Posted on 07/03/2015 12:57:59 PM PDT by Kaslin
Veterans Affairs employees in Aurora, Colorado, who played a role in the agency’s expanding scandal, have found a way to escape punishment – they’re retiring.
In May, the building of the Aurora Veterans Affairs department was $1 billion over budget and more than a year behind schedule, ABC News reported. Taxpayers were forced to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it back on track. Contributing factors to the project's slow progress included "changes to veterans' health care needs, site-acquisition issues, and a decision in Denver to change plans from a medical center shared with a local medical university to a standalone VA medical center." Thanks to the expensive mess, Aurora was named the “biggest construction failure” in the agency’s history.
Two particular VA employees played a role in Aurora’s earning that title, but they’re quietly exiting stage left.
But now that attorney Phillipa Anderson and construction chief Glenn Haggstrom have left the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is unlikely they will face any punishment for their part in developing the over-budget medical complex. It's now estimated to cost $1.73 billion.
In a hearing last week, VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson explained that the administration is powerless to punish employees once they’ve left their positions.
"Once a person is resigned or retired, they are no longer an employee and we have no basis for taking any disciplinary action," Gibson said in an interview.
But that’s not all. Not only are Anderson and Haggstrom leaving Scot free - they are doing so with full pensions in tow.
"Years-late, bureaucratic knuckle-rapping will not suffice for accountability, especially when the two officials retired unscathed with their full pensions and bonuses," U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, said in a statement.
Ironically, Gibson recently announced that accountability efforts are working.
VA employees who were complicit in the agency's disaster deserve to be reprimanded – and our vets deserve better.
Insanity.
The VA UNION is protected by the Department of Injustice. Corruption is everywhere. No money for a lawyer, you are doomed.
If anyone needs a lawyer, it is the US Taxpayer
Whoever President Cruz appoints to Attorney General needs to start boning up on that Rico Statute right now. Years of intentional Budget Misfeasance and Misdirection starts somewhere. Every penny earned by the corruptocrats, and their pensions should be liable to seizure.
Disgraceful.
You should maybe get some brainpower and stop posting “news” from a week ago from sites who are too cheap and lazy to go out and spend a few hundred bucks on pictures.
Huh? Stop being so damned paranoid. This is public property and the media is protected. The press doesn’t need permission.
This is where it starts. Pure fear of the regime. Take pictures of the half-built piece of crap and the moonbat in charge and call it square. Nobody even knows what this idiot looks like (we do but for some reason they are being protected).
dear kaslin,
I am of the opinion, that you did not read the bottom of my input, or being late at night, the coffee, and the day’s wearing, have taken it’s daily toll upon your ‘edge’. There are manifold inferences to be divined, and inserted into the *blank*.
I'm confused, please explain
dear kas,
these folks are human beings, with habits, just like the rest of us, and go to places of business that cater to their needs, just like the rest of us.
What you or I or anybody else does, fathom. contrive, devise, noodle, contemplate, or consult Mr. Wiley Coyote of Acme Enterprises, or not, with that bit of insight, is what we each and alone decide to do or not, ourselves, by ourselves, and kept in our own hearts, therefore, the *blank* to be filled in, and held responsible for filling that in, to oneself, and no one else, and certainly not to me.
Some animals are more equal than others
Townhall.com had an article posted here last month about California traffic laws and had a picture of traffic in Asia. The type of cars and large number small motorcycles caught my eye, but the lush greenery was a dead give away. The article was correct but things like this are used to discredit the source by those who disagree.
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