[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY
BUDGET REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY
MODERNIZATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-63
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via http://govinfo.gov
------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-146 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
MIKE BOST, Illinois, Chairman
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, MARK TAKANO, California, Ranking
American Samoa, Vice-Chairwoman Member
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan JULIA BROWNLEY, California
NANCY MACE, South Carolina MIKE LEVIN, California
MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, SR., Montana CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK,
C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida Florida
DERRICK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO,
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas Pennsylvania
JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky
ELIJAH CRANE, Arizona DELIA C. RAMIREZ, Illinois
KEITH SELF, Texas GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio
JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia NIKKI BUDZINSKI, Illinois
Jon Clark, Staff Director
Matt Reel, Democratic Staff Director
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION
MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, SR., Montana, Chairman
NANCY MACE, South Carolina SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK,
KEITH SELF, Texas Florida, Ranking Member
GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
hearing records of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs are also
published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the
official version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare
both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process
of converting between various electronic formats may introduce
unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
current publication process and should diminish as the process is
further refined.
C O N T E N T S
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2024
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., Chairman................ 1
The Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Ranking Member......... 2
WITNESSES
Panel 1
The Honorable Kurt DelBene, Assistant Secretary for Information
and Technology, Office of Information and Technology, U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs................................. 4
Accompanied by:
Mr. Dewaine Beard, Principal Deputy Under Secretary, Office
of Information and Technology, U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs
Mr. Nathan Tierney, Deputy Chief Information Officer and
Chief People Officer, Office of Information and
Technology, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Mr. Timothy Puetz, Deputy Chief Information Officer and Chief
Financial Officer, Office of Information and Technology,
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
APPENDIX
Prepared Statement Of Witness
The Honorable Kurt DelBene Prepared Statement.................... 31
Statement For The Record
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Response to Questions for the
Record......................................................... 33
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY
BUDGET REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2024
Subcommittee on Technology Modernization,
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:03 a.m., in
room 360, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Matt Rosendale
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Rosendale, Mace, Self, Cherfilus-
McCormick, and Landsman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, CHAIRMAN
Mr. Rosendale. I would like to call this meeting to order,
the subcommittee. Going to get started with a statement. Once
again, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) delivered
its testimony to the subcommittee late, only 3 hours before
this hearing. I have mentioned this in hearings before, and I
am starting to feel like I am talking to a brick wall or a
broken record.
The Congress always solicits testimony from the executive
branch agencies and gives it great respect, even when we
fiercely disagree. This exchange of views between the
legislative branch and the executive branch is fundamental
under the Constitution. When the VA's testimony is so late that
we may not be able to read it in advance, that is disrespectful
and it undermines this process. I urge witnesses and all the
people in all the layers of the VA and the White House
bureaucracy who wrote the testimony to do better, not just for
this committee's sake, but for the benefit of all the veterans
who ultimately will be impacted by this.
Good afternoon. Today we will examine the Biden
administration's budget request for the VA Office of
Information and Technology. I want to thank our witnesses from
Office of Information Technology (OIT) for joining us to help
understand this request. It is by far the most unusual VA
information technology budget that we have seen since this
subcommittee was created.
Factoring in all the funding sources, including the Toxic
Exposure Fund (TEF), one-time dollars, transfers,
reimbursements, and carryover, it constitutes a 3.3 percent cut
to $7.9 billion. I have no doubt there is waste in the VA
budget, and there is at least 3 percent of unproductive
bureaucracy and padded contracts that should be cut. However,
the administration seems to be proposing the cuts in an
incredibly lopsided, damaging way.
Development would take a 99 percent cut. I am all for
reducing spending, but even I do not make recommendations about
a 99 percent cut, especially in development. Information
Technology (IT) modernization, which is one of the top
priorities of President Biden's Federal chief information
officer (CIO), would take an 81 percent cut. VA's
infrastructure readiness program, which we have heard is vital
on many occasions, is being proposed a 66 percent cut.
Technology for the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA),
which has had serious problems over the last year, would get a
41 percent cut.
Meanwhile, staffing and administrative expenses would
increase by 5 percent, and operations and maintenance takes
about a 100 million, or a 2 percent, cut in the base budget
request, but then gets boosted by more than $1.3 billion from
the Toxic Exposure Fund. It is hard to make sense of what would
increase and what would actually be cut.
We may hear that the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was a
top line budget agreement between the President and the former
Speaker, forced these cuts, but that explanation does not stand
scrutiny. That budget agreement and the current budget
agreement specifically exempted veterans' healthcare, which is
about 80 percent of the VA discretionary spending. It is true
that if the administration decided to spend above the
negotiated levels, they would need to make cuts in other areas
of the VA. That may be what we are seeing happen right now.
Congress has always met VA's budget requests, but I do not
think any Congress should ever appropriate more money than an
agency asked for. Therefore, even though I do not have much
confidence in this OIT budget, I need to understand in detail
how it would be implemented. We need to know whether the
special salary rate is accomplishing its objective to recruit
superior talent, and we need to understand what kind of
pressure it is putting on the payroll at OIT's overall budget.
