Poor planning of the Veterans Affairs new $453 million online platform for education benefits has caused project costs to double and its completion date to be pushed back two years, according to a federal watchdog’s report released Wednesday.
Officials from the VA Inspector General’s office blamed “poor contract planning, including the lack of information technology expertise, which led to unclear and unrealistic requirements … that caused delays and additional costs.”
The report added that department leaders need to overhaul their oversight efforts to ensure the work gets finished without the final bill topping $1 billion.
Republican lawmakers called the missteps another disappointment in a series of technology failures for the department in recent years.
“This is wholly unacceptable,” said House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., in a letter sent to VA Secretary Denis McDonough shortly after the report’s release. “Due to failures of [VA] leadership … the American taxpayers are on the hook for nearly an additional half a billion dollars.”
In response, VA planners acknowledged delays but pushed back on assertions that poor leadership has led to widespread failures in the modernization effort, noting that the new system is already providing benefits to students.
“Significant progress has been achieved to date, improving the veteran experience and outcomes through increased claims processing automation that both streamlines timeliness and provides real-time claims status and information,” Under Secretary of Benefits Joshua Jacobs said in a statement to the inspector general.
“Prior to the [new system], a veteran or beneficiary could expect their application for original benefits to take up to 28 days, and follow-on supplemental claims to take up to 14 days. [Those] are now being completed in approximately 10 days for original claims and 4 days for supplemental claims.”
The GI Bill digital portal project — designed to provide students speedier eligibility decisions on their veterans education benefits — was launched in early 2021. The effort was originally slated to be fully operational by spring 2024, but that target date has now been pushed back to summer 2026.
VA has said the original $453 million contract for the work has now been updated 25 times, to include development of new features, migration of existing student information to a new database and continued support of the system into the future. The new price tag for the project is $932 million.
Inspector General officials said some of those changes came because “original contract requirements were unclear, which resulted in development and implementation delays.”
They also said VA leaders “did not choose to follow best practices” on oversight and scheduling of the project, a charge that Jacobs denied.
The report calls for stronger communication between VA and its vendors and clearer timelines for progress, recommendations department officials said are already underway.
But Bost in his letter said those promises are not enough, given similar past cost and management problems with electronic health records modernization efforts and other technology system upgrade projects.
Bost requested a full report on planned project improvements to be delivered to the committee by Sept. 8, and questioned whether any department officials will be disciplined or otherwise punished for the errors so far.
“No one at VA seems willing to take responsibility for the constant upheaval and delays in this project,” he wrote.
The full watchdog report is available on the VA Inspector General’s website.
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