Youngstown Business Journal - Johnson Blasts VA for Mismanagement

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U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, D-6 Ohio, criticized Veterans Administration managers and supervisors for mismanagement and neglecting to use a system in place to catch cost overruns and potential fraud.

Johnson, R-6 Ohio, chaired his first hearing Wednesday as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. The hearing focused on construction contracting management, cost overruns, contract bundling and other issues within the Veterans Administration system.

Despite a 2007 letter mandating the use of the Electronic Contract Management System, intended to improve the quality of the contracting process, many supervisors and managers in the Veterans Administration ignore the system, "instead allowing the contracting system and runaway associated costs to continue as before," he said in prepared remarks to the subcommittee. Used to record and track procurement actions of more than $25,000, the eCMS database could be reviewed to determine the effectiveness of the Veterans Administration's contracting and make changes as needed.

"Cost overruns could be identified and addressed early on, and perhaps even prevented in the first place," Johnson said.

The department's office of inspector general discovered "clear cases of missing and incomplete information, and in one test discovered that 83 percent of the transactions that should have gone into" the system were left out, he said. "Examples such as this dilute the value of eCMS as an accountability measure, and in the end veterans and taxpayers bear the loss," he said. While the Veterans Administration acknowledged the inspector general's findings and concurred with recommendations for improvement, the congressman said he wanted to see "concrete evidence of that improvement."

The Ohio Republican also pointed to other "clear cases of contract mismanagement" that were "equally disturbing," including bundling contracts as well as splitting contracts. "As these contracts are mishandled, needed construction is slowed considerably and the needed services that a new medical facility would provide are further delayed. Again, those who are hurt most by this are the veterans," Johnson remarked. .

"It is past time for these billions of construction contracting dollars to be used effectively, efficiently, and in a timely fashion so the veterans who need the services provided by these facilities can access them," he added.

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