Posted on 03/25/2015 7:55:25 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The director of the Philadelphia regional VA hospital was paid $288,000 in “relocation payments” to move the 140 miles from Washington D.C. to his new home last year.
Diana Rubens was tapped last June to take over the Philadelphia hospital, which is one of many currently being investigated over claims that it placed veterans on unauthorized wait-lists.
Rubens, who previously served as the D.C.-based deputy undersecretary for field operations, where she oversaw 57 regional hospitals and four area offices, was brought in to help fix the embattled Philadelphia facility.
A breakdown of Rubens’ “relocation payments” was not immediately available, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, but a VA spokesman said that there was nothing inappropriate with the spending.
Federal regulations allow for the reimbursement of relocation expenses including the “costs of house-hunting, moving, terminating leases, and a per-diem rate for meals and temporary housing for an employee and his or her family,” the spokesman said.
But that hefty repayment is nearly 160 percent of what Rubens earned in base pay all of last year, raising questions over what exactly that money could have gone towards.
Rubens was paid more than $181,000 in 2014, according to the website FedSmith.com, which maintains a database of federal employee compensation.
“The government shouldn’t be in the business of doling out hundreds of thousands in cash to extremely well-compensated executives just to move less than three hours down the road,” Florida U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, told the Inquirer.
“For VA to pay such an outrageous amount in relocation expenses at a time when the department is continually telling Congress and taxpayers it needs more money raises questions about VA’s commitment to fiscal responsibility, transparency and true reform.”
Rubens has been mentioned before in articles criticizing other money she’s been paid by the VA. According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, in 2011, she received a bonus of more than $23,000 even though patient backlogs — one area Rubens was in charge of managing — increased by 300,000.
The Washington Examiner reported last year that Rubens received more than $97,000 in bonuses between 2007 and 2011 even though the average time to process veterans’ claims doubled to 325 days on her watch. The ratio of backlogged cases ne
Relocation expenses are not supposed to include buying a house for the employee.
The whole government is just one big criminal conspiracy.
Live it up while you still can apparatchiks.
The party will soon be over.
Oh, for crying out loud! Do you whiny conservatives think that buying pizzas & soda for the moving guys is FREE?
What a suspicious crew of Debbie Downsiders...
It is not real money....it is tax payers’ money.
B. Hussein Obama spends millions of dollars on a vacation trip and gets to use air force 1 so what’s $288K for relocation expenses. That’s why the democrats love to raise people’s taxes. When the USA goes bankrupt, not if, it will not be a surprise.
St. Paul school superintendent to get $40k for moving ten miles
September 7, 2011
http://www.examiner.com/article/st-paul-school-superintendent-to-get-40k-for-moving-ten-miles
it’s hard out there for a pimp.
What did they do, buy him a new house?
The American people are being robbed.
Rather masculine looking.
And with that one statement, I know I am a conservative at heart. If you can't see anything inappropriate for $288K for a 140 mile move, you need another job.
“his” name is apparently Diana. Something is unnatural.
I remember the Good Old Days when we considered the Ruling Class to be 535 Congress Critters, the President and the Vice President.
I think there are about Five Million, if not Ten Million of them now.
Time to build a bigger Pig Pen and a new Slaughter House.
This is the same VA run by the bastid that lied about being in special forces, right? Robert MacDonald I believe his name is.
I’d move the dyke for half that price and it would still be over a thousand bucks a mile. if the government’s gonna keep giving away stupid amounts of money, I want some of it. Hell, the government can pay for a few FReepathons.
House HELL. From DC to Philly, they bought her MARYLAND!!!
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