美国国家公共电台 NPR VA Whistleblowers 10 Times More Likely Than Peers To Receive Disciplinary Action

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Whistleblowers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are feeling some sense of vindication¹ because the Government Accountability Office is saying what they have said for years. Many of those who speak up about mismanagement, fraud or abuse are often silenced, marginalized or even forced out. This GAO report also said senior VA managers are too often not held accountable for misconduct. Some in Congress are demanding that the incoming VA secretary do something about all this. Here's NPR's Eric Westervelt.

ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE²: In the cases they reviewed, the Accountability Office found that whistleblowers were 10 times more likely than their VA colleagues to face discipline within a year of reporting misconduct. And the report shows that a whopping 66 percent of VA employees who filed formal complaints of wrongdoing didn't work for the agency one year after speaking up. They were forced out, fired or quit. It also shows that senior VA officials who are guilty of misconduct, including gross mismanagement, fraud, abuse and whistleblower retaliation³, often got a lesser⁴ punishment than recommended or no punishment at all. Democratic Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham calls the GAO's findings beyond disturbing. She says veteran health is being jeopardized⁶.

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM: It means that there is a system that doesn't have the right checks and balances that cannot police itself. So it tells me that patient quality care and safety continues to be at risk because we've got a system that won't address its own problems.

WESTERVELT: There's bipartisan anger at the report's findings. Colorado Republican Congressman⁷ Mike Coffman co-requested the investigation⁸ with Grisham. In an email, Coffman said he has, quote, "repeatedly called for the secretary and the president to end the culture of bureaucratic⁹ incompetence¹⁰ and corruption¹¹ at the VA. But with failing systems and processes, how can this be achieved?" he asked. Grisham, who's now running for governor of New Mexico, says the report shows the need for the Department of Justice to step in and oversee¹² how the VA handles misconduct and retaliation cases.

LUJAN GRISHAM: There needs to be a message to these senior officials immediately that they're going to be held accountable. They weren't held accountable for the wait-time scandal. I can't find a scandal where anyone in the VA system has ever been held accountable.

WESTERVELT: The VA says it agrees with nine of the GAO's 16 reform recommendations. At a congressional hearing this week, acting¹³ VA Secretary Peter O'Rourke defended the agency as undergoing what he called historic, transformative changes. But at the hearing, Representative Kathleen Rice, a New York Democrat⁵, questioned O'Rourke on why VA managers who silence employees seem to face little or no punishment.

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KATHLEEN RICE: It seems to me that there's always the benefit of the doubt given to the people who retaliate¹⁴ against whistleblowers than is given - you can shake your head.

PETER O'ROURKE: I don't agree with that.

RICE: Well, OK. But we've seen example...

O'ROURKE: OK.

RICE: ...After example of it.

WESTERVELT: In a statement, VA press secretary Curt¹⁵ Cashour wrote that the problems the GAO highlights were largely an Obama-era problem and that President Trump¹⁶ has taken steps to fix that. But the GAO's report is not based solely¹⁷ on the Obama era. The oversight¹⁸ body examined a sample of employee misconduct data throughout the VA from October 2009 through July 2017. And while the number of VA workers fired is up under President Trump, congressional Democrats¹⁹ and the VA's union cite VA data showing that the vast majority of those fired in the first five months of 2018 were low-level food service and custodial²⁰ staff, the majority of whom were veterans. In that same period, only 15 out of the more than 1,000 VA employees fired were supervisors²¹. Eric Westervelt, NPR News.