Our page to recognize those valiant VA executives who have  already recognized themselves with large cash bonuses while delivering substandard  services to veterans

Albert Einstein said that Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Despite the 2007 GAO report and the VA Inspector General’s investigation showing the VA’s Executive bonus program did not produce results and could not be justified, the VA spent $2,300,000 on executive bonuses in 2012, what would Albert Einstein have to say about the VA?

Do you really need to be licensed as a physician to get a  performance bonus from the VA’s bonus program for doctors?

Of course not!

While there are many doctors and dentists at the VA who work hard, do a great job and deserve every penny of their salary and bonuses, there are a few who do not.  The GSA has concluded that the VA’s leadership has not implemented its “performance bonus program” in a manner that is either consistent or actually rewards doctors for their performance.

The GAO found that the VA gave$11,189 to a surgeon :

“..who was supervising residents left the operating room and medical center before the surgery was completed, allowing residents to continue the surgery without supervision until another surgeon was found to supervise the residents. The surgeon was suspended without pay for 14 calendar days.

The VA gave $8,216 to a radiologist that a Professional Standards Board found failed to read mammograms and other complex images competently.

The VA gave $7,500 to a physician who was reprimanded after the physician refused to see assigned patients in emergency room because physician believed patients had not been triaged appropriately by the emergency department nurse. As a result, wait times increased. According to documentation provided by the medical center, 15 patients waited more than 6 hours to be seen, and 9 patients left without being seen.

The VA gave $10,529 to a physician could not be reached when he was required to be available, which delayed patient care. Physician engaged in inappropriate behavior that had a negative impact on the patient care environment. The physician “yelled” at other staff, and the outbursts were regularly witnessed by patients, contributing to an atmosphere of fear and poor morale in the emergency department. The physician was suspended for 3 days with pay and received a letter of alternative discipline

The VA gave $7,663 to a doctor who practiced for three months without a license.

GAO Study into VA’s bonuses for doctors & dentists

 Click on the link  below for a list of VA Executives who received bonuses for a job well done in 2010!

If you believe that any of them did not do such an outstanding job to receive a bonus during a time of national recession, please post a comment or send us the information and we will provide appropriate recognition to those who have done such an outstanding job of taking care of themselves,  while not doing such an outstanding job of taking care of veterans.

2010_VA Bonuses

 Do you want to see how much your favorite VA Exec made between 2008 and 2012, including what they got as a bonus for doing such an outstanding job?

Thanks to the efforts of the Asbury Park Press you can find out this information for every VA executive, as well as many other federal agencies executives and employees. This is the  link to their searchable database, but we feel compelled to warn you that the results may cause nausea.

Where can you be in charge of a hospital that has an out break  Legionnaires that results in the death of  patients and still get a performance bonus? The Pittsburgh VA! Terry Wolf, director and CEO of the VA Pittsburgh hospitals, received a $12,924 bonus for fiscal year 2011.

Her boss, VA regional director Michael Moreland, who oversees most of Pennsylvania and all or parts of four other states under so-called VISN4, received $15,619 that fiscal year, the Trib reported.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/3911253-74/employees-pittsburgh-leaders#ixzz2UdyxMqpy

Stopping the VA’s bonus program threatens the quality of the lifestyle of VA executives.

Buffalo VA Execs Get Bonuses Despite Reuse of Insulin Pens

Buffalo V.A. Medical Center Director Brian Stiller said, “We absolutely had issues with paying attention to the proper regulations that needed to be fixed. Without a doubt…a need for training on how to properly store these records, and due diligence to pay attention to it. And I think we’ve got all of those pieces in place now.”

News 4 has obtained V.A. records that show the man in charge of overseeing the Buffalo and Batavia hospitals — VA Health Care Upstate New York Network Director David West — raked in nearly $26,000 in executive performance bonuses in 2010 and 2011. That’s the same time that the faulty records handling and re-use of insulin pens at the Buffalo hospital were going on.

The records show bonuses given to V.A. executives nationwide totaled $16.8 million, from 2007 to 2011. This, amid disease outbreaks in V.A. hospitals, patient deaths, and a mountain of 600,000 backlogged claims for veterans’ disability benefits.

 North Carolina veterans benefits pocketed a $9,800 salary bonus in 2011 and a $20,000 bonus in 2010.

However, a 9 Investigation last year revealed veterans in the Charlotte area must wait at least a full year to get a claim filled.

An inspector general report showed veterans’ files stacked on top of cabinets and in boxes on the floor.

Eyewitness News has now learned the executive in charge of North Carolina veterans benefits pocketed a $9,800 salary bonus in 2011 and a $20,000 bonus in 2010.

Bonuses adding up to $2.7 million were given to top brass at the VA in one year.

After Eyewitness News called VA headquarters in Washington and posted bonus figures online, Channel 9 was notified the VA was canceling all upcoming bonuses for executives. A spokeswoman said the agency hasn’t met its goals.

James McClellan, a spokesman for one VA benefits counselor, said he was given a bonus because of a “high level of achievement and exemplary leadership during that time.”

