Ethical News: in today’s blog, I am commenting on a great piece of investigative journalism that appeared in the Denver Post more than a month ago (May 7, 2015) by David Olinger and David Migoya entitled: ”VA Officials were warned about Aurora project before work began.”
Do not be concerned that this story has “age” on it. For it is so “evergreen” and nightmarish that I doubt it will be resolved in the next six months or six years or more.
I am referring to the massive VA hospital project in Aurora, Colorado that by now has exceeded more than $1.7 billion in costs – and trust me, it is still climbing. That is $1.7 billion in “our” money, and few in congress seem to care. The project is so late and so over budget that no one really knows its ultimate cost or its date of completion. The worst of it is that once again, we are short-changing America’s veterans.
As the article explains, in May 2011, many months before the massive, sprawling complex was built, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officials in Washington knew there were management problems. It was rather hush-hush, but the team that had been put into place was basically composed of a bunch of inexperienced and incompetent boobs who were assembled as the result of cronyism. They did not get along with each other from the start and they did not trust one another. As the first “shovels” broke dirt and the foundations were dug, the project was well on its way to ruin.
As the costs began to rise in 2013, the public was first made aware that this dream project was already years late and a few hundred million over-budget. The heat began to get turned up, and largely the stories of mismanagement fell on deaf ears. According to the article:
“E-mails and memos sent among VA employees assigned to oversee the medical center’s construction reveal a project mired in distrust, discord and concerns of cronyism…VA engineers warned higher-ups that key managers on the project lacked the experience and know-how to handle the job.”
None of the problems were truly hidden, they were temporarily buried in a sea of bureaucratic back-tracking and hidden agendas. State the authors:
“The project’s contracting officer, Thaddeus Willoughby, sent a memo to VA officials…questioning senior resident engineer Thomas Hayden’s qualifications. Noting that Hayden had not finished course work required to do his job, he recommended the engineer be removed…Because ‘this project is one of the largest projects the VA is undertaking,’ Willoughby wrote, ‘to have a SRE (senior resident engineer) who has no experience leading a VA project is setting the SRE up for failure.’”
How does this happen?
As the scandal runs on and on in its complexity, a pattern is uncovered where every professional involved in the construction became increasingly wary of the incompetence of those put in charge.
Building a hospital and care facility of the size of the regional center in Aurora, Colorado is a massive undertaking on three levels: the size and scope of the construction; the very specialized nature of hospital construction and the VA process itself. The senior resident engineer and apparently those who worked for him, lacked experience. In fact, they even lacked the credentials of their profession. It showed.
There were no checks and balances; there was no vetting process; there was no realistic oversight and no one in the upper reaches of government cared enough about the project to install experienced individuals over bureaucrats and career incompetents.
We have frequently talked about a lack of oversight and receptiveness to examination of practices as being gateways to unethical behavior. We have also talked of the “them” and “us” mentality that exists at all levels of the federal bureaucracy; this is a prime example.
The lack of responsibility of the bureaucracy toward the citizenry is not a new phenomenon; it is just that the amount of waste and excess within the halls of government has exploded. To many within the bureaucracy, taxpayer money is a kind of Monopoly game.
Ethics and ethical responsibility seem to fade into the background as greed and cronyism take precedence over prudent management and responsibility.
There has been talk of abandonment of the project – and of course, more investigations as to why it happened. One can only wonder how much these investigations will cost in terms of time and money. We know why it happened and to abandon the project at this point seems – pointless.
It all comes down to poor choices and the consequences stemming from those choices. Meanwhile, the veterans are holding rallies demanding to know why these problems have occurred, and why the project has been such a massive failure.
We are wondering who will be ethical enough to stand up and take responsibility. As of this moment, no one seems to have the courage. It is very ironic considering the courageous men and women the hospital is supposed to be serving.
