{"id":35519,"date":"2013-05-09T10:03:12","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T14:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35519"},"modified":"2013-05-09T10:03:12","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T14:03:12","slug":"va-bonuses-add-up-to-16-9m-over-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35519","title":{"rendered":"VA bonuses add up to $16.9M over 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Washington Examiner reports<\/a>\u00a0that the VA has given out about $16.9 million in bonuses to senior executives over the past five years.<\/p>\n

There appears to be little correlation between pay and performance. For instance, one of the worst-performing regional offices is in Phoenix, where the average wait time for a veteran to get a disability rating is almost 470 days — more than 15 months.<\/p>\n

Sandra Flint has been director of the Phoenix regional office for about eight years. Since 2007, she has received at least $53,109 in bonuses, including more than $21,000 in merit bonuses, according to the records obtained by\u00a0The Washington Examiner. Her 2011 salary was $165,300.<\/p>\n

Since 2009, the backlog of claims in Phoenix has more than doubled and now stands at just under 80 percent. Flint did not return telephone calls seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Another long-time regional director who has reaped big bonuses is Carl Hawkins, the top executive in the Columbia, S.C., office since about 1998. Hawkins was paid $79,275 in performance bonuses over five years, the third-highest among current regional office directors. His pay in 2011 was $165,300.<\/p>\n

Since 2009, the backlog of disability claims in Columbia has grown from 32.5 percent to 71.2 percent. It now takes an average of 308 days to rate a claim in Columbia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The VA has been taking a beating from the media on the backlog, bonuses and other waste – such as expensive employee conferences, but there has been only the same response from the leadership for the passt several years – ‘we’ll fix it.’<\/p>\n

The time for excuses is over. There is a complete leadership failure at the VA and leaders need to be held accountable. It is long past time for Eric Shinseki and his immediate subordinate directors to be relieved and replaced. Their failures are an absolute disgrace, and they are ultimately responsible.<\/p>\n

Shinskei, you’re a failure – it’s time to accept your responsibility and get someone in there who can actually fix something.<\/p>\n

Cross posted from After the Army<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Washington Examiner reports\u00a0that the VA has given out about $16.9 million in bonuses to senior executives … VA bonuses add up to $16.9M over 5 years<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}