Even at the VA Your Federal Bureaucrats Are Stellar Enough for Government Work

Defenses of public sector
salaries often rest on the idea that better pay attracts better
candidates, while low turnover is chalked up to government workers
being so good at their job nobody gets fired or wants to leave. The
low turnover, of course, can also be attributed to union
protections, and even in the absence of a public union governments
often have stricter rules on managing employees than the private
sector. It’s difficult to compare or even gauge job performance,
too, as so many government jobs don’t have an equivalent in the
public sector, while government employees often get stellar reviews
from government supervisors.

For example, The New York Times reports that in the
last four years, each of 470 senior executives at the Department of
Veterans Affairs  (VA) was reviewed as being “fully
successful” (or better!) in their jobs, this while the department’s
employees were actively covering up criminal negligence in
veterans’ healthcare. The Times
reports:

The data also showed that in 2013, nearly 80 percent of the
senior executives were rated either “outstanding” or as having
exceeded “fully successful” in their job performance, and that at
least 65 percent of the executives received performance awards,
which averaged around $9,000. Only about 20 percent received the
middle of the five ratings.

Veterans Affairs officials sought to play down the data, saying
that only 15 senior executives across the federal government had
received either of the two lowest ratings in the most recent
year

That someone paid to spin things to the media would really think
pointing out that every supervisor in the federal government gets a
good review would help illustrates how disconnected from reality
federal employees have become. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising
though, given the Obama administration’s insistence that the
scandals they’re embroiled in are fake and the willingness of Obama
apologists to eat that narrative up.

The data The Times quotes came out in
testimony by a VA assistant secretary last week who defended
the system of performance bonuses by saying it was needed to retain
talent—as lawmakers pointed out, there wasn’t a mass exodus from
the department after bonuses were suspended. Her testimony also
revealed that the outstanding performance reviews are likely
written by the people being reviewed. Government’s just
that good.

h/t Irish and Dances-With-Trolls