Even as the Department of Veterans Affairs has been racked by scandals, it has continued to give out bonuses — including some to officials in charge of building the troubled Aurora facility, which is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and months behind schedule.

According to reports by USA Today, CBS News and other media, the VA distributed more than $142 million in bonus in 2014.

Executives overseeing the construction of the Colorado hospital received between $4,000 and $8,000 each, the newspaper said.

According to KMGH-Channel 7, which obtained a copy of the list of bonuses from the House Veterans Affairs Committee, the executive director in Denver received more than $7,200.

Some VA bonuses were stopped when then-VA secretary Eric Shinseki stepped down last year after reports that some employees falsified patient waitlists to meet their targets.

But the agency has continued to pay performance bonuses to nearly half of the agency employees, USA Today reported. In all, about 156,000 employees got bonuses for 2014.

The list of the latest bonuses was compiled by the House Veterans Affairs Committee and its Republican chair, Jeff Miller.

In a statement quoted by CBS, the VA said it needs to pay bonuses to attract and retain top talent. Also, the VA notes, it did suspend bonuses last year to some senior executives after revelations that employees falsified waitlists to meet target.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which took over the Aurora project, expects to complete it by 2018.

Meanwhile, VA chief Robert McDonald told The Washington Post that his biggest obstacle in leading the second-largest federal agency has been politicians in Congress. The retired CEO of Procter & Gamble, brought in to fix and restore the agency, said he was not prepared to navigate the brutal politics on Capitol Hill, where he says lawmakers in both parties seem more intent on “scoring points” than improving care for veterans.

“As someone from the corporate world,” he said, “I just wasn’t used to the politics.”