking member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. “All the language will do is make the VA a less attractive option than other agencies when it comes to recruiting and retaining quality executive leaders.”

Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., said he didn’t “totally understand” the measure to prohibit all VA senior executives from receiving bonuses, mentioning the work of Elizabeth (Lisa) Freeman, who is the director of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California. Freeman was temporarily tapped in 2014 to help fix the problems at the Phoenix health care center, where the scandal over excessive waiting times for veterans seeking appointments erupted. “I just think we need to understand what the implications are [of banning all bonuses] because we don’t want to lose people like Lisa Freeman, and they are in government all over the place,” said Farr. The Democrat, who is retiring from Congress when his term is up in January 2017, noted the wide disparity between hospital administrator salaries in the public and private sectors, particularly in a place like Silicon Valley.

Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for the majority on the House Appropriations Committee, said the panel “had many member requests for similar language,” when asked who had pushed for inclusion of the measure prohibiting performance awards for all VA senior executives.

The fiscal 2017 MilCon-VA bill appropriates money for housing, training and equipment for military personnel and funds vets’ benefits and programs. The legislation provides $81.6 billion in discretionary funding, $1.8 billion more than the fiscal 2016 level. That discretionary funding figure includes $73.5 billion for the VA alone; adding mandatory funding to the number, the legislation includes a total of $176.1 billion for the VA.