The House has passed the Department of Veterans Affairs Management Accountability Act of 2014, which would allow the VA secretary to remove any individual from the senior executive service, from federal service, or transfer the individual to a GS position at any grade if the secretary determines the individual’s performance warrants it.
HR-4031 would also require the secretary to notify the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees within a month of firing an individual.
The bill has momentum given the ongoing investigation into appointment wait times at the VHA. However, some remain skeptical. “HR-4031 won’t fix the problems at VA, it will only makes things worse,” said the Partnership for Public Service. It cautioned that the bill would return the VA “to a centuries old spoils system” and “undermine core principles of our civil service system that protect federal employees from undue politicization and retaliation against whistle-blowing.”
It remains unclear where the investigation into wait times at the VHA will lead, but already it has increased the intensity of debates about the role and extent of unions in the federal workforce, whether and how agency leaders can discipline or terminate employees and how to grapple with a huge increase in the veteran population and how to provide quality care for them.
The fallout will continue and likely extend to other agencies as well. VA senior executives will not receive bonuses this year, and the top administrators at the Phoenix HCS have been terminated – a final act from former VA secretary Eric Shinseki before resigning.