Despite more problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency handed out more than $177 million in bonuses in fiscal 2015 to nearly 189,000 employees.
More than 300 senior executives of the troubled agency received $3.3 million in bonuses, for an average payment of about $10,000 each, USA Today reported Monday. Bonuses for non-executives averaged about $900.
The report comes in the wake of an aborted attempt by the Pentagon to recoup enlistment bonuses paid to National Guardsmen who served in Iraq. Critics said the VA bonuses raise fresh questions about the agency’s system for evaluating employees.
“On Wall Street, these bonuses would be laughable,” the advocacy group DisabledVets.org said on its web site. “But VA is not Wall Street. Instead, it is a beleaguered agency with persistent criminal actors harming veterans on a regular basis.”
Among the managers receiving bonuses, the newspaper reported, was the former top VA official in Ohio who retired the same day he received a termination notice. Another bonus went to the chief of staff at the scandal-ridden Phoenix VA Medical Center, who got the cash award four months before he was fired.
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Back off and just give everybody $200 for the holidays.
ReplyDeleteThis nonsense needs to stop. Too many Veterans are suffering under the VA care system. There is much waste there in many ways. They should hire more medical staff and provide adequate amounts of equipment to serve our vets. Then the wait times wouldn't be as long.
ReplyDeleteThere should be no VA bonuses and their salary reductions until the VA is fixed
ReplyDelete