Subcommittee on Technology Modernization Oversight Hearing

House Subcommittee on Technology Modernization

2025-07-14

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Source: Congress.gov

Summary

The meeting of the subcommittee focused on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Information and Technology (OIT), discussing its organizational structure, budget, priorities, and efforts towards modernization and efficiency.[ 00:23:23-00:23:33 ]

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[ 00:27:01-00:27:09 ]

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 Witnesses from VA OIT and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) provided insights into the challenges and strategies for delivering reliable and modern technology for veterans.[ 00:33:37 ]

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Themes

VA OIT Modernization and Efficiency

OIT is implementing a "smarter, not bigger" IT strategy to optimize technology investments and improve veteran outcomes.[ 00:25:24-00:25:34 ]

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 This involves streamlining operations through automation and digital services, consolidating the digital experience into a single modern platform, and launching an initiative to consolidate VA contact centers.[ 00:25:34-00:25:38 ]

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 OIT aims to move away from building custom systems to a "buy before build" approach, leveraging enterprise standard tools for increased efficiency and cybersecurity. The focus is on ensuring that every dollar delivers maximum value to veterans, prioritizing cost-effectiveness, and involving OIT experts in technology decisions from the outset to avoid costly failures.[ 00:26:25 ]

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Workforce Reshaping and Staffing Concerns

OIT is reshaping its workforce to align with critical IT functions, reduce bureaucratic overhead, and accelerate decision-making. This includes leveraging voluntary early retirement authorities (VERA) and deferred retirement programs (DRP), which have resulted in over 1,100 voluntary departures, with 78% being retirements.[ 00:44:46 ]

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 The goal is to optimize human capital allocation and automate processes where possible, such as consolidating internal HR functions that previously consumed hundreds of OIT resources.[ 00:40:48 ]

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 However, concerns were raised regarding the potential loss of institutional knowledge and technical expertise, and the completeness of OIT's strategic workforce planning, especially without a baseline of current workforce skills and competencies.

Budget and Financial Management

The VA's fiscal year 2026 budget request proposes a significant decrease in OIT's budget, with a reduction of nearly $300 million overall and $500 million from reduced spending on duplicative legacy systems and paused procurements. This has led to concerns about the impact on modernization efforts and the aging IT infrastructure.[ 00:27:29-00:27:35 ]

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 OIT has identified immediate reinvestments of $89 million into infrastructure readiness programs and an additional $100 million for strategic reinvestment, alongside intensified contract oversight. While OIT asserts that budget cuts and reallocations are managed to ensure critical priorities are met and operational gaps are avoided, some committee members remain concerned that budget transfers and reductions could impede addressing critical unfunded priorities, particularly in cybersecurity.[ 01:02:59 ]

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Cybersecurity

OIT is committed to strengthening its cybersecurity posture, pivoting from compliance-based approaches to dynamic, threat-informed defenses and proactive risk mitigation. Key initiatives include implementing a zero-trust architecture enterprise-wide, rigorous identity verification, continuous monitoring, and strict access controls. The department aims for continued reinvestment in modern cybersecurity tools, skilled personnel, and standardized processes to protect sensitive veteran information. GAO highlighted 26 open recommendations related to VA's IT operations and cybersecurity that are foundational and need quick resolution to support reform initiatives.

Tone of the Meeting

The tone of the meeting was primarily serious and concerned, particularly from the Ranking Member and the GAO witness, regarding budget cuts and workforce changes.[ 00:27:22-00:27:38 ]

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[ 00:38:15 ]

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 OIT representatives and the Chairman maintained a proactive and optimistic tone, emphasizing efficiency, modernization, and a "smarter, not bigger" strategy.[ 00:33:37 ]

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 There was a clear tension between the administration's drive for efficiency and standardization versus concerns about potential adverse impacts on OIT's capacity and mission delivery due to reduced resources and staffing.[ 01:19:34-01:19:39 ]

