VA bonuses go to officials involved in budget shortfalls

WASHINGTON, D.C. — 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.

Arizona Democrat 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, D-Hawaii, 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, who represents Arizona’s Fifth Congressional District. "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."

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.

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.

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 the burgeoning Iraq war.