![]() POGO has also investigated OAWP’s lack of independence, reporting that there have been significant issues with leadership at the VA installing former political appointees in OAWP to protect agency prerogatives and funnel information back to the agency. While OAWP’s authorizing statute prevents it from having to report to OGC, the Government Accountability Office found that the general counsel’s office is nevertheless involved in OAWP’s whistleblower retaliation evaluation process. ![]() Put simply, it is often not in OGC’s interest to act upon OAWP’s recommendations. This is in stark contrast to OAWP’s duty to conduct objective fact-finding, instead of ensuring the agency stays out of legal trouble. POGO has found that department attorneys often believe their primary responsibility is to protect the interests and public perception of the department, the department’s likelihood of receiving future funding, and individual jobs of senior leadership. This means that the general counsel’s office has ample opportunity to reject an OAWP recommendation for disciplinary action.Įven though OAWP and OGC are both components of the VA, their interests and priorities could not be further apart when it comes to accountability. 13Ĭurrently, after OAWP develops disciplinary recommendations, it sends them over to the VA’s OGC for legal review and analysis before they are finalized. 12Īs such, it is reasonable to conclude that OAWP was failing to meaningfully hold VA senior leadership accountable or spearhead the agency-wide culture change Congress and the public were demanding.Īs POGO has previously testified, a major contributing reason the number of disciplinary actions against VA leadership was not higher is OAWP’s lack of independence from the VA Office of General Counsel (OGC). In contrast, 36.4% of disciplinary actions within the same time frame were taken against lower-level VA employees, between GS rank 1 and GS rank 6. In fact, over the course of OAWP’s first year, only 0.1% of the disciplinary actions were taken against VA executives or senior leadership, which was on par with average levels since 2014, before the office was created. Despite receiving nearly 2,000 submissions from whistleblowers from June 2017 to June 2018, OAWP was unable to secure any meaningful disciplinary action against VA executives or senior leadership. Unfortunately, it became obvious there were major problems at OAWP not long after it was established. In a little over a month, we received approximately 800 disclosures from current and former VA personnel as well as from veterans the credible submissions came from over 35 states and the District of Columbia. The response we received was unprecedented in POGO’s decades-long history of working with whistleblowers. POGO responded to this scandal by working with the non-profit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to invite whistleblowers to make disclosures so that our organizations could bring the stories to light. Not only were the facility managers covering their tracks to avoid oversight on the part of the VA and its inspector general (the VA IG), but they were also using the fake waitlists to ensure they received personal performance bonuses. In reality, approximately 1,400 veterans were waiting months to meet with a doctor at least 40 of them died while waiting to be seen. Facility managers deliberately falsified records to suggest that wait times were a reasonable length and that veterans were receiving timely care. In 2014, VA whistleblowers came forward to expose misconduct at a Phoenix, Arizona, VA facility. ![]() Disclosures by VA whistleblowers have not only exposed a network of systematic misconduct, medical negligence, and abuse, but also saved the lives of many patients and freed up taxpayer dollars to be put toward providing more resources to veterans in need. At the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), whistleblowers heroically put their livelihoods on the line to ensure that veterans receive the best care possible.
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