Critics of the Veterans Affairs Department want to know why the director of the agency's Phoenix medical center — and dozens of other problem executives — still haven't been fired.
But VA Secretary Bob McDonald said he has already explained why, and he's growing frustrated with continued attacks on the topic.
"The issue is very simple," McDonald said Friday. "We can't take disciplinary action when the Department of Justice is still conducting an investigation. Once they do, we're poised to take the most aggressive and expedient action we can."
Last week, for the first time, VA officials used their new employment authority to fire James Talton, the director of the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System. He had been on paid leave for two months while officials investigated problems with long wait times for medical appointments, falsified medical records and unethical behavior by local staff.
Talton was the sixth VA executive to face dismissal under a new law giving McDonald broader authority to fire senior officials, a move passed by Congress in July that was designed to cut down on the often months-long process of removing employees for malfeasance.
But the previous five retired or resigned before facing punishment, allowing them to keep their earned benefits.
In a statement Friday, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, praised Talton's firing but lamented that "VA's action comes only after Talton was on paid leave for more than two months — an expense that can only be described as a waste of taxpayer dollars."
He said VA "needs to move much more quickly to purge other disgraced personnel from its payroll," specifically referencing the ongoing case of Sharon Helman, the suspended director of the Phoenix VA Medical Center.
Helman was at the center of the department's wait time scandal earlier this year, and in August the VA Inspector General's office found she pressured employees to manipulate wait time data for veterans to cover up systemic problems.
Despite that finding, she remains on paid administrative leave.
Concerned Veterans of America has been running an accountability clock online calling her status "paid vacation" and calling senior leadership's inactivity "maddening." Last week, Arizona's Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake wrote a letter to McDonald saying they're "dismayed to learn that senior leaders of the VA are still not being held accountable for their grievous misconduct."
The pair also accused McDonald of ignoring both his new firing authority and congressional requests for a clear plan for the department's future, calling his efforts so far a "failure to change the culture at the VA."
Speaking after a recruiting stop in Washington, D.C., on Friday, McDonald said he was unsure why the two Republican senators "want to make a political issue out of that" and said outreach to Capitol Hill has been one of his points of emphasis in his first three months on the job.
"The Department of Justice is still investigating Phoenix," he said. "Once this is in the criminal realm, my hands are tied. I don't know if [the senators] didn't know that. But if they would call me, I would explain that to them."
McDonald insisted that his department is moving quickly to fire any executives found guilty of abuse and fraud, but noted that he won't step ahead of ongoing administrative and criminal investigations. More than 100 of those have been opened at VA facilities nationwide since the spring.
He added that if lawmakers want even quicker firings, they should change laws regarding federal employee rights and protections.
Workers advocates and the Merit Systems Protection Board already have voiced concerns that the changes made by Congress this summer may go too far in limiting employees' right to appeal, and could be open to legal challenges.
No timeline has been announced for when the investigations into Helman's actions could result in her firing or criminal charges. Meanwhile, her paid suspension is set to hit six months later this week.
