The reintroduction of a House bill (HR-280) allowing the VA to claw back awards and bonuses paid to executives, managers and others at VA who are implicated in the patient scheduling and care scandal there could be just the first step toward further action against them and set a precedent for other agencies.
The House Veterans Affairs Committee last year approved a similar bill, but given the makeup of Congress then and the relatively brief working time available to Congress by the time the scandal broke meant that the bill progressed no farther.
“Ideally, VA employees and executives who collected bonuses under false pretenses should be subject to prosecution when warranted, but at a minimum their bonuses should be paid back in full,” chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said in a statement on reintroducing the bill.
The VA last year did rescind bonuses paid to certain executives named in the scandal—although the department gave mixed signals regarding its authority to do so, one reason for the proposed legislation—but with investigations still ongoing at dozens more facilities there is potential for much wider application this year.
