U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, wants heads to roll after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs revealed this week that a VA hospital in Colorado would cost more than five times its initial budget.
The Denver Post reported this week that VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson told Colorado lawmakers a VA hospital in Aurora, near Denver, would cost $1.73 billion, far beyond its initial cost of $328 million. The hospital project has languished for a decade and has encountered numerous problems, including the contractor leaving in December after a federal appeals board ruled the VAs plans for the hospital could not be built for less than $600 million.
Miller, who has called for more accountability at the VA during his tenure in charge of the committee, came out swinging Wednesday, calling the project the biggest construction failure in VA history and vowing to hold the departments feet to the fire.
Since the projects inception, the cost of the hospital has ballooned from $328 million to $1.73 billion, Miller said. Yet, as the project spiraled out of control, VA ignored congressional pleas to get things back on track at almost every turn. Because of a near complete and total lack of focus on the project at the highest levels of VA and the departments disregard for congressional oversight, the future of the Denver replacement hospital is unclear. One thing is certain: Congress will not authorize another dime until VA gets its construction affairs in order.
First, the department must come to Congress with a list of options for finishing the project in a way that doesnt interrupt current services to local veterans, Miller added. These could include fully completing construction or decreasing the scope of the project or selling it, while utilizing existing VA facilities, community services or other options to deliver veterans medical care. Next, VA must generate a deficit-neutral plan to pay for these options. The department owns this mess, and its not fair to force taxpayers to bail out the bungling bureaucrats who created it. Finally, VA must put forth a plan to solve its construction challenges once and for all and hold those responsible for the failures in Denver accountable.
The only acceptable form of accountability is purging those responsible for the problems in Denver from the VA payroll, Miller said. Moving them to other positions within VA, as the department often tries to do, will only create more headaches for taxpayers. If VA fails to meet these requirements, authorizing any more money for the project could only be described as blatant waste. Right now its incumbent upon Congress, taxpayers and Colorado veterans to keep the pressure on VA to take this project seriously something the department has failed to do from the beginning.
Later on Wednesday, Miller called on VA Sec. Robert McDonald to start firing senior executives who were responsible for the problems in Colorado.
VAs entire construction program is a disaster and has been for years, Miller said. Nearly every major VA hospital construction project is behind schedule and hundreds of millions over budget. In Colorado, a replacement VA hospital is more than $1 billion over budget and isnt even close to completion. VAs construction problems have been documented by the Government Accountability Office and at numerous congressional hearings. Every single member of VAs top leadership is fully aware of these issues, yet the senior executives who presided over the mismanagement that led to them remain firmly entrenched at VA, where they collect generous taxpayer-funded salaries.
No reasonable person could conclude that VA Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction Principal Executive Director Glenn Haggstrom and VA Office of Construction and Facilities Management Executive Director Stella Fiotes are doing a good job, Miller added. Therefore, I am calling upon VAs leadership to fire them immediately. As part of the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, Congress gave VA leaders the authority to immediately fire VA senior executives for poor performance. Its well past time for the department to fire Haggstrom and Fiotes or explain to Americas veterans and American taxpayers why these individuals have earned the right to continued VA employment.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
