Veterans Affairs Drops Employee-Accountability Tools

At the heart of any nation’s pride and gratitude lie its veterans — it is only right that we provide them the highest level of care and respect in return for their service. But the recent decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to stop using a key section of the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act has at least one veterans’ advocacy group crying foul.

The 2017 law was signed in the wake of a number of VA scandals. The section now being abandoned — section 714 — was designed to give the VA enhanced tools to discipline subpar employees. It has been undermined by a number of court decisions mandating that the VA meet a higher standard of evidence than the one specified in the statute when disciplining employees, allowing judges to review if the VA’s chosen punishment for an employee matches the employee’s alleged misconduct, and ruling out retroactive application of the statute. The Federal Labor Relations Authority also found that the VA violated its collective-bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees by removing performance-improvement plans from the pre-disciplinary process. The VA will now rely on disciplinary mechanisms that were in place before the 2017 Act, and will reinstate all employees who were fired under section 714 without first being provided with a performance-improvement plan.

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Bobby Miller

Bobby Miller is an ISI Fellow at National Review and a graduate student at Georgetown University.

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At the heart of any nation’s pride and gratitude lie its veterans — it is only right that we provide them the highest level of care and respect in return for their service. But the recent decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to stop using a key section of the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act has at least one veterans’ advocacy group crying foul.

The 2017 law was signed in the wake of a number of VA scandals. The section now being abandoned — section 714 — was designed to give the VA enhanced tools to discipline subpar employees. It has been undermined by a number of court decisions mandating that the VA meet a higher standard of evidence than the one specified in the statute when disciplining employees, allowing judges to review if the VA’s chosen punishment for an employee matches the employee’s alleged misconduct, and ruling out retroactive application of the statute. The Federal Labor Relations Authority also found that the VA violated its collective-bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees by removing performance-improvement plans from the pre-disciplinary process. The VA will now rely on disciplinary mechanisms that were in place before the 2017 Act, and will reinstate all employees who were fired under section 714 without first being provided with a performance-improvement plan.