The VA announced in the spring that it would no longer use the wider powers it was given in 2017, citing too many appeals and lawsuits. Image: Katherine Welles/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe House Veterans Affairs Committee has approved a bill to reinstate special disciplinary powers the VA has stopped using and to expand them as well, despite objections from committee Democrats and federal unions who called the provisions unneeded and overly punitive.
The bill (HR-4278) would reinstate policies of a 2017 law shortening notice and response time for employees facing discipline and the time that the MSPB can consider an appeal, lowering the department’s burden of proof in an appeal there to only “substantial” evidence, and limiting the MSPB’s options to either overturning or affirming a penalty. It further would end a requirement to give employees an opportunity to improve prior to discipline for alleged poor performance, and applying to all supervisory employees the even more limited rights for SES members there under a separate law.
The VA announced in the spring that it would no longer use the wider powers it was given in 2017, saying the result mainly had been to tie up the department in appeals and lawsuits—many of which the department lost, having the effect of limiting those powers.
The committee approved the bill, though, despite the VA’s comments at a recent hearing repeating that position and arguing that standard federal employee disciplinary policies were sufficient for its needs. Federal employee unions representing VA employees had made a similar argument, and ahead of the committee’s vote released a joint letter saying the bill would turn them into “second-class federal employees” and worsen the department’s recruitment and retention problems by making it a less desirable place to work.
The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Mark Takano of California, similarly raised concerns about the VA’s staffing problems, especially given its need to add employees in response to last year’s law expanding benefits for veterans with health conditions related to exposure to burn pits. He said the bill “is not about accountability, it is about a soundbite, no matter the harm that this political attack creates by undermining veteran trust in VA and disincentivizing Americans from choosing to serve veterans at VA.”
However, chairman Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., highlighted the bill among 10 others passed at the same time, saying it will give VA officials “the tools they need to appropriately hold employees accountable.” He said he will push for a prompt vote in the full House when Congress returns from the current recess through early September.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan alternative (HR-4906) going in the opposite direction has been offered. That bill would restore to VA employees two standard features of disciplinary appeals—a requirement that the agency make its case by the “preponderance of the evidence” and the MSPB’s authority to reduce penalties.
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