Bonuses for VA Execs Gets Results. Just look at the Recent VA OIG Report at the Atlanta VA , Which was Recently Found Responsible for the Deaths of Several Veterans, Executives at the Atlanta VA Have Received Big Bonuses for Years

…An audit published last month by the VA’s Inspector General blamed mismanagement at the Atlanta VA for three deaths of mental health patients and examined long waiting lists for mental health services. As those problems were ongoing, top executives — including former director James A. Clark — were getting annual performance bonuses.Clark pulled in $65,000 in bonuses over a four-year span, which the VA said was due in part to his pitching in as acting Southeast Network Director.

In its Saturday statement, the VA said that senior executives are committed to providing the quality health care and benefits veterans have earned and deserve. Performance awards take into account both individual and overall organizational performance goals, the agency said.

The Atlanta VA medical center in Decatur is one of the facilities under review, said Jan Northstar, regional spokeswoman for the agency. In fiscal years 2009 and 2010, the department made significant program management improvements to ensure the VA executive performance program is consistent with law and regulation. In 2009, the agency distributed performance awards totaling $3.3 million. In 2012, executive performance awards totaled $2.3 million.

Troubled Central Texas VA regional director Carl Lowe receives $53,436

One of the many differences between working for the government and working in the private sector is that in government there seems to be little connection between productivity and pay.

One recent illustration of this is the story of bonus paid to a director of the Department of Veterans Affairs at the same time the backlog of VA disability claims reached the highest level ever.

Anyone else see a problem with this system? I guess the VA does, because they have announced there will be no bonuses paid in 2013. Here are excerpts from an article in the Austin American-Statesman:

Even as the backlog of Texas veterans’ disability claims grew to historic proportions — eventually resulting in the nation’s longest wait for wounded veterans — the former director of the Department of Veterans Affairs Waco regional office received more than $53,000 in performance bonuses between 2007 and 2011.

Massive backlogs of disability claims have plagued the VA benefits system nationwide in recent years, but they have been particularly acute at the Waco regional office, which covers a large swath of the state, including most of Central Texas. The average wait time for veterans who file a claim there is 440 days, about 150 days longer than the national average. The office’s average wait time has nearly quadrupled since 2007, when the office processed claims about 50 days quicker than the national average.

Yet VA officials awarded former regional director Carl Lowe with $53,436 in annual bonuses over five years, according to data obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta-based WSB-TV, both owned by Statesman parent Cox Media Group. In all, the VA gave about $2.8 million in executive bonuses in 2011 to top ranking administrators in both its medical and benefits sections.

Even VA Executives Have Trouble Justifying Their Bonuses

Like most problems at the VA, ridiculous executive bonuses are nothing new. The GAO reported to Congress on them in 2007 and even the VA’s own Office of Inspector General questioned  questioned the appropriateness of 96 (80 percent) of 120 VHA incentives and 30 (79 percent) of 38 VACO incentives that it reviewed in 2011.

Let’s take a look at this “classic” issue, with a stroll down memory lane, starting with the 2007 GAO Report

This is the link to the complete GAO Report

GAO Bonuses 2007

During 2005 was the VA’s performance really “outstanding”?

In 2006, VA’s bonus pool was $3,751,630, or 9 percent of the aggregate
basic pay of its SES members in 2005. VA awarded an average of $16,606 in
bonuses in fiscal year 2006 to 87 percent of its career SES members.14 At
headquarters, approximately 82 percent of career SES members received
bonuses and 90 percent received bonuses in the field. Additionally, those
in headquarters were awarded an average of about $4,000 more in bonuses
than the career SES members in field locations. Table 1 shows the average
bonus amount, percentage receiving bonuses, and total rated at VA among
career SES members and by headquarters and field locations for 2004
through 2006.15

In 2005, according to OPM’s Report on Senior Executive Pay for
Performance for Fiscal Year 2005, the most recent report available, VA
awarded higher average bonuses to its career SES than any other cabinetlevel
department. OPM data show that six other cabinet-level departments
awarded bonuses to a higher percentage of their career SES members.16
When asked about possible reasons for VA’s high average bonus award, a
VA official in the Office of Human Resources and Administration cited the
outstanding performance of VA’s three organizations and the amount
allocated to SES member bonuses (emphasis supplied)

THINK THAT VA BONUSES ARE A NEW PROBLEM? THEN CHECK OUT THIS 2007 ARTICLE ON A VA CLASSIC PROBLEM- VA OFFICIALS’ BONUSES RAISE EYEBROWS – CBS NEWS

Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put veterans’ health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.

The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006, obtained by The Associated Press, documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among those receiving payments were a deputy assistant secretary and several regional directors who crafted the VA’s flawed budget for 2005 based on misleading accounting. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.

Also receiving a top bonus was the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps manage a disability claims system that has a backlog of cases and delays averaging 177 days in getting benefits to injured veterans.

The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated — if not deliberately misled taxpayers — with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid a burgeoning Iraq war.

