A Veterans Affairs official told members of Congress overseeing construction of the hospital in Aurora, now estimated to cost $1.7 billion

Not only does the badly mistreated taxpayer buck not stop at the desks of leaders of the Veterans Administration, it gets passed back to the folks who sent it to Washington in the first place.

The surreal situation at the VA, where billion-dollar cost overruns and employees scheming about how to cover up how lousy the service is, must be stopped. It’s not hyperbole to say the VA is out of control, and that the Obama administration and Congress must jointly take action immediately to preserve the health of veterans and save billions of dollars.

Colorado and the nation are still reeling from the news that the once pricey $350 million VA replacement hospital to built years ago on the Aurora Fitzsimons Campus is now estimated to cost $1.7 billion dollars, and it’s likely to be even bigger, costlier and later than everyone is led to believe.

It’s not only an outrage, it’s a danger to the stumbling VA healthcare system across the country. Congress is looking for almost a billion dollars in cash — it absolutely doesn’t have — to pay for cost overruns. And Congress must keep in mind that the nation, and especially the VA healthcare system, can’t tolerate suspending, dialing back or outright killing other projects across the country intended to improve a sad, inefficient and embarrassing program.

Aurora Congressman Mike Coffman has proposed a realistic and effective way to not only raise the cash needed to complete this badly needed project, but Coffman’s proposal to halt all VA performance bonuses is an important statement by itself. It’s flabbergasting that so much widespread malfeasance would be perpetrated and apparently tolerated in a crucial government agency like the VA, but its galling to taxpayers that the system and inept government employees were handsomely rewarded for behavior that should have cost them their jobs.

Coffman is proposing that Congress suspend all VA bonuses for 30 months and use the estimated billion dollars or so earmarked for that to pay for cost overruns at least at this VA boondoggle.

It’s a start.

This week, Coffman made a second stab at pushing through the VA Construction Accountability and Reform Act. During a VA Hospital Oversight hearing in Washington, Coffman pushed back at complaints from VA officials that across-the-board bonus cuts would be unfairly punitive to VA employees who weren’t responsible for this malfeasance, and they were being rewarded for jobs well done.

This catastrophe isn’t about fairness. It’s about an inept government agency. Coffman isn’t suggesting that VA employees give back past bonus money, although we, and most taxpayers, would be thrilled to learn that those VA employees who lied, cheated or were responsible for this and other VA construction quagmires, must reimburse taxpayers for their incompetence.

Instead, the situation has changed, and a loss of bonuses for a couple of years is a reflection of this urgent VA reality. Those kind of real-life situations affect pay and working conditions for just about every American worker outside of the government. There’s no defensible reason to expect VA employees should be permitted to work under different standards.

The bigger picture Coffman, the rest of Congress and the Obama administration must examine is whether the VA problems are fixable, or whether the situation calls for wholesale changes.

But for now, using bonus payments this agency cannot afford under these dire circumstances is a step in the right direction of fixing the VA’s immediate and short-range problems.

14 replies on “EDITORIAL: Enact Coffman’s plan to use VA bonus dollars for blunders”

  1. Salaries and Benefits are plainly set forth in Civil Service Directives, and applicants know when they sign contract what they should earn, what will be withheld for healthcare or other withholdings. Dumbest idea in world was then installing a bonus plan. Civil Service directives themselves are form of union, and FDR opposed further unionism within the public service areas. Stop all bonuses, for all such positions. If people do not live up to doing their jobs to highest levels, train them, or replace them. And try hard not to promote where they fill “Peter’s Pricinciple” , meaning beyond their abilities or knowledge. Taxpayers and Military Veterans do not get bonuses, being promoted based on abilities and responsibilities displayed.

  2. Agree…stop the bonuses for a few years. Let the agency’s employees EARN the respect of taxpayers, vets and electeds over a consistent pattern for a few years. Then reinstate if performance supports.

  3. I am appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used for bonuses at all! Between $360 million and $400 million were shelled out for bonuses just by the VA. How many other federal agencies are paying bonuses to employees with tax dollars? Most Americans have to live on their salaries or wages. What makes federal government workers different? The national debt is about $17 trillion. Eliminating using tax dollars for bonuses would be a great start to paying down that figure.

    1. There are quite a few job specialties where it would be impossible to hire qualified people without offering a bonus. If tax payer dollars were not offering a bonus we would be getting bottom of the barrel personnel and doing the tax payers a disservice by guaranteeing we would be delivering sub par work. With that said I am also appalled that the people that conspired and approved a plan that would have cut corners so deep that doing it right is doubled the budget. Are not facing consequences. People should lose their jobs, the fact that they are even considered eligible for bonus is sickening. these people should be held to the fire.

      1. possibly so tell me, which of those jobs are impossible to hire qualified people for without a bonus???

        1. I cannot, construction is not my field of expertise. I do not disagree that not a single person involved in this embezzlement of tax dollars should receive a bonus. My only point was some jobs in the government need to match the private sector. The problem is when there is a specialty with an industry standard to give a bonus. When a qualified person is out looking for a job and only sees the private sector offering a competitive salary, I imagine the position becomes hard to fill when the unemployment rates are low. The options for the government agency becomes simple, either give a bonus, roll it into their salary, or fill the position with the least qualified among us.

      2. Then you raise the salary for those hard-to-fill job specialties. As it is now, clearly bonuses have just handed out with no regard whatsoever for performance goals.

        1. Six one way half a dozen the other. I agree with you, but if they made performance goals a bonus could be a good thing. If they go over budget they lose their bonus. I think we might be missing the real issue here. This was mishandled by a guy who has been giving contracts to companies knowing their bid was too low and would always go over budget. Glenn Haggstrom has a pattern of contracts he approved going hundred of millions of dollars over budget. What he did was criminal, and Auroras VA hospital is a shining example of his criminal behavior. Now he has retired with no consequences. This guy has robbed American tax payers. He should be in jail.

  4. It’s much like the Wall St. collapse, while the taxpayers were bailing them out, they were making huge bonuses, government is no different. ‘there should be bonuses no matter how poorly we run the show’ Nice work if you can get it.

    This idea makes more sense than government is capable of making.

  5. Sounds nice, but is it reasonable to hurt ALL VA employees when only SOME were involved in what happened here? (I’m frankly rather surprised that government employees get any bonuses (it happens in in Colorado at the local, county and state levels). It used to be a corporate perk for high-earners who brought revenue and business to the firm. )

      1. Good to hear that. I’ve heard of them in Jeffco, and — I think — Arapahoe County where I live now. I worked in city gvt for ten years in another state and there were never bonuses.

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