WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is drawing bipartisan fire from the Senate for failing to fill key positions in the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is still struggling to restore public confidence in its health care and other services to the nation’s veterans.
During an oversight hearing Wednesday, senators expressed dismay about vacancies from the most senior levels of the agency down to the clinical positions at local health centers.
“One thing that concerns me deeply are the four [leadership] positions that remain unfilled at the department,” Sen. Johnny Isakson, R.-Ga., chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, declared. “We’ve got to find a way to get the best people in the United States of America in the disciplines, working for the VA and for our veterans.”
Those four vacant posts include Undersecretary for Benefits; Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer; Undersecretary for Health, and Assistant Secretary for Accountability and Whistleblower Protection. All four have been vacant for over 200 days and require Senate confirmation.
These vacancies are part of a much larger government personnel problem. Although Trump has now been in office for a year, there are still hundreds of unfilled jobs in the federal workforce, including many for which the president has yet to even submit a nomination.
Trump took office promising widespread reforms in the long-troubled VA, including slashing waiting times for vets to get appointments at VA medical centers and allowing veterans to seek private medical care if they choose. VA hospital officials were caught hiding long delays in treating patients in 2014, which touched off a major scandal and led to reforms in policy and spending approved by Congress.
However, while it has made important progress in some areas, the department has yet to get fully up to speed under Trump because of the vacancies in key policy areas.
For example, the Undersecretary for Health position at the agency was held by the current Secretary of Veterans Affairs, David Shulkin, until he was promoted by Trump to lead the agency last February. The position has now been without a Senate-confirmed replacement since Shulkin left the job 339 days ago.
In response, Shulkin informed the committee that for both the chief information officer and undersecretary for benefits openings, the agency has selected candidates that are currently undergoing vetting at the White House.
Regarding the undersecretary for health vacancy, Shulkin said the agency hopes to have a candidate selected to submit to the White House for vetting by next week. He was not able to provide an answer about when the agency would have a selection for the whistleblower vacancy.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., ranking member on the committee, was also unhappy about vacancies at the department, but was more concerned about unfulfilled openings and staffing shortages in his home state.
Tester said that the first question he received at his most recent town hall was about vacancies at area VA medical clinics.
“Montana – we’re in a crisis,” said Tester.
“I would really like to get a list of about five specific things that the VA central office is going to do – above and beyond what you’re currently doing – to address the clinical vacancies in our state,” added Tester, demanding the list within a week. Shulkin agreed to fulfill his request.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, also said that vacancies within the department were an issue in her state, and asked Shulkin if he has figured out why the agency is struggling to fill openings.
Shulkin said that while there were more tools that Congress could provide to improve hiring, he thought it was important to point out that the agency had a net increase of over 8,300 employees in the last year. The department is the government’s second-largest agency with over 350,000 employees.