Senate budget panel approves full VA 2012 IT request

The Veterans Affairs Department's 2012 information technology budget request fared better in the Senate Appropriations Committee -- which last week approved the full amount of $3.161 billion -- than it did in the House of Representatives, which cut 4.3 percent, or $136 million, in the version it passed in May.

The bodies will work out differences later this year in conference.

The Senate, in its report on the 2012 VA budget bill, restricted the department from spending $536.4 million in IT development funds until it certifies to Congress the amounts that will be spent on each of 76 planned projects. The Senate also included language similar to the House bill to require VA to submit monthly IT spending reports to both chambers' appropriations committees.

When VA submitted its budget request in February it did not know the financial requirements for a joint electronic health record it planned to develop with the Defense Department. The Senate report said the VA 2012 IT budget includes "sufficient flexibility" to reprogram funds for the joint record project.

The Senate said it is essential "that an unambiguous and unified message is clearly articulated to both departments" by their top leaders for cooperation on development of the joint record. "It is imperative that a coordinated and clearly defined path is laid out to protect the taxpayers from system development that wastes money and produces little in terms of success," the Senate report said.

A growing pool of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans seeking VA benefits is expected to push the number of claims the agency handles annually to 1,325,953 in 2012, an increase of more than 11 percent from 1,192,346 in 2010, with over half the disability claims today backlogged more than 125 days.

The Senate approved VA's requested 2012 budget of $84.9 million for a paperless Veterans Benefits Management System intended to reduce claims processing time to 125 days. But the Senate report said the committee has concerns that VA has not developed an evaluation plan with clear criteria for determining whether a pilot paperless processing system launched last year in Providence, R.I., has sufficiently met its stated goals in preparation of a nationwide rollout next year.