Some VA employees’ overtime pay will be delayed by software problems

Paychecks for several thousand Veterans Affairs employees owed extra compensation will be shortchanged this week because of ongoing issues with payroll processing systems at the department, officials announced Wednesday.

In a statement, VA leaders said the problem centers on delays within the VA Time and Attendance System. Sources within the department say outages and slowdowns have disrupted the system since late last week.

VA spokesman Peter Kasperowicz said officials expect all employees to receive their regular pay this week despite the software problems.

“A portion of these employees who are due to receive additional wages, such as overtime pay, will be paid those additional wages on April 11, VA’s following payday,” Kasperowicz said in a statement. “To summarize: 100 percent of VA employees will be paid their normal wages on time and 98 percent of VA employees will experience no impact whatsoever from this issue.”

VA is one of the largest employers in the federal government, with around 480,000 staffers. An overtime pay issue affecting about 2% of that total would still be nearly 10,000 individuals.

Senior leaders from the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee said they are tracking the payroll issues but have not yet received details from VA leadership about the cause of or ultimate solution to the problem.

“The concern here is that VA needs systems that work,” said committee Chairman Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas. “We need to find out what the problem is, and they need to fix it.”

Ranking member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said several employees have voiced worries to his staff that their paycheck may be postponed or shortchanged.

“But we’re still trying to verify what is happening,” Blumenthal said.

Democrats in both the House and Senate have been critical of VA Secretary Doug Collins in recent weeks for a lack of communication on their inquiries into department operations and planning.

For his part, Collins has posted several social media videos and statements promising transparency and blasting critics for spreading rumors about department reform efforts.

The secretary has proposed trimming VA’s workforce total to less than 400,000, which would bring VA in line with staffing levels in place before the end of President Donald Trump’s first term in office. However, federal union officials have strongly criticized those plans, saying the staff cuts would inevitably hurt benefits and medical care delivery.