Veterans Administration corruption probe

[waltky]

VA probe into possible corruption...

VA promises results of probe into $42 million in awards
April 1, 2013 - U.S. lawmakers await the results of a Department of Veterans Affairs probe into why an agency employee processed more than 1,500 awards just under a monetary threshold that would require public disclosure of the contracts.

The inquiry focuses on a staff member who oversees orders for some VA health facilities in New York and New Jersey and who processed transactions worth more than $42 million over a roughly 18-month period. A letter from a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee said that the purchases ranged from $24,500 to $24,980. Transactions of $25,000 and more are generally required to be published on a federal government procurement website to encourage as many bids as possible. "What is the basis or reasoning for placing multiple transactions with the same vendor on the same day and keeping transactions below $25,000?" asked the Sept. 26, 2012, letter signed by Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, who at the time served as the chairman of the subcommittee on oversight.

Jo Schuda, a VA spokeswoman, said Thursday that the department has finished its investigation into the case and is preparing a response that should be delivered this week. "We are not commenting regarding any actions taken until the response is issued," Schuda said in an email. She declined to say whether the individual responsible for the transactions faced disciplinary action. The committee's letter questioned why so many orders to the same vendor were "fragmented," leaving them under the $25,000 threshold. The transactions occurred between Oct. 1, 2010, and March 18, 2012.

The House panel, when sending its letter, requested a response from the VA within 20 calendar days. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who chairs the House veterans committee, expressed disappointment that the agency hasn't answered the letter's questions, more than six months after it was sent. "VA owes it to America's veterans and America's taxpayers to engage in an honest conversation about how it spends taxpayer dollars," Miller said in an emailed statement. "The longer it takes the department to explain these transactions, the more suspicious the transactions appear." It isn't clear whether the VA employee whose actions spurred the investigation made the orders himself or prepared them on behalf of someone else, according to Johnson's September letter. The transactions were linked to the employee's name in a contracting database.

Lawmakers said they were concerned that many of the transactions were done on the same day with a single vendor, and potentially violated a federal law requiring agencies to seek competitive bids for government work, the letter said. "If true, such actions on the part of VA would appear to violate the Competition in Contract Act," Johnson's letter said. "This information creates the appearance purchases at VA are being fragmented, whether intentionally or unintentionally." The letter cited 25 purchase orders issued for Bismark Construction at $24,900 each, on December 30, 2010, for a total of $622,500. It also said the employee in question created 25 transactions for $24,900 each for orders to Kinetic Concepts, which designs and markets products such as tissue regeneration technology, on Nov. 9, 2011.

James Seeram, president of Newark, N.J.-based Bismark didn't respond to requests seeking comment about whether the company was aware of the probe. Mike Barger, a spokesman for San Antonio, Texas-based Kinetic Concepts, said Friday by email that the company hadn't been contacted by lawmakers or the VA about the investigation and wasn't aware of any "contractual irregularities." Dan Gordon, President Obama's top procurement official until December 2011, said that "multiple purchases of similar goods or services by the same buyers over a short period of time, all just below a key threshold amount, should be viewed as a red flag." Gordon is now a procurement law dean at George Washington University law school in Washington.

Source

 

[waltky]

Gettin' rid o' the feather-bedders an' dead weight...

Senators Introduce Bill to Give VA Bosses Power to Fire Employees
Feb 13, 2016 | The two U.S. senators from Oklahoma on Friday introduced legislation to allow the Veterans Affairs Secretary to delegate to VA health care network directors the power to demote and fire employees on the basis of performance or conduct.

The proposed law builds on the authority Congress granted to the VA secretary in 2014 to order demotions and firings of personnel for poor performance or behavior. "Our legislation grants VA leadership at the regional level the authority to fire any staff that are failing to provide adequate care to veterans," Sen. James Inhofe said in a statement. His co-sponsor is fellow Republican Sen. James Lankford. Neither lawmaker serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee -- the panel that typically would generate this kind of legislation -- but the two were spurred by a VA investigation that resulted in a shutdown of surgeries at the Muskogee VA Medical Center in Oklahoma due to quality-of-care issues.

Amanda Maddox, a spokeswoman for Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia and chairman of the Senate panel, said the committee knew this legislation was coming and will be working with Inhofe and Lankford to include the provisions into a VA accountability package now being put together. The VA launched its probe of the Oklahoma facility after USA Today reported on veterans whose illnesses were made worse by lack of follow-up care and misdiagnosis. Two Veterans Integrated System Network teams for the Oklahoma region discovered problems with quality of care and management at the facility. Not only were the surgeries shut down but the hospital's chief of staff was temporarily reassigned pending a department-level review of the VISN review. Inhofe said on Friday that VA Secretary Bob McDonald is expected to brief him on his findings in the next few weeks.

