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REPUBLICAN
PRESS RELEASE
June 12, 2007
Brown-Waite: VA shouldn’t reward executives who ‘permit a failure in the
system’
For more information, contact: Jeff Phillips 202-225-3527
Washington, D.C. — At a Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
hearing today, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Deputy Secretary
Gordon Mansfield defended the agency’s past award of performance bonuses
to officials who in some cases presided over flawed operations that cost
the taxpayers millions and may have endangered the lives of patients.
“The federal government should not be in the practice of providing
bonuses to individuals who permit a failure in the system under their
watch,” said Subcommittee Ranking Member Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.).
During the subcommittee’s April 19 hearing on patient deaths at the W.G.
(Bill) Hefner VA medical center in Salisbury, N.C., Brown-Waite had
requested a list of people involved in the administration of care at the
hospital, and the bonuses they received over the period of time that
included the infractions. She found that managers who had been assigned
during that time also had received bonuses.
“Government should be run like a business enterprise, where bonuses are
used as an appropriate reward, but are limited to only the very best and
most deserving employees, especially during a time of war,” Brown-Waite
said.
“Senior Executive Service personnel, by definition, hold leadership
positions of great responsibility and trust. And VA approves bonuses for
these men and women based on one and only one criteria — demonstrated
performance,” Mansfield said in testimony. Calling VA’s senior
executives “a highly competent and committed group of leaders,” he said
that bonuses were integral to the government’s ability to attract,
retain and reward managers of their caliber.
In addition to indications that VA bonuses went to senior executives
whose operations were sub-par, one media report indicated that 21 of 32
officials who were members of VA performance review boards themselves
received more than half a million dollars in payments.
“The job of Congress is to determine whether the process to award
bonuses to VA officials works. We must ensure adequate safeguards are in
place for an impartial bonus award process, and determine to what extent
VA’s performance boards award bonuses based not just on individual
performance but also the department’s overall success,” Brown-Waite
said.
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Larry Scott
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