The committee has also heard concerns that VA rubber stamps performance reviews. Image: The Bold Bureau/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA House report on a bill (HR-7734) to require the VA to complete personnel investigations and enter the results into the employee’s personnel records even if the employee leaves the department while the investigation is ongoing “will prevent employees who committed substantiated wrongdoing from evading an adverse permanent notation on their personnel file.”
“This will reduce the chances such employees will obtain employment with another federal agency without the agency knowing about the employees’ previous substantiated conduct,” it says, noting that the bill also would also ensure employees are given notice and appeal rights prior to a permanent notation being made on their personnel files.
The bill is ready for a floor vote after Congress reconvenes in September, having passed the House Veterans Affairs Committee just before the current recess began.
The bill also would require the VA to submit to Congress the performance evaluation policies for the department’s political appointees, which under prior law must address their performance in areas including recruitment, engaging and motivating employees, training and developing employees and holding managers accountable for addressing performance issues by their subordinates.
The report says the committee “has repeatedly heard from concerned VA employees that VA leaders do not adequately hold their supervisees accountable for substantiated misconduct. The committee has also heard concerns that VA rubber stamps performance reviews. This section would address these concerns by increasing the Committee’s ability to conduct oversight of VA’s political appointees.”
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