The House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC) has proposed restructuring the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection (OAWP).

As Memorial Day is fast approaching, the Bay Pines Veterans Affairs Healthcare System commemorates the service members who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

The Federal Circuit issued two complementary opinions applying its 2021 precedent to disciplinary actions taken by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In a meeting with stakeholders and local staff, Secretary Denis McDonough affirmed burnout and low salaries are causing poor employee retention at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

In a letter last week, five federal employee unions called on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to better inform its employees about COVID-19 benefits and rights.

In two opinions issued on August 12, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the Department of Veterans Affairs erroneously interpreted the provisions of the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 when disciplining its employees. The purpose of the 2017 law, codified at 38 U.S.C. § 714, was to provide for expedited discipline of VA employees, strip MSPB of its authority to mitigate the VA’s chosen penalty, and to impose a less rigorous burden of proof on the agency at the appellate level than a traditional MSPB appeal.

A VA police officer was removed by the Department of Veterans Affairs under the 2017 “accountability” law 38 U.S.C. § 714 that limited review of VA’s actions against general schedule employees. The removal was based on conduct occurring prior to the enactment of the law. The employee appealed to the MSPB, and the MSPB affirmed the removal. On December 7, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the MSPB’s decision, and remanded the case to the MSPB with instructions to remand the case further back to the agency.

The Department of the Interior and the Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced that veterans and Gold Star families will be receiving free lifetime access to national parks, refuges, and other public lands. These families will have free access to approximately 2,000 public locations with many activities including hiking, fishing, paddling, biking, hunting, camping, stargazing and climbing.

The MSPB cannot consider an agency’s interpretation or presentation of evidence to decide whether an individual-right-of-action presents a non-frivolous allegation of whistleblower reprisal, the Federal Circuit clarified in a recent holding.

A September 2020 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) rounded up mission critical IT modernization projects at various federal agencies. The report was created based on Congressional interest in how high-risk IT projects were faring during their implementation. The report, GAO says, is an effort to "identify essential mission- IT acquisitions across the federal government and determine their key attributes."

Recently, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declined to extend Bivens to violations of the Fourth Amendment for excessive force and unreasonable seizure brought against Department of Veterans Affairs police officers.

FEDagent recently reported the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Babb v. Wilkie. In Babb, the Supreme Court reversed a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and held the prohibition against age discrimination in the federal workplace was broader than that applied in the private sector. We update you now that plaintiff Noris Babb is requesting the full Eleventh Circuit to apply the Supreme Court’s holding to lower the bar to establish EEO reprisal claims in the federal workplace.