Merit Systems Protection Board; We’re not coddling poorly performing federal employees
The Washington Post reports that the Merit Systems Protection Board has released a statement in regards to their protections of the two Veterans’ Affairs employees whose jobs they saved when the VA demoted them. Essentially, the statement says that VA employees have always been poor performers, so the agency shouldn’t expect better. Like good little bureaucrats, they blame Congress;
Like other judicial bodies, the MSPB typically does not comment on its decisions after issuing them. However, its posted statement says that it “is required to apply laws created by Congress and legal precedent, as established by Federal courts, when adjudicating appeals. With respect to burdens of proof applied by MSPB, they are contained in title 5 of the United States Code. Moreover, it should be noted that the 2014 Act made no changes to these burdens of proof.”
“The 2014 Act did not change any statutory burden of proof to be applied in these appeals. Therefore, unless the law is changed, these statutory burdens of proof continue to apply, as they do in all other appeals filed at MSPB,” it said.
The whole statement is on the front page of the MSPB’s website.
The MSRB restored Linda Weiss to her job in the Albany VA hospital after she was fired by the VA for failing to properly treat veterans there. Kimberly Graves and Diana Rubens were demoted for scamming the VA out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but MSPB administrative law judges restored them to their pay grades and salaries.
So if you were hoping for cultural changes at the VA, well, that ship has sailed.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work"
Jesus, make me embarrassed to be a federal employee. Thank god I don’t work for VA though. A lot of agencies got some crappy people and usually management does nothing about it, but damn.
The VA tried to get me to work for them as a process improvement officer. The more I read about this the more I cringe at the idea.
Ditto, on the embarrassment. However, due to all the regulatory red tape for punitive actions against any employee, it can be quite difficult for management to follow through on actions against under-performing employees. Once they reach their tenure mark, it’s even twice as hard.
Crime does not pay unless you’re either a politician or a Government Employee who knows and blows the right people and knows how to milk the system.
If they do medical care poorly, what makes you think they do HR / performance management any better – this is on the VA leadership . If they had done the paper right these slugs would had already been be gone. They didn’t and have now shifted the focus onto blaming the the MSRB.
Aww Man! I coulda had a VA!
Thanks for the giggles.
Is a “VA” a ten-cylinder engine in hexadecimal notation?
Shit, what’s next? Not showing up at your job at all for 6 years?
I heard that this morning too. That’s the job I need.
Unfortunately now it will be even harder to get rid of these slugs because they will scream “Retaliation” at even the slightest hint of being disciplined for anything.
I started out being skeptical about these, but then watched the SES I work for and his wife sue their ways into better jobs. While they lost their MSPB and EEOC cases, the agency they were suing decided it would ultimately cost them less to just hire them both. The scary part is that he was hired as the agency budget director. So much for public trust when the guy who is the agency steward of the tax payer dollar is happy to waste a lot of it on frivolous litigation.
That’s the thing. If this was WG folks, no way would this have the same out come. The only reason there is WG is because top GS and SES would never sully themselves with Labor. Different Spanks for different Ranks.
PS The Postal system is a whole different animal. I do not think even God could fire one of them.
I’d hate to lose my federal job. It’s the only place I can peacefully sleep.
This is amazing to me as a civilian employer I deal with a lot of little bullshit rules but having to keep someone who was stealing from me? That would truly be a cold day in hell before that ever happens I’d fucking kill them first.
This is exactly the kind of shit that we have been warned about constantly when it comes to sucking on the public tit.
Some of these fucksticks think they are “entitled” to take advantage. They completely miss the concept of serving the public good as their only interest is serving their own personal greed.
Reminds me of Jefferson’s comment, “That government which governs the least, governs the best.”
People like this are the poster children for reducing the size of the government because they can’t be trusted with the public good.
They are now officially bullet proof. So they have always been poor performers, so obviously we have to promote them to management. What about the job that Diana Rubens created specifically for her girlfriend? Does she keep her job?
“well, that ship has sailed.”
No Jonn – that ship has SUNK.
Well the ship was sunk a while ago and we’ve been paying for it for years, so we might as well just keep paying for it.
