Hearing of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs - Opening Statement of Rep. Mark Takano, Hearing on VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017

Hearing

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this important hearing.

When the Accountability Act passed last summer, I voted for it with a great deal of caution. I was cautiously optimistic that it would do what it set out to do, which was to improve care by making it easier to remove bad employees. I understood that the connection between dismissing bad employees and improved care was superficial, but the bill was the best of several legislative attempts to address the VA's significant issues in its management of human resources. I voted for it because I hoped that the VA would take the tools we were providing it to not only address bad employees, but also protect good employees by improving the agency's overall human resources functions and morale.

Now that we are one year out, however, I have real concerns about how the VA is using the tools that Congress provided in the Accountability Act. Of the 1,096 removals during the first five months of 2018, the majority of those fired were housekeeping aides. This has no doubt contributed to the fact that there are currently over a dozen medical centers with housekeeping vacancies. I have seen firsthand the problems caused by vacancies in housekeeping staff at the Loma Linda University Medical Center and how that directly impacts care for veterans. I also find it hard to believe that there are large numbers of housekeeping aides whose performance is so poor that it cannot be addressed. If that is truly the case, then it stands to reason that there are also management issues behind their poor performance. But of those 1,096 removals, only 15 were supervisors, which is less than 1.4 percent. Firing rank and file employees does nothing to resolve persistent management issues. Instead, it just leads to worse care from unnecessary vacancies.

This type of implementation was not the intent of the Accountability Act. I hope everyone on this Committee can agree that it is not possible to fire your way to excellence. In fact, this was a view that was shared by the Commission on Care's findings, which also found that the VA's human resources management was understaffed and under-resourced. This led to problems with poor hiring practices and poor workplace culture. This further exacerbated the VA's difficulties hiring the best and the brightest, creating a vicious cycle.

The Accountability Act was supposed to be the VA's tool to break that vicious cycle, but in the past year, we have heard indications that VA's human resources management is in more disarray than ever. A high turnover rate is never a sign of good management, and good management starts at the top. For months, we have seen a steady stream of reports in the press of a hostile work environment in the VA's human resources division, previously led by Peter Shelby. Then, just last week, it was reported that Mr. Shelby himself was fired.

Although the VA released a statement saying he left to pursue other opportunities and whether any of these reports are true, the damage to VA's HR management has already been done. I'm not sure how the VA is supposed to improve its human resources management when such stories of its toxic environment at the top are rampant.

And finally, it is in the midst of this turmoil that this Administration released a new Executive Order that limits the amount of official time for employees to no more than 25 percent. As we all know, official time is not time spent on union activities because spending time on union activities is illegal. Rather, it is time spent by union officials to perform human resources functions and ensure a well-functioning work environment for all VA employees. With the current turmoil and vacancies in the VA's HR division, the human resources function that employees on official time perform, is more important than ever in ensuring that care for veterans is not impacted. For the VA to sustain cuts to essential human resources functions from both ends like this does not inspire confidence that performance is improving at the agency.

The goal of the Accountability Act was not to further undercut the already strained VA workforce. Firing cannot replace good management. I hope our discussion today will shed more light on what the VA is doing in its implementation of the Accountability Act to ensure better performance among its employees through better management. I thank the witnesses for being here today, and I look forward to their testimony.

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