Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials said this week that they are looking to fix website tech issues that have now impacted the disability claims for more than 120,000 veterans, and that the agency is putting in place a senior executive to direct the fixes.
At a House VA Subcommittee on Technology Modernization Oversight hearing on Dec. 4, VA officials told the committee that they are working hard to remediate the VA.gov tech issues they discovered in September, and VA’s Office Information Technology (OIT) has issued a “Code Yellow” process for improved monitoring.
“Code Yellow includes monitoring the health of the most important applications and features of VA.gov and making these monitors accessible in a single place,” VA Chief Information Officer (CIO) Kurt DelBene said.
“Additionally, Code Yellow ensures a government employee knows about any significant issues within 24 hours. So far, 80 percent of VA.gov’s most important features are monitored, and VA will complete automatic monitoring of the top features by the end of quarter one of fiscal year 24.”
This was the subcommittee’s second hearing on the VA.gov bugs, after holding one in September where lawmakers called for increased accountability.
Since online filing became available in 2011, the VA discovered that an estimated 56,000 veterans who filed a request to update their dependency status online did not have their claims successfully processed by VA.gov.
This means that the VA was likely delayed in adding or removing a dependent from the veterans’ accounts, which could have increased or decreased their monthly benefit payments.
However, DelBene said after further analysis, the VA identified about 81,000 veterans who filed and didn’t have their dependency submissions successfully processed – among several thousand others whose claims were impacted in other areas.
Subcommittee Chairman Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., said he will be introducing the VA Watching Over Electronic Benefits Act, to ensure that the VA’s “watchtower” efforts perform as intended.
“We all need to be confident that errors in the VA.gov and other systems will never again be allowed to compound undetected and impact so many people,” Chairman Rosendale said.
The congressman also pressed DelBene on the VA’s recent response to a Sept. 6 letter from Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., chairman of the full House VA Committee, to VA Secretary Denis McDonough regarding the VA.gov issues. Rep. Rosendale said the committee received a response from McDonough about an hour before the hearing started.
In his response, McDonough said that DelBene brought on a new senior executive to ensure the tech issues are “rapidly fixed.” However, when asked who the new senior executive was, DelBene was unable to provide an answer.
“Let me get back to you on that,” DelBene said. “I know all of my senior executives. I’m trying to make sure that I give you the correct information in terms of who we’re referencing there.”
DelBene pledged to get back to the committee with a name by the end of the day.
