Concerned Veterans for America call for VA Reform

Advocates call for Veterans Affairs reform
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
By KEITH ROGERS
March 20, 2014

With their sights set on reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs, leaders of a nonprofit veterans advocacy group came to Las Vegas on Thursday night to launch the first of more than a dozen policy forums for their state chapters.

The intent is to heighten awareness about issues such as the slow processing of disability compensation claims.

“The problem is not only the backlog but the long waits, the coverups and the preventable deaths. And nobody is being fired for this, nobody’s actions are being held accountable and fired on the spot,” said Pete Hegseth, CEO for Concerned Veterans for America, which with the organization’s Nevada chapter held the forum, billed as Preserving Promises to Nevada’s Veterans.

Hegseth, an Army veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was joined onstage by the national group’s veterans affairs adviser Darin Selnick in addressing a crowd of 200 at the South Point.

Hegseth noted that there are “good employees in the VA, mountains of good employees, but they are stifled by bureaucracy.”

That is why he said Concerned Veterans for America is working with House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., to promote legislation called the VA Management Accountability Act.

“We’re going to call on the VA to report more and disclose more,” Hegseth said. “The problem is no accountability, no transparency and no flexibility. That’s what needs to change.”

Selnick said based on his experience, when VA managers have been reprimanded for actions related to poor job performance the reprimands are only temporary.

“They fire people, then go ahead and rehire them,” Selnick said.

Selnick is a retired Air Force officer who worked as a special assistant to the secretary of veterans affairs from 2001 to 2009. He joined the group’s organizing committee because there are “a lot of good employees” who try hard to accommodate veterans. But, he said, their efforts are often compromised by a lack of accountability among VA managers and career employees.
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