VA Demotions Put On Hold By Clerical Error

Due to a paperwork mix-up, the demotions of two high-ranking officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs has been put on hold and will have to be reissued once the paperwork is sorted out, the agency said Thursday.

In the wake of a VA inspector general report saying that Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves of the Veterans Benefits Administration had manipulated the agency’s hiring process to secure for themselves sweetheart job transfers, the VA announced in November that the two employees were being demoted.

They went from being senior executives — the highest career employee rank —to being general workers.

Ms. Rubens and Ms. Graves “exercised their statutory right to appeal their demotion” and the appeals process would put on hold their geographic reassignments to their lower-paying jobs, Ryan Hedgepeth, VA oversight director, said in a statement.

An agency lawyer had discovered that one of five binders of evidence supporting the demotion hadn’t been given to the employees.

“To rectify this omission, the department must rescind and reissue the proposed demotions and afford the employees the opportunity to respond to the additional supporting evidence,” Mr. Hedgepeth said. “This process is now underway.

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