I appreciate what the secretary is doing with the restructuring and coming up with a strong internal audit system. However i must express that i am skeptical about how that is going to work. We have the whistleblower protection act but its not enforced. My concern burst of office we have heard so much testimony in thandthe committee about a cultf secrecy and culture of retaliation, and retaliation is a huge deterrent to hearing the complaints. So my first question is to you we heard theres been retaliation against employees. I encountered there is retaliation against patients who might feel they have a complaint against a facility. Are you aware of any retaliation against patients or veterans . I think thats a really important question. Im not aware of any retaliation in part because my Agency Jurisdiction is for employees to come forward with retaliation complaints or disclosures of waste, fraud, abuse or Health Safety problems. Someone could come to us if they thought that a patient
Performance award, whatever you want to call that, do you is not sending veterans to the outside to private care, is that part of the metric . And no one has answered that question. Is it yes or no . Congressman, i dont know. And ill take that for the record. Okay. Thank you for that. You mention, at least its in the evaluations that you have, the elements outlined for as leading change, leading people, business acumen, building coalitions and results driven. Those are the metrics that you go by. What are the specifics in there . I mean, how they set up. Thats fine. I mean, all that sounds good. But what do you actually have to do to get a 10,000 or in some cases 60,000 bonus . Congressman, in each of the performance plans, there is a template that goes out that says the guidance for the strategy of v. A. And what the employees must do to tie their organization and individual performance to the strategies of v. A. That is how it is determined. And if they exceed, there are different cr
Im not aware that its not comparable paid to dod. Ill have to look at that. I would appreciate that. Thanks. And want to know if thats true. Has the va considered offering other incentives such as loan repayment or increase pay for va providers willing to work in rural and underserved areas . We have not looked at that, congressman. Thats interesting. My understanding is the rural areas, rural areas and underserved areas, is typically well, we dont know enough about the investigation to know how this gaming the system sort of matches up, whether we are seeing the manipulation of wait times sort of the more prevalent in these underserved and rural areas. What additional professional opportunities could the viet offer it Health Care Providers would recruit and retai retraine who are dedicated serving veterans . I think we are doing things like market day, which gives them an additional pay to the base pay. The performance pay, the contracts that they do come off like its an additional th
Meeting this morning to subpoena two sets of documents from the va that were longstanding requests from the committee, but yesterday va delivered information regarding the removal of six ses employees for the past two fiscal years. This request has been made by multiple members of this committee, including myself, and multiple hearings going back to february. This morning va delivered the second set of documents which i requested via letter in october of 2013. The documents cover the Performance Reviews for each ses individual for fiscal years 2011 and 2012. Although vas response to my request and your request was delayed, their production of the requested materials is sufficient and, therefore, after consultation with the Ranking Member, well no longer be having a business meeting this morning. So this mornings full hearing is entitled pea review of awarding bonuses to Senior Executives at the department of Veterans Affairs. This morning, were going to examine the outlandish bonus cul
Overall i do not have that number, but i will take it for the record. Okay. The ig has not completed their investigation, so we really probably do not have the final number right now. How much of the we talk someone about how the incentives may be should be based on outcomes rather than these metrics. I am targeting down on why the metrics, we lost control of them i heard testimony that had to do with technology, that we did not have we had a scheduling system that was easy to gain. Is that your assessment . I do not know enough about the system to make that assessment. Soaker. Well, because i just wanted the number of employees that were involved. It made it very difficult for anyone to make, you know, look at how people were scheduled to mile veterans were scheduled and it if there are a lot of employees, i can imagine that the scheduling component of the vista system apparently was vulnerable, but you testify on your expertise. Unfortunately it is not, congressman. Well, what other