The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) told members of Congress on Thursday that it has “80 percent” confidence that the agency will meet its goals and newly updated budget under the Digital GI Bill (DGIB) program – an IT modernization project that aims to improve the education benefits processing system.
That estimate came after a VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report last month revealed the program’s original contract cost had more than doubled due to poor planning by the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA).
During a Sept. 27 House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity hearing, lawmakers wanted answers as to why the VBA needed to renegotiate the contract with Accenture Federal Services from the original cost of $453 million, to the new mark of $932 million.
Subcommittee Chairman Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., kicked off the hearing by saying, “Frankly, gentlemen, it’s embarrassing that we have to do this again.”
“In reading the OIG’s report, it is very apparent poor communication and poor contract management have caused roadblocks,” added Ranking Member Mike Levin, D-Calif. “You guys have got to fix this, and we can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
Ronald Burke, the under secretary for policy and oversight at the VBA, acknowledged that the complexity and scope of the IT modernization contract were not apparent when the original contract was drafted in 2020. However, Burke said the “VA has made the course corrections necessary to meet modernization objectives.”
Despite that, lawmakers wanted to know whether or not the $932 million estimate is sound – or if the VA will come back to ask Congress for more money.
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who serves as the chair of the House VA Subcommittee on Technology Modernization Oversight, joined the hearing to predict that the contract cost “will be over a billion dollars” before the subcommittee convenes again.
“This is the problem that we run into with virtually every single software company that has come before me, and I can’t pin down whether all the responsibility lies on the VA for not properly describing what they need, or the software companies or the vendors that hold themselves out as the experts,” Rep. Rosendale said.
“The whole while that you’re experimenting to develop this, our veterans are being treated as guinea pigs in the process, and it’s deeply disturbing to me,” he added. “It’s completely unacceptable.”
Nicholas Dahl, the deputy assistant inspector general of management and administration at the VA OIG, also joined the hearing to discuss the OIG’s findings.
Notably, Dahl said the VA has “a track record of difficulty in implementing major IT systems. They almost without fail take longer. They take re-plan.”
Nevertheless, VBA’s Burke assured lawmakers that the VA would not need to re-plan this contract, and it has “very high confidence” in the new scope.
“I think this collective group thinks our confidence level in reaching our goals, according to the current project milestones, is extremely high, well above 50 percent … 80 percent,” Burke said.
“So, there’s a 20 percent chance that Mr. Rosendale is right, and you’re going to come back and ask for more money,” Ranking Member Levin probed. “Is that correct?”
“You can attribute that quote to me, yes, sir,” Burke responded.
