AP: Senior VA officials get big bonuses

[vietnam_war_vet]

Source: AP

AP: Senior VA officials get big bonuses
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer 37 minutes ago

Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put veterans' health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.

The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006, obtained by The Associated Press, documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among those receiving payments were a deputy assistant secretary and several regional directors who crafted the VA's flawed budget for 2005 based on misleading accounting. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.

Also receiving a top bonus was the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps manage a disability claims system that has a backlog of cases and delays averaging 177 days in getting benefits to injured veterans.

The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated — if not deliberately misled taxpayers — with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid a burgeoning Iraq war.

Annual bonuses to senior VA officials now average more than $16,000 — the most lucrative in government.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/veterans_care_bonuses

---

((Unfrigginbelievable! Despite all the SNAFUs, FUBARs, and deliberately hidden budget shortfalls that has been revealed about the upper/senior management of the Department of Veterans Affairs....these same senior DVA officials have now been allowed bonuses that are 20% of their annual salaries. The Bush administration's perverse "good job, Brownie" syndrome continues. This is just another example of how this administration actually "supports our troops and veterans." -- Michael))

[Horse with no Name]

1. Yeah all that shared sacrifice.

Figuring out how to fuck the soldiers over is hard work that needs to be rewarded.

[kestrel91316]

2. Sounds like the privatization of the VA has worked out well for them.

[maddezmom]

3. Senior VA Officials Get Big Bonuses

Source: AP

Senior VA Officials Get Big Bonuses


By HOPE YEN
Thursday, May 3, 2007 4:51 AM EDT

WASHINGTON - Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put veterans' health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.

The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006, obtained by The Associated Press, documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among those receiving payments were a deputy assistant secretary and several regional directors who crafted the VA's flawed budget for 2005 based on misleading accounting. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.

Also receiving a top bonus was the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps manage a disability claims system that has a backlog of cases and delays averaging 177 days in getting benefits to injured veterans.

The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated _ if not deliberately misled taxpayers _ with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid a burgeoning Iraq war.



Read more: http://www.auburnpub.com/articles/2007/05/02/ap/headlines/d8ospaog0.txt

---

:mad:

[truthisfreedom]

4. This is interesting.

But no more interesting than anything else the bush mafia has coughed, vomited, or gagged up into the media lately.

[OneBlueSky]

10. it's more than interesting . . . it's downright sick! . . . n/t

.

[aquart]

5. That seems really, really wrong.

Can we put them in jail for it? I need to put people in jail.

[ClintonTyree]

6. Well, Bush said he was going to run the country....

like a business, he was the first "MBA" pResident, after all. :eyes: Assigning huge pay raises not connected in any way to performance IS running the country like a business, isn't it? A page right out the American corporate playbook.

Mission accomplished! :sarcasm:

[sam sarrha]

7. i smell a medal of Freedom,..... cause * keeps em up his ass

[pecwae]

8. The high levels awards were never

based on performance, but on existence during my 12 year tenure with the VA.

It was a given that all, not just some, SES received them during my 12 year tenure. As a first line supervisor I was told on three occasions that if I was awarded (it was not a given for the lower ranks) and accepted a bonus, which amounted to roughly .10 to .50% of my annual salary, it would have to come out of the employee's I supervised allocated monies. I always chose my employees and on the years none of us underlings received an award I knew my service chief took his and ran with it.

This is quite typical behavior for the VA system, but the awards are certainly bigger.

[Eagle_Eye]

9. Sounds like 'hush' money

I wonder how many more war victims are being taken care of in leaky, rat infested clinics that the public does not know about.

[mod mom]

14. yep, rewarding incompetence and loyalty are the bu$h trademark.

[MidwestTransplant]

16. Yup

[wakeme2008]

11. AS I remember,,, Just like the bonus the guy at the head of the FBI

unit "searching" for the Anthrax killer got. :shrug:

[Solly Mack]

12. Ain't that America

[Rose Siding]

13. So Clearly Wrong

:grr:

Will our govt EVER reflect OUR values?

[JohnnyLib2]

15. OMG--Monkeyman, please take your blood pressure meds!

I guess we shouldn't be surprised at this, but it sure adds to the horror stories for veterans. :banghead: :grr: :nuke:

[Monkeyman]

19. I had to Thank You

:grr: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :grr:

[MUAD_DIB]

17. It's time for Henry Waxman or whomever handles veterans affairs to

look into this matter, put these assholes on the stand and ask them why they were awarded for dismal results.


We know that the GOPigs won't ask these questions. They are morally bankrupt.

[formercia]

18. It's all about retaining 'talent'.

Suck-wads with a non-existent gag reflex.

[emald]

20. as a disabled vet I am disgusted at this

I can't even get in to see a doctor without being near death and the VA is giving away 30grand to high level people? Sick, sick, sick. Our once great country has become a joke, a bad joke. I know vets living on the street who could use a tenth of that bonus. Maybe it is time to get nasty with our government. GWBushit ruins all that he touches. This article just makes me so mad.