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Participants

Transcript

Sorry, I'll moderate that in the future.  Good afternoon.  Subcommittee will come to order.  I want to start by thanking our witnesses for being here today and for the testimony that you're going to provide and the insight you're going to give to our committee.  I appreciate that.  I want to kind of set the stage for why we're here today and why the committee is interested in this topic.  Nothing in the VA functions without technology.  I think we all understand that, and it's a huge part of   what makes the VA work, and in certain instances, make the VA not work as well as it could.  It's also the really predominant focus, of course, of the jurisdiction of this subcommittee as well.  It's a simple statement, but it gets to the heart of why OIT's mission is so important.  VA needs reliable modern technology in order to provide the high quality benefits and services that our veterans deserve and have earned through their service.  Since its creation in 2016, OIT has been constantly fighting a two-front battle.   The first of which is to maintain and secure the existing technology systems that we have to shore those up from vulnerability and make sure that they function properly and in the way that we've expected.  The second is to replace or modernize what is broken and outdated.  It reminds me a little bit of our physical infrastructure throughout the country where you have roads and bridges that are being maintained over time, but also those that reach the point of needing replacement and having to do both at once is a difficult and challenging process.  So you have my   respect for the difficulty and challenges that that presents.  While it's easy to ask for more money, history has shown that funding alone does not necessarily result in the outcomes that we would like.  And many of OIT's persistent issues raises important questions in this way.  Is OIT getting the best possible result for their technology investments?  Is OIT prioritizing cost effectiveness and veteran outcomes in their decision-making?   Does OIT operate a certain way because it is the best way, or is it because it's the only way we've ever done it?
Sometimes we get into a decision matrix where we've done things a certain way over time, and that becomes the bit of a de facto experience.  I run into that here in Congress, and we're elected to do a certain job, and oftentimes we're faced with, well, we've always done it this way, so that's the way we're going to continue to do it.   I was pleased to see that President Trump's VA budget request for fiscal year 2026 laid out a brand of smarter, not bigger, and a strategy for OIT that takes direct aim at many of OIT's problems.  According to this strategy, OIT will take advantage of past investments in automation and digital services to streamline and become a more cost-effective organization.  They plan to change workflows and align similar functions across services to become more efficient.   OIT will be making substantial investment in cybersecurity monitoring and infrastructure readiness to ensure that their hardware and software can meet the demands of VA's growing operations.  I look forward to hearing about these plans and more from our VA witnesses today.  As technology changes and new problems arise, OIT needs to be flexible and adaptable in order to deliver the best outcome for our veterans.  OIT's priorities should determine how the organization is structured, not the other way around.   However, we can't talk about smarter IT strategy without talking about the money that VA has spent on IT projects that have not delivered as were expected.  For years, this committee has highlighted the wasteful spending, the over budget projects, poor outcomes that seem to come with all IT projects in VA, but really throughout government as I've seen.   OIT needs to be involved in the conversation from the very beginning before VA buys new IT systems, starts projects, or makes major investments.  As I said before, nothing in VA functions without technology, so there must be real ownership and emphasis from the VA central office to involve the experts at OIT in technology decisions.  Doing so might help avoid costly disasters down the road.
Earlier this year, we held an oversight hearing on VA software licensing management, where we dug into the reasons why VA struggles to track whether the software licenses that are purchased are actually being used.  VA still does not know exactly how much money they're wasting on unused or duplicative software licenses.  This committee has heard examples of software that VA purchased, tested, and then put on a shelf never used after that.   It's taxpayer money that is not being used to fix or modernize VA's IT systems because it was spent on IT that nobody will ever use.  It's also not going to the benefit of a veteran or rapidly responding to an appeal or developing a claim in a more thoughtful or meaningful or efficient process.  Major IT projects that support healthcare systems, education benefits and financial management are ways   are way over budget and have consistently fallen below expectations.  These are just a few examples, and there are many more that we could point to.  The people of Michigan's 7th Congressional District sent me to Congress to make VA smarter and work better for our nation's veterans, and I want to do my part to make sure that we follow on that commitment.  As the chairman of this subcommittee, my job is to make sure that the billions of dollars that VA spends on IT is accounted for and produces real results.   The strategy that OIT is taking seems to focus on being more careful with big projects, making sure they deliver results, and spend money wisely, and are involved in IT decisions from the start.  I look forward to discussing this strategy and more with our witnesses here today.  Lastly, I'm looking forward to working with the President's nominee for VA CIO, Mr. Ryan Cote, after he is confirmed by my Senate colleagues, and we urge them to move quickly and swiftly in that direction.

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