Va Has 80 Days To End Back Log.

[boomer2]

Check the article. LOL

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/07/10/deadline-nears-va-has-about-80-days-to-clear-128k-backlogged.html?ESRC=eb.nl

[ArNG11]

Well. when mistakes are made at the administrative or "operations" levels, It makes perfect sense that the money spent in those areas was not spent correctly. so it should be clawed back.

Further, money awarded under 1151 and so forth come from (as I understand) the general fund, not out of the VA's funds.

So the penalty and interest could also come from the general fund, and be subtracted from the VA's overall operating budget and administrative funds.

It's worth mentioning that when a federal agency is mandated by law to do something, unless there is a specific budget line item, the agency can always defend it's lack of action

as not having the funds to do whatever it was. The actual amounts of truly discretionary funds are generally quite limited.

Remember the bean counters rule.

I personally observed a great deal of this sort of thing within a service branch of DOD before I retired.

As to what true discretionary funds are used for - - -

That's generally a real bag of worms. One large base I'm familiar with didn't have enough discretionary funds to properly support

systems it managed, yet could afford to spend such funds for other efforts that did not directly impact the systems. Beautification projects,

never mind inadequate building upkeep and so forth, had a higher priority. After all, if the higher ups wanted to better support the systems,

they would have provided funding earmarked for that purpose.

The bureaucrats lament is always that they never have enough funds to do what they are sup-post to do in the time required.

An often used alternative is not enough resources.

sadly you hit the nail on the head with a 20 lb sledge.