[Seabiscuit]

21. Why is it that every minute aspect of the Bush administration's dealings are so scandalous???

I think I'm going to jump off a bridge.

[whistle]

23. Don't do that just yet, but you have hit the nail square on......

....the Bush administration IS SCANDALOUS period. So, it is just a matter of reaching critical mass on all of the scandals and BushCo along with a large segment of reThuglican congress and state and local political parties to be sucked up into the whirlwind and spit out over the ocean somewhere:bounce:

[ninkasi]

22. All I can say is...

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Jackpine Radical]

24. Why are you people saying these bonuses weren't based on performance?

Clearly they were. These managers saved millions by setting up a system that either delivered no services to veterans or delayed those servces. Furthermore, many vets died because they couldn't get help, and each dead vet represents a permanent savings for the system. How can you possibly say that these highly talented bureaucrats failed to perform as they were mandated to do by the Administration?

[maddezmom]

25. hard to read

but easy to believe with these crooks

[Barrett808]

26. Senior VA officials get big bonuses

Source: Associated Press

Senior VA officials get big bonuses
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put veterans' health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.

The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006, obtained by The Associated Press, documents a generous package of more than $3.8 million in payments by a financially strapped agency straining to help care for thousands of injured veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among those receiving payments were a deputy assistant secretary and several regional directors who crafted the VA's flawed budget for 2005 based on misleading accounting. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.

Also receiving a top bonus was the deputy undersecretary for benefits, who helps manage a disability claims system that has a backlog of cases and delays averaging 177 days in getting benefits to injured veterans.

The bonuses were awarded even after government investigators had determined the VA repeatedly miscalculated — if not deliberately misled taxpayers — with questionable methods used to justify Bush administration cuts to health care amid a burgeoning Iraq war.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/veterans_care_bonuses

[Monkeyman]

27. Vets not be taken care of but he gets his (BULLSHIT)

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: Counted to Ten Still Angry

[lazer47]

28. Dammit it Bro. everytime I get my BP under control

along comes some fool screwing the Vets again and my wife has to go get my medication and I have to start all over again

[badgervan]

32. They WANT to Break the Bank

Un-frikkin-believable.

[Miss Chybil]

29. I'm sure they all "work hard."

They're "workin' hard." It's "hard work" ...to kiss Bush ass, f*ck the troops and the entire country all at the same time. I think they deserve every penny they get for their contortionistic behavior.

/sarcasm

[Eugene]

30. AP: Lawmakers wants VA to explain bonuses

Source: Associated Press

Lawmakers wants VA to explain bonuses

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
50 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders on Thursday demanded that the Veterans
Affairs secretary explain hefty bonuses for senior department officials involved
in crafting a budget that came up $1 billion short and jeopardized veterans'
health care.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee on
oversight, said he would hold hearings to investigate after The Associated Press
reported that budget officials at the Veterans Affairs Department received
bonuses ranging up to $33,000.

Sen. Daniel Akaka , who heads the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said the
payments pointed to an improper "entitlement for the most centrally placed or
well-connected staff." He has sent a letter to VA chief Jim Nicholson asking
what the department plans to do to eliminate any bonuses based on favoritism.

"These reports point to an apparent gross injustice at the VA that we have a
responsibility to investigate," said Mitchell, D-Ariz. "No government official
should ever be rewarded for misleading taxpayers, and the VA should not be
handing out the most lucrative bonuses in government as veterans are waiting
months and months to see a doctor."

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070503/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/veterans_care_bonuses

---

Another day another scandal at Bush & Co. :(

[LiberalFighter]

31. Oh Oh Oh.... are they going to spend their bonuses on an escort service?

[fed-up]

33. remember a few months ago Nicholson said they didn't have $1M for a database for injured military???

http://vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfMAR07/nf030807-10.htm
VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 03-08-2007 #10

UPDATE & VIDEO: NICHOLSON DIGGING A DEEPER HOLE

AT THE VA -- He shelved a Seamless Transition program

aimed at helping returning veterans when he

took over as VA Secretary in 2005.

Under VA Chief, Effort to Aid Wounded Vets Stalled, Ex-Employee Charges

Brian Ross and Justin Rood Report:


A proposal to keep seriously wounded vets from falling through the cracks of the bureaucracy was shelved in 2005 when Jim Nicholson took over as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, according to the former VA employee who was responsible for tracking war casualties.

As a result, seriously wounded veterans continued to face long delays for health care and benefit payments after being discharged from the military, says former VA program manager Paul Sullivan.

The program, called the Contingency Tracking System, had been approved by Nicholson's predecessor but died once Nicholson took over the VA, Sullivan told ABC News.

Sullivan said he was told the cost of the system -- less than $1 million to build and requiring a handful of staff to maintain -- was prohibitive.


...snip

[maddezmom]

34. yes, and thanks for posting it