DENVER\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New criticism of the Veterans Affairs Department’s\u00a0troubled hospital construction program turned up the pressure in Congress on Friday for the agency to turn over future big projects to the Army Corps of Engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., said a report by the Corps of Engineers confirms that the VA\u00a0\u00a0is incapable of handling big projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s been public knowledge since April 2003 that all of their major construction projects were just out of control,” Coffman said. “The Army Corps of Engineers does this for a living and they ought to be doing this stuff.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GOP Sen. Cory Gardner, also from Colorado, said the reports are more evidence of widespread mismanagement at the VA. “The lack of accountability is unacceptable,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The VA asked the Corps to look at what went wrong with hospitals in Aurora, Colorado; Orlando, Florida; North Las Vegas, Nevada; and New Orleans. All racked up huge cost overruns and long delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Corps largely blamed management problems, including mishandled contracts, poor cost controls and slow approval of required changes once construction began. The reports also cited multiple changes in the designs and square footage during the planning stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reports, released Thursday, warned that without fundamental changes in the VA’s methods, it would likely run into similar problems in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
VA officials say they accept the Corps’ findings and that many of the recommended changes are underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are embracing every single finding,” Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson said Thursday during a visit to the Colorado construction site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coffman wants to strip the VA the authority to manage any construction project worth more than $10 million, but he said the threshold is likely to be $100 million because of opposition from agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., said the cutoff should be between $10 million and $100 million, noting the VA hasn’t had problems completing smaller, less expensive clinics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the Corps reports showed too many decisions were being made by VA executives in Washington instead of those closer to the actual work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It confirmed the fact that there are a lot of layers between the construction project and the people making the decisions,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congress is demanding changes in the VA after the cost of the Colorado hospital, in the Denver suburb of Aurora, ballooned to $1.73 billion, nearly triple the estimate from a year earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The VA says it can complete a pared-down version for about $1.6 billion. It’s asking Congress for $625 million more on top of about $1 billion already authorized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hospital is about half complete. Work has continued under a series of short-term funding deals but the money will run out at the end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gibson said he’s optimistic Congress will approve the VA’s latest proposal, which he said would transfer $625 million from other accounts within the VA without affecting medical care or other construction projects currently underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New criticism of the VA’s troubled hospital construction program has turned up the pressure in Congress for the agency to turn over future big projects to the Army Corps of Engineers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":97172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":62,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,62],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1824],"class_list":["post-60117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"EDFAN74DIZF2JEWBPBQGA3NWUA","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2015\/09\/04\/pressure-increases-on-va-to-let-others-handle-construction\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n