Annual bonuses to senior VA officials now average more than $16,000 — the most lucrative in government.

The VA said the payments are necessary to retain hardworking career officials.

The Department of Veterans Affairs paid bonuses of more than $335,000 to some top North Carolina VA hospital managers during years they received reports of poor patient care and suspicious deaths, according to a newspaper report. Executives at the VA hospital in Salisbury, along with regional managers in Durham, received bonuses in 2004 and 2005 as VA officials investigated unexpected deaths at the hospital, The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday.

VA acknowledges problems with bonuses

June 1, 2007

Testifying before a House panel, Veterans Affairs Deputy Secretary Gordon Mansfield insisted the hefty awards were appropriate and necessary to retain hardworking VA employees. But he agreed the process might lack objectivity because members who sit on VA performance review boards — charged with recommending bonuses for top employees — all come from within the agency and typically get bonuses themselves.

“I understand the issue you are raising,” said Mansfield, when lawmakers asked whether VA should add outsiders to its board to reduce peer pressure on VA employees to take care of their own at the expense of taxpayers. “Bringing some outside influence might make the system better.”

Mansfield said VA Secretary Jim Nicholson would consider adding agency outsiders to the VA’s review boards. In its last known report on the issue, the Government Accountability Office in 1980 urged departments to include outsiders to add credibility to bonus awards.

“VA remains committed to the statutory imperative of executive bonuses to both reward and to encourage continued excellence in performance. We’ve got some damn good people,” a grim and subdued Mansfield said.

Mansfield spoke as a few members of a veterans advocacy group, Grassroots America, silently held up signs in the hearing room that read, “My 80% disabled son backlogged 1 1/2 years,” and “$$ for vets not execs.”

The hearing before a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee comes after The Associated Press reported last month that 21 of 32 officials who were VA performance review board members received more than half a million dollars in payments themselves.

 The Department of Veterans Affairs paid bonuses of more than $335,000 to some top North Carolina VA hospital managers during years they received reports of poor patient care and suspicious deaths

Bonuses also were given to regional managers as the Asheville veterans hospital had staffing shortages that investigators said led to poor care. The hospital’s nursing home unit was ordered to suspend admissions in 2004 after a patient death.

“It’s stunning,” said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state who serves on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. She plans to ask the VA to explain why the bonuses were awarded.

In FY 2010, VHA paid nearly $110 million in retention incentives to 16,346 employees nationwide. In FY 2010, VACO paid approximately $618,000 in retention incentives to 38 employees requiring centralized approval in headquarters positions with a duty location in Washington, DC. Let’s see what the VA’s own OIG thought about how this money was being spent. Hopefully, the OIG is going to tell us that the VA has shaped up since the GAO looked at this issue in 2007 and if you believe that I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Audit of Retention Incentives for Veterans Health Administration and VA Central Office Employees November 14, 2011

This audit determined the adequacy of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and VA Central Office (VACO) processes for awarding retention incentives. In FY 2010, VA paid nearly $111 million in retention incentives to 16,487 employees. We found VHA and VACO approving officials did not adequately justify and document retention incentive awards in accordance with VA policy. VA lacked clear guidance, oversight, and training to effectively support the program. Officials did not effectively use the Personnel and Accounting Integrated Data system to generate timely review notices and did not always stop retention incentives at the end of set payment periods. Based on these findings, we questioned the appropriateness of 96 (80 percent) of 120 VHA incentives and 30 (79 percent) of 38 VACO incentives we reviewed. These incentives totaled about $1.06 million in FY 2010. We recommended revised and clarified guidance, as well as controls to ensure proper documentation and training were applied throughout the program.

Who can forget such classic findings as :

…For example, a senior executive with an annual salary of $156,797 received an annual retention incentive of approximately $26,000, in addition to a $13,000 senior executive service award. In February 2009, a senior official initially disapproved the retention incentive because the employee was a first year as a senior executive and was on probation. One month later, this same senior official approved a second retention incentive request for the employee even though the employee was still on probation. No information was available in the files to explain this action. The justification we found did not adequately explain why it was essential to retain the employee or whether the employee actually planned to leave Federal service….

They also did not have supervisors’ certifications that the employees were likely to leave Federal service in the absence of monetary incentives. In some instances, documentation was missing to show that retention incentives had been annually reviewed and reauthorized from year-to-year as required. Following are two examples of questionable retention incentives because of missing documentation

 A human resource information system specialist with an annual salary of $136,771 received a 15 percent retention incentive totaling about $20,300 in FY 2010. The employee had received a total of about $58,600 in retention incentives between FY 2008 and 2010.

 An administrative officer with an annual salary of $119,238 received a 15 percent retention incentive totaling about $17,500 in FY 2010. The employee had received about $49,800 in retention incentives between FY 2008 and 2010.As a result of the lack of justification and missing supporting documentation, VACO we questioned the appropriateness of retention incentive payments awarded to 30 (79 percent) of 38 VACO employees, totaling about $514,000 in bonuses.