House VA Committee leader demands ‘airtight case’ for VA IT employees getting pay boost

The VA implemented a Special Salary Rate last summer, giving more than 7,000 employees in its Office of Information Technology (OIT) a substantial boost in pay.

Jory Heckman@jheckmanWFED

August 2, 2024 6:56 pm

7 min read

A top Republican on the House VA Committee is scrutinizing the number of the employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs who are receiving a pay raise meant for hard-to-keep IT and cyber experts.

The VA implemented a Special Salary Rate last summer, giving more than 7,000 employees in its Office of Information Technology (OIT) a substantial boost in pay.

The SSR resulted in a 17% average pay increase for VA tech and cyber workers in 2210-classified positions. VA OIT has over 7,500 employees in these positions, and they account for about 86% of the tech shop’s total staff.

But Subcommittee Chairman Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) is raising concerns about the number of VA employees who are getting the salary boost.

Scrutiny over SSR implementation

In a July 16 letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, obtained by Federal News Network, Rosendale claims the department is paying some employees in IT-adjacent positions “arbitrarily increased salaries,” and is calling on leadership to justify the pay bump.

“As the subcommittee has continued to investigate OIT’s implementation of the Special Salary Rate, I have become increasingly concerned that it has not accomplished its stated purpose and VA has represented it inaccurately and misleadingly,” Rosendale wrote.

Rosendale, in his letter, said lawmakers should be skeptical of the VA’s handling of special pay authorities, after the agency awarded nearly $11 million in bonuses to ineligible career executives last fall.

The SSR, which went into effect last summer, has led to significantly higher retention rates. VA OIT expects to grow its tech workforce to 8,544 employees next year — about a 2% increase from its current headcount.

Rosendale, however, wrote that the duties of 2210-series employees at VA OIT “vary widely and some of them have little to do with technical or cybersecurity capabilities.”

“In fact, hundreds of them actually work as management analysts, budget analysts, executive assistants, communications specialists, policy planners, or other non-technical roles,” he wrote.

“While important, these jobs hardly fit OPM’s definition or a reasonable interpretation of ‘IT,’ and the analysis that OIT presented to OPM may not have represented an accurate comparison,” he added. “The reality seems to be at odds with how OIT officials characterized the Special Salary Rate in official documents, in media interviews, and to the subcommittee.”

OPM guidance states that to classify federal employees in 2210 positions, “agencies must have documentation based on a job analysis to substantiate that the position requires IT-related education and/or IT-related experience upon entry.”

In additional guidance, last updated in October 2018, OPM states that the basic job titles under the 2210 classification include IT cybersecurity specialist, IT program manager, IT project manager and IT specialist.

OPM also lists 11 approved specialty titles for federal employees in 2210 positions:

Policy and planning
Enterprise architecture
Security
Systems analysis
Applications software
Operating systems
Network services
Data management
Internet
Systems administration
Customer support

Under the “policy and planning” specialty, OPM says common activities include preparing IT budgets, developing strategic plans and IT workforce planning and management issues.

Among his requests, Rosendale is asking the VA to provide a list of all positions and job descriptions that fall under the 22010 series in its tech shop, and all supporting documentation the department gave OPM as part of its request for the Special Salary Rate.

“I have no problem with OIT paying talented people a competitive salary, but any organization that wants to give 86% of its employees a large raise needs to build an airtight case and then demonstrate that it is accomplishing its stated goal,” Rosendale said.

‘Favoritism’ and other concerns

In a separate letter, Rosendale and House VA Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) raised concerns about “inappropriate favoritism toward Microsoft.”

The lawmakers claim three former Microsoft employees are now serving as OIT senior advisors to Kurt DelBene, VA’s assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer — who is also a former Microsoft executive.

The lawmakers say one of the three VA OIT senior advisors is receiving the SSR, but doesn’t work directly in IT, cybersecurity, or cyber-related areas.

VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes told Federal News Network that the department has received the committee’s letters, “and will respond directly to them.”

“As with all our hiring and retention efforts, VA’s Office of Information and Technology always strives to follow strict VA guidance and oversight. It has been our goal over the past few years to hire and retain the best talent to position VA in the best way possible to deliver more care and more benefits to more Veterans than ever before,” Hayes said.

OPM typically sets governmentwide Special Salary Rates, which help agencies narrow the gap between what they and the private sector can offer in-demand experts.

The VA led a coalition of agencies in 2022 asking OPM to roll out a new SSR for cyber and IT hires across the federal workforce.

However, plans for governmentwide implementation stalled in 2023, after some agencies said they could not afford a major pay increase for their cyber and IT workforce.

Narrowing the pay gap between government & industry

Under the PACT Act — a sweeping 2022 law that expands VA health care and benefits eligibility for veterans exposed to toxic substances during their military service — the VA now has the authority to set Special Salary Rates for non-medical Title 5 positions.

The department, so far, is offering a Special Salary Rate to IT/cyber employees and human resources experts at the Veterans Health Administration.

McDonough told reporters that the VA is focused on managing the critical skills incentive and Special Salary Rate carefully, “because we are showing a pathway forward for the rest of the federal government.”

“We have these authorities in a way that many of our federal agency partners do not, and would like to have it. So, we want to make sure we manage these tools,” McDonough said at a Nov. 29 press conference.

VA OIT leaders defended their use of the SSR at a subcommittee hearing in May — even as the department is preparing for major cuts to certain parts of its IT budget.

VA OIT’s 2025 fiscal budget would reduce IT modernization funding by more than 80%, and cut its infrastructure readiness program, which is focused on updating the department’s legacy IT systems, by more than 65%.

The FY 2025 budget provides $671 million for cybersecurity — a 28% increase from enacted levels.

DelBene told lawmakers that the SSR remains essential to hire and retain in-demand tech workers — and doesn’t take away from other budget priorities.

“The SSR is not a significant portion of our budgets, in the absolute terms. And I would do it again, because we need the best. The most important resource we have as an organization, bar none, is our people,” DelBene said.

Nathan Tierney, VA deputy chief information officer and VA OIT’s chief people officer, said VA OIT made 1,000 recent hires under the SSR. Nearly half of those hires took place this fiscal year.

Rosendale, however, said VA OIT’s budget request “seems to prioritize employee salaries over everything else.”

“What we’re seeing here in this budget is a starving of the actual purpose of your department — technology — and we’re plussing up HR. That’s creating a long-term problem,” he said.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) said she’s concerned the “modest” 5% increase in VA’s OIT workforce budget won’t keep pace with the salaries it’s offering to employees under the SSR.

“I fear that supporting those SSRs will force it to decrease the number of its people it has,” Cherfilus-McCormick said. “Expecting VA’s IT folks to do more work with less people is going to have a lasting impact on retention. The pay raises won’t be enough to prevent people from resigning.”

The Special Salary Rate narrows — but doesn’t eliminate — a major pay disparity between what the government and private tech companies can afford to pay top talent.

An interagency report in 2022 found a pay gap of 66% between public and private sector IT workers. Tierney said the data shows compensation remains a “top attraction and attrition driver.”

VA’s ability to offer SSRs under the PACT Act lasts through September 2027, but VA OIT officials previously said the department can extend its ability to offer SSRs for an additional two years under the legislation.