Metro East Sun

Rep. Matt Rosendale, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, led a hearing on the future of IT modernization within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The session aimed to evaluate lessons learned from VA's technology modernization efforts over the past two years.

Rosendale highlighted the challenges faced by VA, an organization with nearly half a million employees serving nine million veterans and their families. With a budget of approximately $370 billion annually, VA is second only to the Department of Defense in size. Rosendale noted that VA's attempts to modernize its IT systems through large-scale projects have not been successful.

"The Department has repeatedly attempted to address these challenges with megaprojects that span years or decades and cost billions of dollars," Rosendale stated. "This strategy simply has not worked well."

He pointed out that all six of VA’s multi-billion-dollar IT projects have encountered significant issues. These include Electronic Health Record Modernization, which has already cost nearly $10 billion and is projected to exceed $37 billion according to the Institute for Defense Analysis. Additionally, Financial Management Business Transformation and the Digital G.I. Bill have both experienced delays and budget overruns.

Despite these setbacks, Rosendale acknowledged some positive developments. He praised Secretary McDonough for halting certain projects after pilot failures and emphasized a shift towards more agile development practices.

"Megaprojects sound good in theory," he remarked. "But in reality, they’re always overdue and over budget, and that’s unacceptable for veterans and taxpayers."

Rosendale advocated for smaller-scale deployments and incremental development approaches, citing successes such as improvements made to VA.gov and the Program Integrity Tool.

"As we close out this Congress...we need to build a nimbler VA that’s more responsive to veterans’ needs," he concluded before passing the floor to Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick.