Ranking Member Takano's Opening Remarks at Oversight Hearing on How VA Used COVID Funds

WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Ranking Member Mark Takano (CA-39) delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared, at the beginning of the oversight hearing on how the Department of Veterans Affairs used funding provided by Congress during the COVID public health emergency:

Thank you, Chairman Bost.  

During the Great Influenza epidemic, more than 100 years ago, it is estimated 50 million people died worldwide due to the lack of pharmaceutical interventions. A century later, the world was in the grip of another global pandemic that caused significant fear and great uncertainty in the early days.  Thankfully, in that time, science and medicine advanced considerably. In fact, within a year of identifying SARS-CoV-2, scientists had developed several vaccines.  

The supplemental funds provided to VA during the COVID-19 pandemic supported the Department’s ability to respond heroically to a global public health disaster. VA not only sustained its own capacity to provide care to veterans and prevent the spread of the virus among its workforce, but it also provided critical care to civilians as it served as the backstop to the American healthcare system in more than one part of the country. More than 6,000 VHA employees volunteered to deploy to assist civilian or tribal health systems.  

During the course of the pandemic, these funds allowed VA to care for more than 750,000 veterans, vaccinate more than 4.5 million veterans and another 130,000 veteran caregivers, family members and dependents, provide well over 1 million pieces of personal protective equipment, and conduct over 900 research projects.  

While these actions were in response to the very real emergency this country faced, the silver lining is that this work can also help us better prepare for the next global pandemic.  

Last December, I convened a full committee hearing on VA’s pandemic response. We received testimony from Dr. Richard Stone, who was chiefly responsible for implementing the supplemental funds Congress provided to the Veterans Health Administration. In his book, Save Every Life You Can, he spoke at length about the importance of working relationships and how critical they were in VA receiving the resources and authorities it needed during the pandemic. I ask unanimous consent to add an excerpt from his book highlighting the importance of the emergency supplemental funding Congress provided. 

With the funding and flexibilities Congress authorized during the pandemic, VA reduced veteran homelessness by 11 percent – the largest drop in the Point in Time Count we have seen in years. VA used these supplemental funds to bring veterans indoors and provide them with basic needs like clothing and food. Funding was used to place veterans in hotels and motels to lessen the risk of COVID-19 transmission that vulnerable veterans would otherwise face in congregate shelters, the streets, or homeless encampments. VA was also able to innovate and implement new programs that have proven successful in preventing housing insecurity, like shallow subsidies.  

The pandemic served as a test case for what VA can do with more funding and more flexibility to address the homelessness crisis. VA showed us that they can use that funding to get veterans the care and housing they need. VA showed us how to end veteran homelessness. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues to ensure VA maintains this funding and these tools in pursuit of our shared goal of a place to call home for every person who has served our country.  

On the VBA front, VA also seamlessly pivoted using the authorities granted by Congress to allow hundreds of thousands of student veterans to continue their educational pursuits in the face of an unprecedented health crisis.  VBA also administered the Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program – using $386 million appropriated by Congress in a truly bipartisan effort - to train over 13,000 veterans who lost their job due to COVID-19 for new employment.  While the program had a rocky start, I look forward to hearing more from VA on the results. 

The appropriation of emergency funds to VA saved countless lives and supported care for veterans. At the same time, we must never forget that the COVID-19 pandemic took more than 1.1 million lives in the United States, including 23,507 veterans and 259 VA employees.  

This unprecedented crisis called for a major infusion of funds, and Congress delivered by providing $36.7 billion in emergency funding for VA. However, a recent report from the Inspector General revealed a number of administrative flaws in tracking those funds.   

VA’s Financial Management System is 30 years old and is difficult to maintain and adapt to emerging requirements like those presented during the pandemic.   

The Inspector General found that because of the current system’s inability to directly obligate supplemental funds, manual expenditure transfers were used to move funds across VHA.   

The Inspector General found that the use of manual transfers limited transparency and accountability of employee payroll, other contractual services, and medical supply purchases.   Further, VHA’s Office of Finance did not follow established policy and develop guidance for documentation to create an audit trail. 

I realize that during the pandemic things were stressful for all employees at VA, and that everyone was doing the best they could to procure supplies and contract for support.  This does not, however, absolve VHA management from providing basic guidance to account for those funds.  I’m appalled to see the extent of the issue discovered by the Inspector General.  

The lack of accountability and transparency that can be provided to auditors and to Congress as a result of this failure damages VA’s credibility and invites questions about the extent of potential waste, fraud, and abuse.  I wish we could have used this hearing to focus on the good that VA has done for employees and veterans during the pandemic, but this casts a shadow over those efforts. 

This once again highlights the desperate need for modernization of IT systems at VA. The Financial Management Business Transformation Program is intended to provide that solution, but the pace of the rollout, and issues with integration and adoption within VHA has not given our committee confidence.   

As a result, this Congress I have introduced H.R. 1659, the IT Modernization Improvement Act. My legislation will require Independent Verification and Validation of large IT programs, including the Financial Management and Business Transformation Program, because of how important this program is and the impact that delays are having on the ability to manage and audit finances at VA.  This bill has been included in the recent EHR RESET Act that I’ve co-sponsored with Chairman Bost.  I appreciate that this is something that we can both work on in a bipartisan manner, and help get this and other large IT projects on track. 

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today to talk about both the good and the bad.  We provide necessary funding and entrust VA to serve our veterans and ensure they are provided care and benefits they have earned.  The administrative and financial management of this department must evolve and rise to this challenge.  It’s time for VA to step up, admit mistakes, and make changes. 

With that, thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

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