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P R E S S R E L E A S E - -
Wednesday September 20, 2006
Buyer commends GAO report on VA budget, praises VA Secretary for acting
Washington, D.C. — A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report
issued today supports conclusions by the House Committee on Veterans’
Affairs that projected veterans’ health care funding shortfalls from
last summer were caused by a flawed Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
budget model. Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) praised the report that
found that the VA used unrealistic assumptions and outdated,
insufficient data.
“The GAO’s findings confirm what we found after examining VA’s process
of budget modeling,” Buyer said. “The department’s budget staffs relied
on information that was outdated, used unsupportable assumptions, and
reacted slowly when a gap appeared. Commendably, VA Secretary Nicholson
has already moved ahead to enact recommendations made in this report.”
The GAO report was requested by Buyer and members of the Senate after VA
reported shortfalls in health care funding for fiscal years 2005 and
2006. It found that “unrealistic assumptions, errors in estimation, and
insufficient data” were “key factors” in the budget projections that led
to the shortfall. It recommended that VA do a better job of linking
policy changes with their effects on budgets, strengthen internal
controls, and improve budget calculations. GAO also recommended improved
budget reporting by the administration to Congress, a factor in the late
request last year for supplemental funding.
At the committee’s hearing last June (http://veterans.house.gov/news/109/6-23-05h.html),
VA Under Secretary for Health Jonathan Perlin first acknowledged a
looming health care funding shortfall. Supplemental appropriations
corrected the shortfalls, but Buyer insisted on finding and fixing the
root problems. In additional hearings held by Buyer last summer, it was
discovered that VA officials used planning data that was in some cases
three years old and neither accounted for servicemembers returning from
the war on terror nor correctly estimated program cost savings within
the Veterans Health Administration.
“Last June, I promised that we would examine the VA budget process and
work with Secretary Nicholson and the administration to fix the process
itself,” Buyer said. “Working with VA and the administration, we have
made the hard and necessary changes to the budget model, and the proof
was a strong FY 2007 budget.”
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Larry Scott
