OPINION:
As I continue reading about bureaucrats in the Department of Veterans Affairs receiving bonuses, I have several serious thoughts (“VA hospital staff got $1M in bonuses while therapy pool for wounded vets closed,” Web, June 3). First, if these employees received bonuses even though their performance had been poor, were there employees in other federal agencies also receiving such unmerited bonuses?
I don’t know when federal employees started receiving this sort of pay, but I think it was fairly recently. I also don’t know if these bonuses show up as a line item in the federal budgets, but if not, they should be detailed. We also recently learned that IRS employees received large bonuses (from $8,000 to $10,000 per year). If this is typical of many federal agencies, then simply eliminating these bonuses would help us to balance the federal budget. A little bit of good investigative journalism on this topic is really necessary.
BOB VAUGHAN
Lutherville, Md.
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