As a VA Volunteer at my local VAMC, I have nothing but good things to say about our ward nurses. They are the greatest. If I could redo my military career, I would have gone into the Army Medical field based on what I see with these fantastic people.
On the other hand many (most!) of the VA employees who are not working directly our hospitalized veterans are the worst. Then there is that VA culture you have to content with. ?
I concur. The treatment I’ve received at my local VA Outpatient Clinic has, with few exceptions, been outstanding. Thus, even though I know them to be true I find it hard to believe these tales and even harder to believe that a human being can sink this low without their taking up permanent residence under a rock on their own volition. I mean, gee whiz, I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror if I had done as they “allegedly” done did.
I interpret this as a bureaucratic version of a cry for help. If you want change, tell Congress to get off its duff and make it easier to fire poor performers. In doing that, be aware that EPA and the IRS have already demonstrated that at least two agencies will take advantage of such changes to purge people of the loyal opposition on the basis of their political beliefs instead of performance.
There are numerous procedural safeguards and a fairly long time frame involved when a manger attempts to remove a civil service employee. Those rules came about in an effort to eliminate one form of corruption, so of course they have led to a different form of corruption. Getting the rules right is a difficult and ongoing task. Empowering the Agency to use the rules properly is a separate, ongoing, difficult task.
In my experience, managers will downgrade a position or engage in other forms of discouragement, in an effort to force a poor performer to move on, rather than comply with the many counseling and documentation requirements that lead to a firing.
Cases of misconduct have to be proven, as well.
Basically, you have to prepare for a lawsuit in order to fire a civil service employee. With this system, sometimes the employee wins.
http://www.va.gov/icare/
I’m sure…….
(as said to me by a VA employee, “I’m just for the time when I can afford to retire.” LOSER!!!!)
Looks like they should put that on a little tag each employee should wear on their ID chain so they can remember it at all times…..
So let me guess… I can kill people. Steal, screw people, and still keep my job.. I need to get a VA Job
Seriously WTF ! ! ! Is wrong here ?????
Oh its the same in other federal departments.
In my previous unit the SSA (Staff Supervisory Administrator) was claiming to start work at 430 so she could leave at 130 to go home. What we actually witnessed was her getting into work about 715 everyday. That was brought up to the chain of command, higher level personnel, etc.
No response from higher about this and basically everything was swept under the rug.
While I was in Afghanistan, she dropped that down to 2-3 hours of work a day and that continued for about 2 years. An investigator showed up to check things out and saw himself that she was flagrantly bullshitting her time cards and it was true.
His response, “we told her we’d be paying attention and she better not do it anymore!”
If she had been doing her job, it wouldn’t be as big of an issue. But, even during that few hours she was at work, she was telling Soldiers she’d resolve issues, but then forget about them when she left at 130ish everyday. Soldiers were suffering, having pay issues, travel issues, etc., because of her lack of competence or concern.
So, after 5 years of blatant Federal Fraud (purposefully lying on time cards) and being dysfunctional , “they are watching her”. That’s the Army civilian system.
Granted if a Soldier were to do the same thing, they’d be court martialed.
I need a VA job.
And this just in from USA Jobs:
“This position is open to current VA employees only”
Good luck getting the culture to change when all you do is inbreed.
But hey! If you’ve been in uniform for 10-20 years, we have some great housekeeping jobs for you! You know how to make a bed properly, so we’d like you to be a maid.
Yeah, apparently you have to start at the GS-4 or GS-5 level and work your way up.
Should change their name to: Maintaining Sub-par Performance Board. That way they don’t have to change the initials
Holy schnikes, these morons make me ashamed of my GS job. Unbelievable.
My last semester of college, I was required to work for a company part-time where I can put my computer skills to work. (I’m a software developer) I picked Kelly AFB, San Antonio Texas.
I was so excited to put my newly learned talents to work. My civil service co-workers thought it was funny that I wanted to work so hard.
I’m glad that I went into the private sector after graduation and not civil service.
VA sounds like the original blue falcon. Are these people veterans? I like how the VA constantly touts their employment of veterans as though that means anything. Some of the worst scum out there are other veterans.