U.S. Rep. Jay Obernolte is taking the Department of Veterans Affairs to task over what he describes as a hostile work environment at Loma Linda VA Medical Center.
Obernolte, R-Hesperia, and House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., sent a letter on April 10 to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, asking why a supervisor at the hospital remains employed after three disciplinary investigations between July 2020 and May 2022. The investigation reportedly included about 4,000 pages of exhibits and 57 hours of interviews with 36 witnesses.
The letter does not identify the supervisor, but the two members of Congress call the situation in Loma Linda “untenable” and write that “employees are forced to either work in a hostile environment or leave VA.”
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“Congress has provided VA the authority to expeditiously discipline employees for misconduct and poor performance for precisely this reason,” they write.
But on April 3, the VA stopped using authority granted to it in a 2017 law that gave management broader authority to discipline employees. Unions for VA employees had complained that the scandals that led to Congress passing the law had largely involved management employees, but the law was instead mostly used against rank-and-file employees. At a news conference in March, McDonough said the VA believes standard disciplinary measures are...
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