5 years after wage changes, Amarillo VA workers getting paid

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — More than five years after wage changes were authorized for employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, back pay due to agency workers in Amarillo finally is starting to show up in their paychecks.

VA officials in Amarillo didn't receive instructions on how to implement changes for promotions, incentive bonuses and shift differentials until Jan. 1, agency spokeswoman Barbara Moore told the Amarillo Globe-News (http://bit.ly/1RPqXDI ).

"We just got the guidance on how to fix that locally and on how to go back and retroactively do these manual calculations," she said in a story published Monday.

Moore said new software handling employee pay has slowly been rolled out nationwide over the past two years but didn't take account of changes in policy and laws since the Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act was signed into law in 2010.

"It's not so much that it's broken, it just didn't have these formulas and calculations built in when we got it," she said.

It's not certain how many VA workers in Amarillo are affected, although one example of the effect meant certified nurse assistants who recently were hired were being paid more than co-workers already on the job.

"When that was discovered, we were on it," Moore said. "There are folks that will be reclassified and folks are all going to get paid the money that is due to them."

A grievance from the American Federation of Government Employees about nurse pay was settled last month and a regional vice president with the union said agency officials could have done a better job of educating the staff.

"That's their job," Cheryl Eliano said. "That's two things you don't mess with employees. Don't mess with schedule and money."

She said a new human resources officer at the VA is working with staff.

"The employees' complaint is that things aren't happening as fast as they should," she said. "There's a lot of people and it's a pretty complex system for the VA. ... There's systems for systems and it takes time to get everything corrected."

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