'This Is Going To Set Up The VA For Failure': Nikki Budzinski Presses VA Sec. Collins On Workforce Cuts

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing last week, Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-IL) spoke about cuts to the department's staffing.

Transcript

00:00Thank you Chairman Bost and thank you Ranking Member Takano and thank you Mr.

00:07Secretary for being here today. I appreciate your time. I do want to take a

00:11minute to just address the claims that you've made about the VA's performance

00:16has gotten worse from the previous administration. By many measures and I

00:21want to highlight the great work of the VEO, the Veterans Experience Office

00:24within the VA, that has been measuring specifically veteran trust scores. They've

00:30come up with a veteran trust score which is at an all-time high at 80.4% in 2024

00:36which was an increase of 25% since 2016 when we first started recording this

00:42metric. VA employees, many of them veterans as you know, have been stepping up to meet

00:48the demands you referenced, the PACT Act, which was a historic expansion of care.

00:53But now with more staffing cuts on the horizon, these public servants are being

00:58asked to do more with less is my concern. Almost four in five VA employees are

01:04members of unions and collective bargaining rights give them a process to

01:09address their concerns in the workplace and ensure sound working conditions. I

01:13believe this helps both the employee and the veteran being served. Mr. Secretary, when

01:19you endorse President Trump's executive order stripping VA employees of their

01:23labor rights, I believe you devalue their work. And coupled with a threat of

01:28significant staff downsizing, I hear from constituents working at the VA in my

01:33district that they have increased fear and stress and there are deep morale

01:37issues at the workplace where they deeply believe in the mission of serving our

01:42nation's heroes. Of course we agree that improvements can and should be made at the VA.

01:47And I want to say that despite testimony, none of us on this committee believe that

01:53the VA is perfect. But improvements and changes I really do believe need to be done

01:58in a manner that is thoughtful, legal, and based on the input of stakeholders, which

02:02includes us in Congress. And so I'm going to shift gears and talk about one area that

02:07you have touched on and I'm really honored to be the ranking member on the Tech

02:13Modernization Subcommittee with our Chairman, Mr. Barrett. And so I want to spend a little

02:18time talking about the EHRM as well, which I think is one area that we can all agree is

02:24a place that could use improvement. Your remarks mention an accelerated rollout of this system.

02:31And I too really do want to see EHRM be successful and can acknowledge that there have definitely

02:39been stalls and not a lot of success seen to date. But I think it's worth taking a minute

02:46to say, you know, talk about the program and where it started and then where it is today.

02:52So this program actually was started during the first Trump administration in 2017, the VA signed

02:58a $10 billion sole source, no bid contract with Cerner, which some have said the GAO has

03:06mentioned that, you know, influenced by so called Mar-a-Lago crowd. As Cerner struggled

03:12with the implementation, then Oracle acquired them in 2022. So as you know, there's a total

03:19of 170 VA sites that need to implement the new EHR system. Since 2020, VA has rolled out

03:27and I think we can acknowledge only six sites, which is not, that's not great. Now VA has

03:32announced plans to roll out EHRM at 13 sites by 2026, which is progress. But my concern is

03:40that that leaves about 151 sites left. And so if we're accelerating that by 2031, how are

03:48we going to get there? This is going to be a major undertaking. And I'm just very concerned

03:54with the staffing levels in particular, if we're not fully staffed, how we're going to

03:58meet this metric. And so in the midst of what I think is a massive reduction in force, and

04:04then a bare bones IT budget, I'm really worried that this is going to set up the VA for failure.

04:11I completely agree with you. You mentioned standardization. That is something we've talked about on our subcommittee

04:16and something we should be moving to. But some of the unique challenges, as you know,

04:20is that every VA has their own unique system. And trying to get all of them to standardize

04:25is a challenge. But I agree with you that's something we should be committed to looking

04:30to. So one of my first questions for you, Secretary Collins, is to better understand how workforce

04:35cuts will help you achieve that. What is your target reduction for OIT workforce?

04:42At this point in time, it's not been, there's no quota or anything else looking for OIT or any

04:49other workforce. It's looking at total picture of who we have where, and we're going through

04:53that process right now. So have there been cuts to the OIT workforce?

04:58Not at this time, no. No, there's been no. We've had less than one half of 1% of employees

05:02that were here in January that have let go of the VA. Okay, so there's no plan in the future

05:07to reduce the OIT workforce. I think when you overlook it, you know, are there areas

05:13of the OIT workforce that may or may not be essential to what is happening? That's, I'm

05:17not going to say there's not, but I'm also going to say that it's essential to us going

05:20forward as we look forward in this. Okay. Because I just think it's critical.

05:24I mean, I'm going to start, I can't, I understand what you're trying to say. Yeah.

05:26I don't mean to be evasive in this, but I just, you know, I'm not going to go that granular.

05:31Yeah, I understand. And I think some, you know, I completely, I hear what you're saying

05:35about the medical staff of the VA, but I think the OIT is a great example of those aren't

05:40medical staff, but they're really critical to being mission driven and to getting a program

05:44like the EHRM system really successfully off the ground. These aren't doctors or nurses.

05:49These are technicians. These are tech folks. And I just, that's why I'm asking.

05:53No, no. And it's a great question because I, and I, you've actually opened it up a little bit

05:57because also neither are people who clean our rooms and neither are the plumbers and

06:01neither are our electricians, which we've all, we've all, we've protected, we've protected

06:05them as well. So they're part of that 300,000.

06:07Okay. So I guess one of the, so during your testimony last week before the Senate, before

06:13my Senate colleagues, you indicated that technologies would help VA to improve efficiencies in the face

06:19of workforce cuts. But it sounds like in one of my concerns is that we might be using technology

06:25to replace people, which is a concern of mine. Um, because I think quite frankly, the VA is

06:30not, you know, we don't want to be installing McDonald's kiosks here. These are actual people

06:35we want serving our veterans person to person. And so, um, I just want to make sure, can you

06:41respond to that and how technology is potentially going to be used?

06:45Well, I think technology is, is working the, how we're taking first time claims into the,

06:49and a lot of this is in our VA, our benefit side, that we can actually take things that we've

06:52seen over and over and over again, that we can get a benefit that could take several

06:57months under a system. We're actually getting new claim benefits done within literally days,

07:01so that they're not, uh, waiting for these things. So I think you use them in ways that

07:05it helps. You don't use it, you know, technology is not going to solve every issue that you ever

07:09have, but it can get us more efficiently, especially in ways that are more, uh, not hands off, but

07:15they're, they're more, uh, a transactional with our, like mortgage benefits, you know, the education

07:21benefits, things like that that could, could work in that way.

07:23Okay. We'd love to keep talking. I have time for maybe one more quick question. I did

07:27want to ask the VA chief information officer, the OIT, if you, that position I don't think

07:32has been filled, if you could respond to when you think that position will be filled?

07:36Uh, we're working on that, uh, as we speak. I mean, we're still interviewing some folks.

07:41It's hard to fill some positions and we're still working to get that filled.

07:44Okay. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

07:46Okay.

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