Hearing Of The House Committee On Veteran Affairs - Vocational Rehabilitation Education Contracts For Veteran Counseling

Statement

Good afternoon everyone.

Madam Chair, my agenda for this hearing is to determine that VA is properly administering the vocational rehabilitation and employment contract counseling program. The only measure I use to make that determination is whether the program is meeting the counseling needs of veterans.

I want to make it clear that I have no stake in who VA selects to deliver services to veterans. Whether VA elects to award 1 contract or 50, VA must execute their side of the contract properly. They must hold their vendors accountable and we must do the same to VA.

I'm sure you are aware of the concerns expressed by some contractors regarding VA's administration of the recently terminated National Acquisition Strategy contracts issued last July. I am also sure you have heard VA's side of the story. For me, I believe there have been ample mistakes by both sides.

So where do we go from here? I understand VA intends to award multiple short-term contracts via 19 sub-regions and will not extend the terminated contracts for a similar amount of time. It is reasonable to ask whether extending current contractors or issuing two sets of new contacts within six months is the better way to go. It is also reasonable to ask whether VA's the same contracting staff that had difficulty managing eight contracts can manage 50 plus contracts.

Assuming for the moment that the contractors' testimony is reasonably accurate regarding things like inconsistent adherence to the terms of the contract by local VA officials, where does our duty lie? VA has not presented evidence, other than anecdotal statements to staff, that one or more contractors performed inadequately.

Madam Chair, having reviewed the testimony, I cannot determine who is right. Maybe both sides are right. The contractors make allegations and VA denies them and contends poor performance by some of the vendors. Therefore, I believe there should be a complete review of this contract by GAO or the Inspector General since we are not staffed to conduct such an extensive investigation. In the meantime, I believe the eight prime contractors should continue under a short contract extension until the new national contract is awarded. VA's short term strategy that spreads contract management back out to 57 Regional Offices for a six month period of performance with all the incumbent problems makes no sense to me.

Regardless, since we have oversight of the VA, the bigger issue is whether VA has learned any lessons from the failure of the NAS contract and what are they doing to prevent a repetition? What are the lessons learned? Will there be sufficient training for both VA staff and vendors? If inconsistency in administration arises, how will they enforce standardized administration? Does VR&E have the right people in the right places? Does VA have a sound acquisition strategy? How will contractors be evaluated on their performance? And finally, how should we evaluate VA on its performance in the execution of the next contract counseling program?

Madam Chair, over the years, the Veterans Affairs Committee has not devoted a lot of its time reviewing VA acquisition programs. Unlike DoD, VA does not develop big systems outside of IT. But they do spend $15 billion of our citizens' taxes and I believe it is incumbent on us to oversee that spending to ensure veterans get value for those dollars, whether it is a program administered by VR&E, Education, or any other arm of VA.

In the end, except through legislation, we cannot force VA to change its short term strategy. But the committee can learn from this unfortunate situation and as I said earlier, I look forward to a detailed study of this particular process. Hopefully, VA will too. In the meantime, I guess the lesson for the business community is that when you do business with VA or any government agency, make sure all of the contractual issues are resolved including, in this case, how the government views your assumptions, how administrative procedures will be handled, and how to resolve conflicts before it is too late.

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