Lankford said allowing McDonald to extend his authority to demote and fire to regional directors will improve accountability across the VA. "Men and women who served our nation in uniform deserve quality care. Unfortunately, the VA isn't always meeting this expectation," said Lankford. "To ensure our veterans receive quality care, we must give our senior officials at the regional level the tools to hold people accountable." The lawmakers' bill also would authorize the directors of the various integrated service networks across the VA system to bring in an outside company specializing in civilian accreditation or health care evaluation to assess and report on deficiencies with any medical center within their network.

Senators Introduce Bill to Give VA Bosses Power to Fire Employees | Military.com

 

[ThunderKiss1965]

VA probe into possible corruption...

VA promises results of probe into $42 million in awards
April 1, 2013 - U.S. lawmakers await the results of a Department of Veterans Affairs probe into why an agency employee processed more than 1,500 awards just under a monetary threshold that would require public disclosure of the contracts.

The inquiry focuses on a staff member who oversees orders for some VA health facilities in New York and New Jersey and who processed transactions worth more than $42 million over a roughly 18-month period. A letter from a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee said that the purchases ranged from $24,500 to $24,980. Transactions of $25,000 and more are generally required to be published on a federal government procurement website to encourage as many bids as possible. "What is the basis or reasoning for placing multiple transactions with the same vendor on the same day and keeping transactions below $25,000?" asked the Sept. 26, 2012, letter signed by Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, who at the time served as the chairman of the subcommittee on oversight.

Jo Schuda, a VA spokeswoman, said Thursday that the department has finished its investigation into the case and is preparing a response that should be delivered this week. "We are not commenting regarding any actions taken until the response is issued," Schuda said in an email. She declined to say whether the individual responsible for the transactions faced disciplinary action. The committee's letter questioned why so many orders to the same vendor were "fragmented," leaving them under the $25,000 threshold. The transactions occurred between Oct. 1, 2010, and March 18, 2012.

The House panel, when sending its letter, requested a response from the VA within 20 calendar days. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who chairs the House veterans committee, expressed disappointment that the agency hasn't answered the letter's questions, more than six months after it was sent. "VA owes it to America's veterans and America's taxpayers to engage in an honest conversation about how it spends taxpayer dollars," Miller said in an emailed statement. "The longer it takes the department to explain these transactions, the more suspicious the transactions appear." It isn't clear whether the VA employee whose actions spurred the investigation made the orders himself or prepared them on behalf of someone else, according to Johnson's September letter. The transactions were linked to the employee's name in a contracting database.

Lawmakers said they were concerned that many of the transactions were done on the same day with a single vendor, and potentially violated a federal law requiring agencies to seek competitive bids for government work, the letter said. "If true, such actions on the part of VA would appear to violate the Competition in Contract Act," Johnson's letter said. "This information creates the appearance purchases at VA are being fragmented, whether intentionally or unintentionally." The letter cited 25 purchase orders issued for Bismark Construction at $24,900 each, on December 30, 2010, for a total of $622,500. It also said the employee in question created 25 transactions for $24,900 each for orders to Kinetic Concepts, which designs and markets products such as tissue regeneration technology, on Nov. 9, 2011.

James Seeram, president of Newark, N.J.-based Bismark didn't respond to requests seeking comment about whether the company was aware of the probe. Mike Barger, a spokesman for San Antonio, Texas-based Kinetic Concepts, said Friday by email that the company hadn't been contacted by lawmakers or the VA about the investigation and wasn't aware of any "contractual irregularities." Dan Gordon, President Obama's top procurement official until December 2011, said that "multiple purchases of similar goods or services by the same buyers over a short period of time, all just below a key threshold amount, should be viewed as a red flag." Gordon is now a procurement law dean at George Washington University law school in Washington.

Source

We investigated ourselves fired a few low level employees with pay and benefits and found nothing wrong.

 

[waltky]

More shenanigans at the VA...

VA: Department Attorneys, Judges Sent Racist, Sexist Emails
Mar 03, 2016 | WASHINGTON -- Two judges and three attorneys for Department of Veterans Affairs who handle appeals of benefits claims were found to have repeatedly sent racist and sexist emails, the department announced Wednesday. All five worked for the Board of Veterans' Appeals, where veterans can appeal decisions to deny claims for benefits.

