Should VA Sec Shinseki go?

[Renegade One]

Just my $.02: GEN Shinseki is a very good, honorable man and leader who has been twice ingloriously "shuffled out". His departure as Army COS was under somewhat cloudy conditions (frankly told the Administration that more troops were needed to meet administration goals in Iraq…which was counter to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz public assessments), and now this.
I'm remaine amazed that so many good, good ex-military people choose to continue to serve their nation and then get the door knob exit when the Administration takes heat.
I'm pretty sure that the VA can do everything that's NOW expected…if it were properly funded. Good luck with that.

 

[picklesuit]

Sounds like a job for Mitt Romney!!

 

[wink]

...

Sort of like medals and FITREP bullets?

No, not really. At least in my day one might write up his own fitrep input, or even a medal citation, but it had to be approved by higher authority and I never saw a rubber stamp. If the director of the PHX VA fudges numbers to get a bonus it is obviously NOT reviewed critically by higher authority or none of this would have happened. She had the last chop on her own bonus and the folks working for her. As for the firing part. It is true we don't summarily send military members packing for a singular lack of performance. But we do hold them accountable in our own quirky way (discussed at length recently and many time before) by damning them with faint praise, not getting the EP at just the right time, not recommending the ticket bunch schools and training, etc. Those guys will FOS or find other work they are hopefully suited to. I have friends in fed service that lament the oxygen stealers who never meet performance goals, are not team players, and are even incompetent. True, they may not promote, but there is no up or out in civil service. They will sit in the same place for 15 years making life hard on their fellow employees by not doing their share or worse, simply fvcking it up.

 

[Brett327]

... and I never saw a rubber stamp.

I have a hard time believing that. In my experience, after a decision is made to give someone an award, the requisite write-up follows. It is rarely the other way around. I can't recall a circumstance where a well written write-up was seriously scrutinized by an approval authority.

 

[wink]

I have a hard time believing that. In my experience, after a decision is made to give someone an award, the requisite write-up follows. It is rarely the other way around. I can't recall a circumstance where a well written write-up was seriously scrutinized by an approval authority.

It was rare, but I do know of a few cases where an individual essentially nominated himself for awards. Ballzy guys, different time. But I also saw awards denied or down graded. I have one guy in mind, actually a great officer with a good career, that has probably four awards on his chest that he initiated. Yes, it is usually a senior believing an award is justified and then asking for the citation, whether it is chopped aggressively or not. If the reporting senior decided an award is justified and asks for a citation, then why would it get scrutinized very closely? But that illustrates my point. No senior went to these VA supervisors and said, "hell of a job, here is a bonus." The system was in place. It did not have adequate safe guards to prevent abuse and fraud. So it was manipulated to the benefit of a few to the detriment of thousands whose negative impact was immediate, and apparently, grave. Not like our awards or fitrep system.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Performance bonuses for GS employees. Just leaves me shaking my head.

Let me guess, they're unionized as well?

 

[Flash]

Performance bonuses for GS employees. Just leaves me shaking my head.

They are a pretty small part of the budget overall and from agency to agency, the amount that can be awarded has been capped in recent years and that has led to decline in the totals to almost a third ($176 million across the entire federal workforce in 2013) they were just a few years ago. The vast majority of employees don't receive them and those that do usually see relatively small amounts, in the low five figures or less. To be frank the real money is in overseas postings and deployments, you can often double your salary with the allowances, special pays and COLA you can receive.

Let me guess, they're unionized as well?

It depends, some federal civil servants can be a part of a union but some legally can't. Like the airline pilot unions they can provide a valuable service, they can even assist non-members to include help with Merit Systems Protection Board appeals and basic general information that is sometimes hard to get from agency HR departments.