![\"Veterans-Affairs2\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Veterans-Affairs2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nTwo stories from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs which illustrates what they think is punishment. First up – a VA employee in Puerto Rico, Elizabeth Rivera Rivera, who is looking at charges of armed robbery. When she was arrested, the VA fired her, but she got a union representative to stick up for her, according to the Daily Caller<\/a>.<\/p>\n Employees said the union demanded her job back and pointed out that Tito Santiago Martinez, the management-side labor relations specialist in Puerto Rico, who is in charge of dealing with the union and employee discipline, is a convicted sex offender. Martinez reportedly disclosed his conviction to the hospital and VA hired him anyway, reasoning that \u201cthere\u2019s no children in [the hospital], so they figure I could not harm anyone here.\u201d<\/p>\n The union\u2019s position \u2014 that another employee committed a crime and got away with it, so this one should, too \u2014 has been upheld by the highest civil service rules arbiters, and has created a vicious Catch-22 where the department\u2019s prior indefensible inaction against bad employees has handcuffed it from taking action now against other scofflaws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, now Rivera Rivera is going to work with a GPS anklet and she works at the security department monitoring CTV screens. Of course, the VA is just taking it’s cues from the Merit Systems Promotion Board which determined last month that the VA can’t inconsistently punish employees. That case involved Kimberly Graves and Diana Rubens who abused the VA’s relocation pay system. That brings us to our second story. It seems that the VA is punishing acting VBA chief Danny Pummill who approved Graves’ and Rubens’ relocation pay. He’s taking a 15-day suspension for that, according to US News<\/a>;<\/p>\n Pummill was the VBA’s deputy chief when Rubens and Graves implemented the job relocations, which put both of them closer to their families. Pummill replaced former VBA chief Allison Hickey, who retired as allegations against Rubens and Graves were made public.<\/p>\n Rubens earns $181,497 as director of the VBA’s Philadelphia regional office, while Graves receives $173,949 as head of the St. Paul, Minnesota, benefits office.<\/p>\n Graves and Rubens were reprimanded Tuesday and had their pay cut by 10 percent. The two women were reinstated to their positions last month after administrative judges overturned their demotions.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called the actions “a weak slap on the wrist.”<\/p>\n Accountability at the VA “is almost non-existent,” Miller said. “One thing is clear: this dysfunctional status quo will never change until we eliminate arcane civil service rules that put the job security of VA bureaucrats ahead of the veterans they are charged with serving.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, Pummill can contest the suspension, he probably will, and it will probably be stored, because some animals are more equal that others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"