Rhino
05-03-2007, 09:14 AM
VA Hands Out Hefty Bonuses to Senior Officials Despite Recent $1Billion Shortfall
Thursday, May 03, 2007
WASHINGTON — Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put U.S. military veterans' health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.
The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006, obtained by The Associated Press, documents a 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. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.
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 a burgeoning Iraq war.....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269762,00.html
Thursday, May 03, 2007
WASHINGTON — Months after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that put U.S. military veterans' health care in peril, Veterans Affairs officials involved in the foul-up got hefty bonuses ranging up to $33,000.
The list of bonuses to senior career officials at the Veterans Affairs Department in 2006, obtained by The Associated Press, documents a 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. They received performance payments up to $33,000 each, a figure equal to about 20 percent of their annual salaries.
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 a burgeoning Iraq war.....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269762,00.html