SEA calls on House lawmakers to further improve VA Accountability bill

Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, explained her organization\'s concerns, saying Congress doesn\'t need to micromanage SES perform...

The Senior Executives Association is raising red flags about the House bill to increase the accountability of the Veterans Affairs Department’s Senior Executive Service.

Carol Bonosaro, SEA’s president, wrote to Reps. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Mark Takano (D- Calif.), the chairman and ranking member of the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, April 15 expressing her organization’s concerns about the Increasing the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability to Veterans Act of 2015. The subcommittee approved Wenstrup’s amendment in the nature of a substitute during an April 16 markup of several bills.

Bonosaro said while Wenstrup’s amendment in the nature of a substitute is a step in the right direction compared to Rep. Jeff Miller’s (R-Fla.) original bill, H.R. 473 still is problematic.

But Bonosaro said SEA’s concerns are focused on the impact the bill could have governmentwide, the insertion of Congress into agency decision making and unfair punishment of senior executives.

The one provision in the new bill that is drawing SEA’s ire is the requirement for Congress to sign off on every SES performance appraisal at VA.

“SEA does not believe Congress should be in the business of micromanaging agencies by reviewing every performance appraisal,” Bonosaro wrote. “However, if the committee persists in seeking this authority, then any information on performance appraisals provided to Congress should also be provided to the employee, along with notice that the information has been provided to Congress. Additionally, SEA strongly believes that protections should be put in place that prevents the public release of such sensitive personnel records by Congress along with strict penalties for doing so.”

SEA also is concerned about a related provision that would limit how many SESers could receive excellent, outstanding and other ratings.

The bill would limit VA to giving only 10 percent of its SES workforce an excellent rating annually and 20 percent of its SES workforce an “exceeds fully successful” rating.

“[W]e are concerned that the forced distribution of ratings at the outstanding and exceeds fully successful level challenges an underpinning factor of the SES system that agencies make meaningful distinctions in performance. Senior Executives face a high barrier of entry into the corps; therefore a normal distribution of performance should not be expected nor imposed,” Bonosaro wrote. “The VA Secretary has authority to sign-off on every SES performance appraisal. Complaints or reports from various oversight bodies are already taken into account in assessments of executive performance. Inspectors general are already consulted prior to issuance of performance awards.”

A third provision that is of concern to SEA would create one set of rules for VA and one set for all other agencies.

Bonosaro said that would create “challenges in maintaining consistency and providing for appropriate oversight by the Office of Personnel Management.”

SEA also asked lawmakers to improve two other provisions. Bonosaro said SEA recommends narrowing the provision to make sure it’s clear that if an employee is convicted of a felony and has no more appeals, then the government can reduce their retirement benefits based on the length of time they committed the crime as determined by the courts.

“SEA shares the concern of chairman Miller about the misuse of administrative leave at the VA and across the government. Yet this bill does not put an end to the ability of agencies to abuse administrative leave, but rather creates new reporting and tracking requirements,” Bonosaro said. “SEA is currently crafting a legislative solution to the issue of administrative leave abuse.”

Miller introduced the bill after repeated frustrations over VA officials at the center of scandals were allowed to retire. The House already approved one of Miller’s bills to force VA executives to repay bonuses if the employees engaged in misconduct.

“There are always going to be those who support the status quo, no matter how dysfunctional it is.” Miller said, in a statement. “But in this case, those who do so put themselves squarely on the side of the corrupt officials who created the VA scandal and in direct opposition to the innocent veterans who have fallen victim to it. The arguments against this bill — that VA’s accountability problem doesn’t exist or VA already has the tools to fix it — could be easily refuted by any high-school sophomore with access to Google and armed with the key words ‘VA Accountability.’ Ultimately, I think the Increasing VA Accountability to Veterans Act of 2015 will be successful because it is based on common sense that appeals to almost everyone — everyone except those opposed to accountability.”

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) introduced a companion bill, S. 290, in January. The Veterans Affairs Committee has yet to act on Moran’s bill.

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