The VA said last March that using the enhanced authority had mainly resulted in tying up the department in court cases. Image: Katherine Welles/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA report from the House Veterans Affairs Committee’s Republican majority argues for the return of restrictions on VA employee rights that were enacted in 2017 in the wake of a number of scandals over falsified patient waiting time records, quality of care and other issues—but which the Biden administration stopped using last year.
The filing of the report HR-4278 clears the way for it to be considered on the House floor sometime after Congress returns from its current recess through April 9.
The report argues that the bill is needed to ensure that the VA “has the authority it needs to hold its employees accountable and provide quality care and benefits to the veterans it serves.” Removal, suspension, and demotion disciplinary actions increased by half in the immediate aftermath of the 2017 law, called the Accountability Act, but “slowly, as portions of the Accountability Act were stripped of the law, disciplinary numbers returned to historical averages,” it says.
The 2017 law shortened the notice and response time within the VA, shortened the time that the MSPB can consider an appeal, required that the department need only show “substantial” evidence supporting its decision in an appeal to the MSPB, and said that the MSPB cannot lessen a penalty the department chooses, only either affirm or overturn it. At the time, the law was seen as a potential model for similar restrictions government-wide favored by the then-Trump administration.
However, last March the VA said that standard civil service disciplinary procedures are sufficient for its needs. It said that using that authority had mainly resulted in tying up the department in court cases over the extent of the special powers—which resulted in a number of decisions interpreting those powers narrowly.
Unions representing VA employees praised that move; they had complained from the outset that while the scandals had largely involved managerial and executive-level officials, in practice the provisions were used disproportionately against front-line employees and not against the executives and managers involved in the scandals.
Beyond restoring the previous restrictions, the pending bill would end a requirement for a performance improvement plan prior to disciplinary action; apply the authorities to all categories of VA employees; and extend to managers and supervisors separate shortcut disciplinary procedures applying to VA senior executives under another law also enacted in response to the scandals.
In dissenting remarks in the report, committee Democrats said the bill “would strip VA civil servants of due process rights that are afforded to all other federal employees and upend existing collective bargaining agreements. This legislation would have a chilling effect on VA recruitment and retention—especially for supervisors and senior executives.”
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