VA

Back in the days when I was doing retirement planning I had to learn about Civil Service benefits. Since 1984 all new federal employees had to join the federal employee retirement system (FERS) and civil service was phased out and there are very few employee who remain in the civil service plan. One of the biggest concerns that employees had when this change was made was whether their union benefits would be changed and they were assured they would not be changed. It was well known at that time that it was difficult and in some cases impossible to fire anyone in the union. In most cases there is a suspension and then the employee is allowed to come back to work. Recently high ranking officials in the VA have been terminated but they have repealed their cases and will be allowed to return to work. A notoriously corrupt Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) manager fired in the first day of President Donald Trump’s presidency — to rousing acclaim from veterans who heralded it as a sign of lasting reform — has been returned to work by VA officials after he filed a civil-service protections appeal. Two Department of Veterans Affairs administrators in Phoenix who were suspended at the outset of a crisis over delayed patient care will return to work Monday, 19 months after they were put on paid leave and given termination notices. This is one of the reasons that it has been so difficult to reform the VA.