$160,000 VA JOB SHIFT DEFENDED

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 23, 1993                   TAG: 9302230117
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short
$160,000 VA JOB SHIFT DEFENDED
Veterans Affairs Secretary Jesse Brown on Monday defended his action in moving the departing chief of the veterans' hospital system into a $160,000-a-year government advisory post.
Brown asked for the resignation of Dr. James Holsinger, then named him a VA Distinguished Physician, a step that drew a letter of protest last week from Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska.
At a question-and-answer session at an American Legion conference Monday, Ralph Stone of Bordentown, N.J., told Brown that naming Holsinger to the advisory post "flies in the face of fiscal responsibility." Stone is a former state commander of the American Legion in New Jersey.
Holsinger's salary in the new position exceeds Brown's own annual salary of $148,400.
Brown said he asked for Holsinger's resignation because "I wanted my own guy in there."
Holsinger, who has worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs for 25 years, was a career employee before he was appointed by the Bush administration to head the veterans' hospital system. As adviser, he would assist with details of the department's involvement in national health-care reform.
In a letter Friday to Brown, Murkowski questioned "how, at a time when VA will be asked to sacrifice over 9,000 people . . . there is room in the budget for a $160,000 position with no defined responsibilities and no supervision."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB