Quicker Disciplinary Process at VA Proposed

In a proposal that is both a result of an earlier change and a precedent for potential further changes, a newly offered House bill would give VA management greater powers to discipline employees and to give employees less time and fewer opportunities to defend themselves. The bill (HR-1994) by Veterans Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., in many ways mirrors a law enacted last year affecting only SES members at VA, only this time applying to all levels of the department. Like that law, the bill would allow the VA to impose discipline up to firing without going through the standard processes for building up such a case; give employees only seven days, rather than the usual 30, to file an appeal at MSPB; limit MSPB’s powers to put a disciplinary action on hold while an appeal is pending; make the administrative judge’s decision the last word, with no appeal to the merit board and then to federal court allowed as is standard; and make the agency win an appeal automatically if the administrative judge doesn’t issue a decision within a deadline—45 days, compared with the 21 days applying to VA SESers. It also would make the standard probationary period 18 months rather than 12, allow the department to extend it further in some cases, and require that supervisors affirm at the end of a probationary period that the employee is fully qualified. There would be some special appeals rights for employees bringing whistleblower retaliation defenses.