BONUS BENEFICIARIES

Here are some of the recipients: In Tomah, Wis., the former chief of staff of the VA medical center, David Houlihan received a $ 4,000 bonus in December, nine months after an inspector general investigation report concluded he was prescribing alarmingly high amounts of opiates. In Colorado, a flawed facility construction project in Denver was overseen in part by several VA officials headquartered in Washington. Among them were Stella Fiotes, executive director of the VA’s Office of Construction and Facilities Management, who received a $ 8,985 bonus; Dennis Milsten, an associate director in the same office, who got $ 8,069; and Chris Kyrgos, former national acquisitions director, who took home $ 3,800. In St. Cloud, Minn., chief of staff Susan Markstrom got a $ 3,900 bonus in 2014. She was cited in an internal investigation report in January 2014 that concluded mismanagement led to mass resignations of health care providers at the facility. St. Cloud VA spokesman Barry Venable said issues cited in the report were in 2013 and Markstrom is “an excellent chief of staff.” In Augusta, Ga., VA financial manager Jed Fillingim was awarded a $ 900 performance bonus. He drew scrutiny from Congress last year after news reports revealed he admitted drinking and driving a government truck to a VA meeting in 2010 and a co- worker fell from the truck and was killed. In Arizona, Sandra Flint, former director of the Phoenix regional VA benefits office, received a bonus of $ 8,348. Irate veterans confronted Flint at a public forum in August 2014 over a backlog of about 8,200 pending benefit claims. Included were 3,667 pending longer than 125 days.