Whistleblowers have played a critical role in policy changes at the Veterans Affairs Department over the years, but it comes at a cost for many of them. Some face demotions, workplace hostility, other indignities. There are mechanisms in place to protect them from being punished, but how have they performed? The Government Accountability Office recently took a look at whistleblower retaliation cases at the VA. To learn more about what they found, Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Thomas Costa, a director on GAO’s Education, Workforce, and Income Security team.
Interview Transcript:
Thomas Costa First, this is an interim report. So we’re still doing ongoing work. But this report reported on sort of the statistics around the Office of Special Counsel Investigations of Whistleblower retaliation. The Office of Special Counsel is an independent agency that is specifically tasked with investigating whistleblower protections, as well as some other prohibited personnel practices that people might run afoul of. And the second objective was looking at how the Department of Veterans Affairs resolves allegations of whistleblower retaliation through settlement agreements. And as I mentioned, this work is still ongoing.
Eric White Gotcha. Ok. And so let’s get into some of those statistics. What percentage of cases involved whistleblower retaliation? And what did you find when questioning the OSC?
Insight by LaunchDarkly: Learn how the Coast Guard, NSF and USAID are not only...
CLAIM: Video claiming President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had resigned. RATING: FALSE A YouTube video falsely claimed that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had stepped down from office amid continue...