The Department of Veterans Affairs has been the center point of multiple scandals over the past several years, and current Secretary Robert McDonald has been on the job for about seven months now working to get the department back on track.
McDonald recently appeared in a national television interview to describe how he was cleaning up the Department of Veterans Affairs. McDonald responded by saying that he's gotten rid of bad people:
"Nine hundred people have been fired since I became secretary (of Veterans Affairs). We’ve got 60 people that we fired who have manipulated wait times."
Our partners at PolitiFact took a look at McDonald's claim to see if it was accurate or not. PolitiFact reporter Joshua Gillin says that his claim rates FALSE on the Truth-O-Meter. Gillin says that the number is actually accurate, but the people that were let go most likely had absolutely nothing to do with any of the scandals McDonald is trying to make up for.
"Now, for a FALSE item, we have to acknowledge that the numbers by themselves are true," said Gillin. "It would lead you to wonder what's wrong with the claim. The problem that we found was that, of those 900 people, half of them were dismissed during a probationary period during their employment. That means they either didn't work there when the whole scandal began, or they were there for a very small period of time."
Gillin also found issues with some of the other numbers McDonald cited. "As far as those sixty other people go, well, not all of those people were fired," said Gillin. "Some of them were disciplined, some of them were suspended, etc. etc... but only 14 people were actually fired in connection with this scandal, and another five were supervisors or officers."
Gillin says that this is a case where the numbers cited are accurate, but the intended meaning behind the use of those numbers is off the mark, earning McDonald's claim a FALSE rating on the Truth-O-Meter.
SOURCES: Department of Veterans Affairs cleaning house?
- PolitiFact ruling
- Meet the Press, Transcript, Feb. 15, 2015
- Email interview with James Hutton, spokesman for the Veterans Affairs Department, Feb. 16-20, 2015
- Email interview with Curt Cashour, spokesman for the House Committee on Veteran Affairs-Majority, Feb. 19, 2015
- Washington Post, "No, the VA has not fired 60 people for manipulating wait-time data," Feb. 18, 2015
- Department of Veteran Affairs, Employee/Management Relations, May 13, 2013
- Office of Personnel Management, "Historical Federal Workforce Tables: Executive Branch Civilian Employment Since 1940," accessed Feb. 19, 2015
- Vetaran Affairs Department, "2014 Performance and Accountability Report," Nov. 17, 2014