Lawmakers Wants VA to Explain Bonuses

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6606670,00.html

Friday May 4, 2007 4:01 AM


AP Photo GFX469

By HOPE YEN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.''

One member of the House committee, Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., called for Nicholson to resign.

A list obtained by the AP of bonuses to senior career officials in 2006 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.

[KansDem]

1. These folks must have thought they were in the private sector!

No government official should ever be rewarded for misleading taxpayers... If they were in the private sector, they could make million$$$ in bonuses for misleading customers.

Someone needs to point this out to them.