OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Ensuring VA Employee Accountability Act

Floor Speech

Date: May 18, 2015
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Veterans

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise in support of H.R. 1038, the Ensuring VA Employee Accountability Act of 2015.

Currently, when a VA employee is reprimanded for misconduct, the paperwork describing the incident is removed from that employee's file after 3 years. Paperwork describing an incident leading to an admonishment is taken out after just 2 years. H.R. 1038 requires the Secretary to maintain all written reprimands and admonishments of any VA employee in that employee's file for the entire duration of his or her employment at VA.

As members of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee work to ensure effective oversight of VA actions, it is important to maintain a record of VA employees' past misconduct. At the same time we are working toward greater accountability, we must also ensure that increased transparency does not come at the expense of fairness and the equitable treatment of VA employees.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues and all interested parties to clarify the intent of this legislation to ensure that we are not inadvertently affecting the use of negotiated settlement agreements when appropriate and that admonishments and reprimands are not wrongly used to silence whistleblowers.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward