Guide to Estimating Wages of VHA Employees Technical rept. no. 12

摘要

Economic analyses of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) care often include estimation of the cost of VHA staff time. This report describes how to estimate average annual and hourly wages (including benefits) and presents these averages for fiscal years 2000-2003. Two sets of figures are presented, one based on data from the Financial Management System (FMS) and one based on data from the Decision Support System (DSS) Account-Level Budgeter Cost Center (ALBCC) datasets. The report also provides sample programs for calculating wage figures from each source. To increase comparability with ALBCC, we limited the FMS data to cost centers pertaining to direct medical care at VA facilities. For budget object codes (job categories) in the 1000-1099 range, FMS and ALBCC data files report nearly identical total expenditures. The distribution of dollars and hours across job categories was quite similar for common job categories, such as registered nurses and full-time physicians. There was considerable variation across data sources, however, in categories pertaining to trainees, temporary employees, and administrative staff.