The Patriot Post® · VA: Lack of Care at a High Cost

As if the situation at the Department of Veterans Affairs wasn’t bad enough, heartbreaking congressional testimony was heard about the runaround some of our veterans suffering from mental health issues received from the agency. Those who testified were the surviving parents of military members who committed suicide. One couple recounted how their son “suffered from post-traumatic stress so severe he wore a towel around his head that he said helped keep out the voices, the light and the sound.” Others documented the troubles their children had with securing appointments and prescriptions, and the lack of follow-up care.

In each of these cases, the victims went to the VA for assistance but got no help. One mother testified to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs that she “promised my son at his funeral” that she would do something to help correct this issue. Congress has complied to some extent, as Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) introduced a bill named after a suicide victim, the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act. It would require better coordination between the National Guard and VA, where several of the victims fell through the system’s cracks as they were shuffled between their respective facilities.

But there’s more incompetence at the VA, as it’s been learned that thousands of employees are misclassified under the General Schedule (GS) classification system, sometimes by two levels or more. This means they are being overpaid for the work they’re doing, and since as many as 13,000 VA employees may be affected, the annual overage runs into the tens of millions of dollars.

Some employees have been receiving additional pay and benefits beyond their true pay scale for over a decade. Warnings from overseers who are supposed to catch these discrepancies were unheeded and whistleblowers were persecuted by management. “Do I follow the law, or do I follow [management] guidance?” asked one worried job classifier. An effort to straighten out this mess was halted by senior VA officials worried about employee reaction, with the union joining in on the request later by complaining the classifiers aren’t a neutral party. Worse, even when employees’ classification is corrected, they are still paid at the higher level, though they may have issues with promotions or retirement pay.

Sadly, this longstanding issue is nowhere close to being resolved. In fact, dozens of new misclassified openings are advertised each month. In May, 284 such openings were advertised, with an additional potential cost to taxpayers of $3.3 million. More than ironically, the savings from properly classifying these administrative jobs could have allowed for hiring five neurosurgeons, 10 psychiatrists … and five suicide prevention case managers.