According to a news release, the VA is conducting a review of appeals handled by the attorneys and judges but has yet to find any indication any appeals decisions were "unjustly influenced" by the conduct. VA did not name the accused, but said it had proposed disciplinary action against the lawyers and filed a complaint against the judges with the Merit Systems Protection Board, which is solely responsible for discipline against judges. One attorney resigned and one retired while the disciplinary actions were pending. A third faced less punishment, though the VA did not immediately say whether the attorney is still on the job. The case against the judges is still pending before the Merit Systems Protection Board.

VA officials declined to specify the disciplinary action proposed. "These actions are reprehensible and completely counter to our values," VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson said in a statement. "It undermines the trust the American people place in the VA to serve our veterans and has no place in this department. We will not tolerate it. Taking action as quickly as we did was simply the right thing to do."

The VA Office of Inspector General first tipped off the VA to the emails. Neither the VA or the Office of Inspector General would provide the emails or specify what was contained within the emails that triggered the discipline. "In September 2015, during the course of other work, the Office of Inspector General discovered a series of emails between a small group of (Board of Veterans' Appeals) staff that needed attention," VA Office of Inspector General spokeswoman Catherine Gromek said in an email. "At that time, since it was outside the scope of our review and in our view needed immediate attention, we advised and provided VA the related email documentation so that they could take appropriate action.

The VA has been criticized for a growing backlog of veterans' appeals and VA Secretary Bob McDonald has called for the system to be reformed so no veteran has to wait more than one year for their appeal to be adjudicated. There are 445,000 pending appeals, according to the VA. "The appeals process set by statute is archaic, unresponsive, and not serving veterans well," McDonald said in testimony to a Senate committee in late February.

VA: Department Attorneys, Judges Sent Racist, Sexist Emails | Military.com

See also:

Ex-Phoenix VA Official Pleads Guilty to Taking Gifts, Gets Probation
Mar 02, 2016 | The former Phoenix VA hospital director who was fired following revelations that patients died while waiting for appointments has pleaded guilty to not disclosing she took gifts from a lobbyist.

Sharon Helman, who became the face of the VA wait-times scandal in 2014, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to filing a false financial disclosure that failed to list more than $50,000 in gifts she received from a lobbyist. She was sentenced to probation. The VA fired Helman after it came to light that dozens of veterans seeking appointments at the Phoenix medical center were kept on a secret waitlist and died before getting an appointment. Subsequent investigations concluded the lists intended to conceal the scope of the problem, which was found to be systemic across the department.

Helman appealed her firing to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which upheld the termination in December 2014 but not because of the wait-list scandal. It ruled her firing was justified because she took gifts from a lobbyist friend and former supervisor who was representing a vendor. That gift-taking prompted an investigation by the FBI and the charge brought by Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Frank T. Galati, to which she pleaded guilty. The Justice Department said Helman has been sentenced to probation but did not describe the terms. The conviction could have resulted in a five-year prison sentence, it said in a statement.

Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System.​

FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Mark Cwynar said Helman's pleading guilty to the felony charge "will permanently attach to Ms. Helman's legacy," while Michael E. Seitler, special agent in charge for the VA's Office of the Inspector General, said the prosecution "holds Ms. Helman accountable." But Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Florida, who chairs the House Veterans Affairs Committee that conducted numerous hearings into the secret wait lists, criticized what he said was a light sentence. "I'm extremely puzzled as to why the Department of Justice chose to coddle her with a sweetheart plea deal that amounts to nothing more than a weak slap on the wrist," Miller said in a statement. "Such extraordinary leniency is an insult to the many veterans who suffered from the malfeasance and mismanagement of the Phoenix VA Health Care System."

Miller also took the opportunity to note that no official with the Phoenix VA center has been successfully disciplined for the wait-times manipulation. He also said VA has yet to discipline officials there who retaliated against whistleblowers who exposed problems at the center. The gifts to Helman included airline and concert tickets. Helman accepted tickets for a Beyoncé concert, Chang's Rock & Roll Arizona Marathon, the Mississippi Blues Marathon and an eight-night stay at Disney World. The family trip to Disneyland cost $11,000, according to the MSPB ruling. The gifts were provided by Dennis "Max" Lewis, vice president of Jefferson Consulting Group, a consultant for a healthcare company wanting to do business with the VA facilities' community-based outpatient clinics. Lewis had once been a senior executive for the VA and was Helman's boss at one time.

Ex-Phoenix VA Official Pleads Guilty to Taking Gifts, Gets Probation | Military.com

 

[ThunderKiss1965]

It will go something like. "We investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong.