WASHINGTON (AP) – The VA says nearly 80 percent of its senior executives got performance bonuses last year, despite widespread treatment delays and preventable deaths at VA hospitals and clinics.
Gina Ferrissee is an assistant VA secretary for human resources. She told Congress Friday that more than 350 VA executives were paid nearly $3 million in bonuses last year. Ferrissee says the VA needs to pay bonuses to keep executives who are paid up to $181,000 per year.
Florida Republican Jeff Miller is chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Miller says the VA’s bonus system “is failing veterans.”
He said that instead of being given for outstanding work, the cash awards are “seen as an entitlement and have become irrelevant to quality work product.”