The Office of Special Counsel recently resolved a whistleblower retaliation complaint brought by a VA employee, one of a surge of such complaints at that department in recent years—although unlike many others, the underlying issue did not involve patient care or record-keeping.
According to the OSC, the dispute arose after an employee raised concerns about a medical center’s plan to donate $35,000 of appropriated funds to a local charity for a fundraiser gala. The issue was elevated to higher levels of management but the medical center made preparations even without getting an answer; after a newspaper reported on those plans, the regional office ordered them canceled.
Because the employee had raised concerns internally, OSC said, management assumed he was the source of the news story and soon took actions including stripping him of his duties, moving his office, changing his supervisors, altering his job performance standards, deciding he was failing them, and placing him on a performance improvement plan.
Management later moved to demote him but OSC first obtained a stay of that action while investigating his retaliation claim. In the settlement agreement, the VA rescinded several personnel actions, altered his chain of command and provided him with compensatory damages.
