Posted on 04/26/2017 7:15:01 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
Some lawmakers want to give the VA secretary more authority to fire bad VA employees, including those who steal controlled substances.
“VA employees who illegally divert or steal controlled substances are harming our families and communities,” wrote Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. in a letter to the VA Secretary David Shulkin, on Thursday. “They should be fired and denied taxpayer-funded benefits.”
Rubio has introduced legislation to help the VA secretary to discipline, demote and terminate employees, removing some of the rules and laws that currently bar him from doing so.
The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability First Act has passed the House and is currently in the Senate.
“Drug addiction and opioid abuse has risen sharply in several parts of Florida, and I am concerned that the losses and theft will contribute to the number of deadly overdoses our law enforcement officials and first responders are working hard to reduce,” Rubio wrote.
Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported a sharp increase in opioid theft and missing prescriptions linked to VA employees.
More recently the department disclosed to another Florida lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, that five Florida VA medical centers, including the Orlando VA Medical Center, lost prescription narcotics in-house or in the mail in 2016.
None of the five VA employees linked with the loss of prescription narcotics were fired. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
> I didn’t know that a government employee could be fired. /S
OK, so put them on unpaid leave until they finish serving their 500 year jail sentence.
Wait, so you can be a govt employee caught stealing narcotics and NOT be immediately fired and prosecuted??? Just another example of the evil bizarro world libtards have given us.
I zip trust for that guy.
I’ve seen people arrested at Army hospitals for this. Why is this even being discussed at the VA?
employees who steal anything need to be fired
employees who steal anything need to be fired
LOL!! Like 2nd grade!!
So sad
If she writes a handbook on how that works, a lot of us retired veteran’s could use a cost of living allowance:)
They probably can’t be fired but they sure as hell can be arrested for stealing and trafficking in narcotics and put in the pokey.
Civil Service can’t normally be fired. That’s how we converted the Spoils System which was rife with temporary corruption into the Civil Service system which is all corruption all the time. In the old Spoils system the crooks could at least be fired and/or jailed. With Civil Service they are, in effect, godlets and untouchable.
They can be fired for criminal activity. Why is this even an issue? Unbelievable.
It is supposed to be but apparently isn’t. I recall some hooha about a couple of court cases some years ago in which CS employees who had been fired for flagrant theft were ordered reinstated with back pay and legal expenses.
Civil Service and union members all. Firing one is an extremely expensive proposition. It would be cheaper to reassign them to laundry products inventory somewhere.
I say if you steal, you steal...you should go to jail....
Me neither, but the fact remains that they have never found him doing anything illegal despite a couple of investigations. This one may be different, but I doubt it. Sort of like Trump getting audited every year.
I was going to add a quip, but after reading all your posts here, I decided that I couldn’t improve on the humor here.
Had to fire two - long and tough row to hoe but it can be done.
Why don’t our GOP-led House, Senate and presidency reform the horrible government service rules we have across the board—including getting unions out of the federal government?
How often do we all those branches of government purportedly under the GOP banner and why can’t they target the actual reforms to drain the swamp?
And the VA somehow is a special case? What about the rest of the government!?!
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