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By: FEDweek StaffThe VA used its enhanced disciplinary authorities more extensively in 2018 than it did in 2017, according to the department’s latest data, imposing 3,327 major disciplinary actions last year versus 2,058 the year before.
In both years, more than 90 percent of those actions were firings, with the rest about evenly split between demotions and suspensions of more than 14 days.
The rate of such actions had roughly doubled in the second half of 2017 after a law was enacted to strengthen management’s hand in discipline. Among other provisions, the law gives employees less time to respond to proposed disciplinary action and to appeal, and legal standards for taking those actions are more in favor of management.
While that law initially was seen as potential precedent for application government-wide, momentum slowed after the data showed that the authority was being used disproportionately against lower-level employees such as housekeepers, food service workers and claims assistants–even though the changes were enacted in response to conduct by supervisory and higher management-level employees revealed in the scandals at the VA over patient waiting times and quality of care.
With 380,000 employees, the VA accounts for 18 percent of the executive branch workforce–including part-time, seasonal and temporary workers–apart from the self-funding Postal Service. Government-wide terminations or removals for conduct or performance reasons average about 10,000 a year, putting the VA’s rate well above average.
