Posts
I'm covering basically two stories here that just happen to merge into one story.
First off, we all know about the ridiculous bonuses that some members of the VA have been paid even though this group has a budget short-fall, and our troops and veterans wait months to see a doctor.
All of this has naturally caught the eyes of our oversight committees who know want an explanation.
Congressional leaders on Thursday demanded that the Veterans Affairs secretary explain hefty bonuses for senior department officials involved in crafting a budget that came up $1 billion short and jeopardized veterans’ health care.
Rep. Harry Mitchell, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on oversight, said he would hold hearings to investigate after The Associated Press reported that budget officials at the Veterans Affairs Department received bonuses ranging up to $33,000.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, who heads the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said the payments pointed to an improper “entitlement for the most centrally placed or well-connected staff.” He has sent a letter to VA chief Jim Nicholson asking what the department plans to do to eliminate any bonuses based on favoritism.
“These reports point to an apparent gross injustice at the VA that we have a responsibility to investigate,” said Mitchell, D-Ariz. “No government official should ever be rewarded for misleading taxpayers, and the VA should not be handing out the most lucrative bonuses in government as veterans are waiting months and months to see a doctor.”
A list obtained by the AP of bonuses to senior career officials in 2006 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.
Next, we go to North Carolina and look at some of those bonuses that were paid out.
According to the News&Observer, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid out more than $335,000 in bonuses to some of the top NC VA hospital managers while they were getting reports of bad patient care and of suspicious deaths.
Regional director Daniel Hoffmann received the largest bonuses, including more than $29,000 in 2004 - the year investigators looked into deaths at the hospitals.
In 2005, bonuses for regional managers and Salisbury hospital executives tallied nearly $80,000, which was the largest total paid in the years reviewed by The Charlotte Observer. That same year, VA investigators concluded the Salisbury and Asheville hospitals provided poor care.
In 2004, Steinberg received a $5,000 bonus less than two weeks before he led an executive meeting on an "unanticipated post operative death." Steinberg received a $12,500 bonus in 2005, though he didn't receive a bonus in 2006.
In January, Steinberg and associate director James Robinson each received $5,000.
Getting paid a bonus while running a shoddy service. Sorry folks, but this sounds more Republican than anything else. Since this is a government run ( not very well ) institution in the first place, why are these people getting a bonus? Is this government or a corporation because it is getting hard to tell the difference anymore.
