Bonuses unearned: Awards to dishonest VA workers must be retrieved; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 3/17/15

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Bonuses unearned: Awards to dishonest VA workers must be retrieved:

"Some Department of Veterans Affairs employees got bonuses by manipulating reports so they would qualify for the extra pay. Now that the truth is out, who thinks those people should get to keep the money? Would anyone but those workers answer “yes”?

Not likely. But in the lumbering bureaucracy that is the VA, it will take an act of Congress to get the money back. Fortunately, there is support in the House and Senate for retrieving the taxpayer dollars that the workers acquired by being dishonest.

The House recently passed a measure that would authorize VA Secretary Robert McDonald to rescind bonuses and recoup payments from employees who contributed to poor veteran care. A measure in the Senate has a similar goal, but it is more narrow and would apply only to employees in the scandal involving waiting lists for medical appointments."