U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, possible Republican presidential contender in 2016, has signed on to bring U.S. Rep. Jeff Millers bill giving the secretary of Veterans Affairs more power to discipline incompetent senior executive service (SES) employees.
On Thursday, Rubio teamed up with three Republican senators -- Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, John McCain of Arizona and Jerry Moran of Kansas -- to introduce the legislation which gives the VA secretary more flexibility in disciplining underperfoming SES employees, including reducing pensions, reducing time on forced paid administrative leave, reforming appraisals for bonus and adding more transparency. From his perch as chairman of the U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee, Miller, R-Fla. will introduce the same legislation in the House.
To fix the VA and make sure it achieves its mission of providing high-quality and timely health care to our veterans, we must eliminate the culture of incompetence, negligence and underperformance that has been tolerated and, in some cases, even covered up for too long, Rubio said on Thursday.
Pointing to reports around the nation last year of VA medical facilities using altered waiting lists -- with more than 30 veterans in Phoenix dying while awaiting treatment after being on the altered lists -- Rubio said the VA needed to be more responsive and hold bad employees more accountable.
Last year, I was encouraged that my proposal authorizing the VA secretary to fire bad managers became law, Rubio said. Now we have to make it clear that if youre a senior VA executive found guilty of criminal activity during your tenure, you should have no guarantee of a bonus or pension. We owe our veterans the very best health care and customer service, and thats going to be hard to achieve as long as you have VA officials believing there are no consequences for poor work or even criminal behavior.
When he brought out the bill last week, Miller said his bill was the result of reports last year on how the VA dealt with altered waiting lists at medical facilities across the country.
More than nine months after the VA scandal, Americans are asking where is the accountability? Unfortunately, VA doesnt have a good answer to this question, Miller said on Thursday. "Thats why our focus remains on giving the VA secretary more tools to ensure corrupt and incompetent executives face serious consequences for mismanagement and malfeasance that harms veterans. Right now, the task at hand for VA leaders is replacing the departments culture of complacency with a climate of accountability, and we are going to give them everything they need to do get the job done.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
