| THE VA: TEAR IT
DOWN BRICK BY BRICK -- PART 11
Kurt Priessman concludes his series
with, "What do We do with the Jobs, People and Property?"
| Editor's
Note from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org ... It's time
for this series to be written. I do not agree with all
of Kurt's ideas about the VA, but, as a former government
employee with many years of service, Kurt knows the system
inside-out. The proposals in his commentaries should
be open to discussion. You may comment at the bottom
of the page. Kurt's
bio and archive of articles can be found here. |
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THE VA: TEAR IT DOWN BRICK BY
BRICK -- PART 11
What do We do with the Jobs,
People and Property?
by Kurt Priessman
The VA owns 5,242 buildings and 32,643 acres, holds 1,170 leases,
and maintains 546 asset-related agreements and employs 298,000.
VA’s total fleet was 12,501 vehicles in 270 fleets across the U.S
as of 2007. The FY 2007 audited financial statements reflected
the following book values:
Book Value as of Sept 30, 2007
http://www.va.gov/budget/report/2008/PartIII/
Notes_to_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf
Land and
Improvements $ 389,000,000
Buildings
$ 7,914,000,000
Equipment
$ 1,498,000,000
Construction
in Progress $ 1,573,000,000
Other
$ 802,000,000
$12,176,000,000
Yes, that is
twelve billion dollars. That value does not consider that much of
the VA property is prime real estate. As a rough estimate let us
say $17 - 18 billion and that number may be conservative. Let us
start with the easiest one first.
National
Cemetery Administration (NCA)
 The
problem here is that there are organizations such as the “Missing
in America Project” find thousands of uninterred urns and hundreds
of veterans not buried, I would think that denial of eligibility
by the NCA needs investigation. Demote or dismiss top officials
found derelict or mismanaging the eligibility issue or the quality
management of the cemetery. Provide employees an option to retire
if eligible or transfer to the State Veterans Departments. Work
out the details of adequate transfer of funds with joint federal
and state oversight and comply with OPM regulations on personnel
actions so they are not detrimental to the employees.
NCA Buildings
and Property
The NCA has
334 buildings on 16,770 acres totaling 965,839 square feet. There
are four leases for an additional 8,715 square feet. Estimated
operating costs are $4,405,000. Transfer them to the State
Veterans Departments.
The NCA can
divest itself of all assets by giving the States the Federal
cemeteries with grants or award performance based contracts to run
these facilities.
VHA Personnel
When the
Congress passes legislation soon, the government will need
thousands of doctors, nurses, and medical technicians to support
the national healthcare plan. We have just the job for them,
especially those monetarily beholden to the federal government for
loans.
Agencies are now hiring by the thousands. The
remainder who are not of retirement age should be used in the many
hospitals and clinics across America. The
Department could apply for permission
to authorize “early outs” or “transition hiring programs” for its
employees. The Administration must comply with OPM regulations on
personnel actions so they are not detrimental to the employees.
VHA Buildings
and Property
The VHA has
4,894 buildings on 15,708 acres totaling 142,035,581 square feet.
There are 7,275,484 square feet vacant. It also as 956 leases for
an additional 7,608,797 square feet leased. Estimated operating
costs are $676,392,600. Since much of this space is for hospitals
or clinics, universities, contractors, states and cities can bid
on these for provision of health care.
VBA Personnel
Maybe some of
the executives and administrators from the VBA can begin to ruin
some other Department. Possibly some will be serving time.
Medicare and Medicaid need thousands of adjudicators to stop the
fraud that is currently rampant, and will get much worse with no
identification checks. This places these adjudicators in an
agency where denials of fraudulent claims are needed. Employees
who do not attrite due to retirement should be transferred to
federal and state agencies. The VBA Administration must comply
with OPM regulations on personnel actions so they are not
detrimental to the employees.
VBA Buildings
and Property
The VBA has
only 7 buildings totaling 606,018 but has 173 leases for an
additional 3,742,084 square feet. Estimated operating costs are
$19,653,400. There are plenty of Agencies needing the space.
Staff
Personnel
We will assume
there will be ongoing IT work, especially to digitize veteran’s
records and perfect what hasn’t been perfected, that being an
electronic health record that electronically bills, receives
payments and runs accounts receivable for Medicare, Medicaid,
National Healthcare, and any other private insurance that might
survive. The rest will transfer to other Departments, Agencies,
or retire.
Staff Offices
and Property
There are only
7 buildings totaling 1,692,009 on 166 acres and it has 37 leases
with an additional 1,771,994 square feet. Not to worry though,
all of the bureaucracies created by the Congress will need space
for their FTEs.
While there
are a myriad of options in between the present configuration and
this one that I would be willing to write about, this is the ball
and chain in the image.
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This article is ©2009 by Kurt
Priessman and is provided exclusively to VA Watchdog dot Org.
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TOPICS:
veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs,
Kurt Priessman, THE VA: TEAR IT DOWN BRICK BY BRICK
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