Waste of the Day: Veterans Affairs’ Spa Days Return
Topline: As chancellor of the Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy, Judith Dawson’s job was to teach other VA employees the proper way to hire contractors for government work. Instead, Dawson told her staff to illegally ask contractors to buy them alcohol and private buses during an extravagant $4.6 million VA training symposium.
Dawson “knowingly” accepted illicit gifts including over $2,400 of spa treatments during the August 2023 event in Aurora, Colorado, according to a new report from the VA inspector general.
Key facts: The event was held at the Gaylord Rockies Convention Center. Dawson visited the site in February 2023 to decide if it would be a suitable venue for the symposium, and was told by an ethics attorney that she should “accept nothing” from the hotel.
Dawson and six other VA staffers each accepted $272 in free meals and alcohol.
During the conference itself — which Dawson was supposed to be leading — she accepted a free spa day worth $1,381. That included three 50-minute massages, an 80-minute facial, a body scrub and more.
Dawson told the inspector general she did not accept any other massages, but receipts kept by the convention center showed she was lying. She enjoyed three other spa treatments worth $1,055 in the days before the symposium.
Dawson later told the inspector general that she knew accepting the gifts was illegal.
The VA also tried to use taxpayer funds to hire a bartender for happy hours at the conference, but they were told, “The federal government cannot under any circumstances pay for a bartender … this is a clear violation of federal regulations.” Dawson then told her staff to find a private company that would “sponsor” the happy hour, and the VA eventually received $6,047 for bartending fees and 442 alcoholic drinks, the inspector general found.
Dawson’s staff also tried to charter buses to a Colorado Rockies baseball game, but they were told that government funds can only be used for “official business travel expenses.” By this point, Dawson had acknowledged over email that “we are not allowed to solicit sponsorship from vendors,” so she asked a “close friend” who worked for a VA contractor to find a sponsor for her. Five private companies later paid $2,992 to bus VA employees to the game.
Federal guidelines from 2005 state that the VA can only accept gifts that directly benefit veterans and “will not be used to enrich employees.”
The inspector general did not recommend taking action against Dawson because she retired in August 2024. She was making $195,474 at the time.
Taxpayer spending on the conference included travel expenses for 1,500 employees. It was the most expensive of 105 VA conferences in 2023 that each cost over $100,000.
Background: OpenTheBooks recently published an article detailing the VA’s lavish spending on in-person conferences in 2011, including expenses for spa days. Oversight laws signed in 2012 by President Barack Obama require the VA to report its conference spending directly to Congress, but the Colorado convention shows that employees are still pampering themselves.
The department spent $28.4 million on in-person conferences in 2023 and $28.3 million in 2024.
Summary: Taxpayers will no doubt be delighted to know that some of the employees responsible for providing healthcare to our veterans are instead spending working hours on a massage table.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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