Sen. Chuck Grassley today made the following comment on President Trump’s signing of a bill making it easier to fire poorly performing employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Grassley co-sponsored the legislation, the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017. Grassley has long worked to improve veterans care. Most recently, he is working to obtain accurate appointment wait time information for Iowa veterans after a whistleblower produced information showing longer wait times than what VA headquarters reported to Grassley. Grassley made the following comment on today’s bill signing.
“Nothing changes in a troubled agency unless people get fired. That’s the only way to get accountability. If no one gets fired, it’s easy for the bad actors to circle the wagons and continue to bury bad news, and it’s demoralizing to those employees who go the extra mile to serve veterans. The consequences of not firing problem employees are especially serious when the employees are senior managers. They tend to know how to dig in and keep their jobs. This new law addresses that problem. It’s for the benefit of veterans who deserve timely, quality care and the taxpayers who fund a very large agency.”
