By Mannix Porterfield
Jerry Husson is miles away from his old post as director of the Beckley VA Medical Center, reassigned to unidentified “special projects” for at least four months at the Veterans Administration’s chief financial office in the nation’s capital.
Husson’s new mission developed while the Beckley facility came under scrutiny this year by the Department of Veterans Affairs in a controversy surrounding reports of inadequate staffing and low morale.
Initially, the VA’s national office said Husson was working out of the VA hospital in Martinsburg, but a spokesman there wasn’t familiar with his name and said he wasn’t there.
A computer check showed Husson, instead, was at the national VA office.
Reached there, Husson was reluctant to go into much detail about his sudden change in status with the VA, except to say he was assigned to deal with “special projects,” which he wouldn’t describe.
“As it appears right now, the detail is only for 120 days,” Husson said in a telephone interview.
Asked if he would return to the Beckley facility at the end of the four-month duty, which the Department of Veterans Affairs described as temporary, Husson said he couldn’t say what he would be doing next.
“That’s up to my superiors, whether they send me back or do something else with me,” he said.
Husson said he wouldn’t respond to a broadcast report linking his reassignment to a formal review Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., sought of the Beckley facility amid complaints of chronic staff shortages and diminished morale among employees.
Rockefeller’s office last week said a report, compiled by the National Center for Organization Development, uncovered both weaknesses and strengths at the facility, but declined to be specific about its contents. An aide to Rockefeller said, “It’s not a public report.”
Karin McGraw, the acting director of the facility, said the report generally was positive, adding, “Many of the recommendations made for improvement were those that we had already begun implementing.”
Asked to comment on a media report that his new assignment was related to that study, Husson said, “I’m not going to address any of that garbage that goes on.”
Jo Schuda, a spokesperson for the VA in Washington, said she couldn’t explain why Husson was given the special assignment or what it entailed, only that it was temporary.
“It’s not uncommon for people to be moved to fill other vacancies that occur for a short time,” she said.
— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com