As we recently saw, with the critical skills incentive
payments to the VBA and Veterans Health Administration (VHA)
executives, this sort of pay increase can get out of control.
The original purpose can quickly be forgotten, and it can be
easy to hand out raises with other people's money. I am very
concerned that an unsustainable payroll can actually undermine
recruitment and retention and drive away top talent.
Strong management will be very important to navigate OIT
through the next few years. Once again, I want to welcome our
witnesses to discuss these important issues.
With that, I yield to Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick
for opening statements.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, RANKING MEMBER
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
for holding this hearing to discuss VA's IT budget request for
Fiscal Year 2025.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is tasked with providing
world-class healthcare and benefits to our Nation's veterans.
It is part of the pact that we make with young people when they
sign up to serve and defend our Nation. However, given the
rapidly increasing cost of community care, I am concerned that
we are creating a situation where VA will have to cannibalize
other service lines and programs to pay the bills.
Unfortunately, in this situation and throughout healthcare, IT
is one of the most frequent victims.
IT is the backbone of VA. Pretty much everything VA does
happens on computers. It is critical that we ensure that this
budget properly reflects our commitment to our veterans. During
last month's hearing on VA's overall budget, we heard about the
growth in other parts of VA, but it appears that the IT budget
is not keeping pace. If we are not ensuring that frontline VA
staff have the appropriate tools to do their job, we are not
doing right by our veterans.
We have heard horror stories of it taking upwards of 10
minutes for an employee to log into their computers. Ten
minutes in this digital era in 2024. Ten minutes. That is
totally ridiculous. It is a clear symptom of the long-term
neglect of VA's IT infrastructure.
Despite these issues, it appears VA is cutting the budget
for its infrastructure readiness program (IRP) by 65 percent.
Crucially, the IRP was intended to address VA's technical debt
caused by chronic neglect of its IT infrastructure. I am afraid
this budget request will only handicap the IRPs efforts. If we
are not prioritizing VA's IT infrastructure, none of its other
modernization efforts are likely to make any meaningful
difference. It is like buying a new sports car and driving it
on a dirt road. Eventually it is going to fall apart.
While we are on the topic of modernization, I have noticed
that there are near 50 percent cuts to VA IT modernization
budget. At a time when there are several major IT modernization
efforts underway, this budget cut seems likely to cause major
issues. I do not see how the VA can keep projects like
modernization of the Veterans Benefit Management System, FMBT,
and digital GI Bill moving with this budget cut. I hope to hear
from CIO how this is going to work.
Perhaps most importantly, I am concerned about the IT
workforce budget. While there was a modest 5 percent increase,
I am concerned that it does not keep pace with the OIT's
expanded authorities to provide special salary rates (SSR) for
its people. I fear supporting those SSRs will force OIT to
decrease the number of its people it has. Expecting VA's IT
folks to do more work with less people is going to have a
lasting impact on retention. The pay raises will not be enough
to prevent people from resigning.
On an opposite note, I will say that I am happy to see that
the VA is increasing its investment in cybersecurity.
Healthcare organizations are a prime target for hackers and
other bad actors. It is critical that VA defend the massive
trove of veterans' data that it has been entrusted with, but it
is also critical that VA protect its ability to provide care
and benefits to veterans. This became incredibly apparent in
the aftermath of the Change Healthcare cyber attack. VA is
still dealing with the fallout of that incident as it and
Change Healthcare attempt to identify which Change products are
in use by VA. It has now been more than 2 months since the
breach and we still do not know what, if any, veterans data was
exposed. I understand that Change wants to be certain, but I am
concerned that the risk to veterans and their families grows
every day that they fail to disclose the impact. We cannot
allow our veterans' financial lives to be decimated by the
attack on a VA partner. I expect better from the VA contractors
and hope that this gets rectified soon.
With that said, I would like to thank the witnesses for
being here today and look forward to hearing your testimony.
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Ranking Member Cherfilus-
McCormick. I will now introduce the witnesses on our first and
only panel.
First, from the Department of Veterans Affairs, we have
assistant secretary for information and technology, Mr. Kurt
DelBene. We also have the principal deputy chief information
officer, Mr. Dewaine Beard. Finally, we have the OIT chief
financial officer, Mr. Tim Puetz, and the chief people officer,
Mr. Nathan Tierney. I ask the witnesses to please stand and
raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, and let the record reflect that
each of the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
Mr. DelBene, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to
deliver your opening statement on behalf of VA.
STATEMENT OF KURT DELBENE
Mr. DelBene. Thank you, Chairman Rosendale. The first thing
I would like to say is we apologize for the lateness of the
testimony. I will assure you it is not through a lack of
respect for the committee and that a great deal of work went on
to create it, so. You have my apologies for the time--the lack
of timeliness of the testimony. I just wanted to say that up
front.
Chairman Rosendale, Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify in support of the President's Fiscal
Year 2025 budget of information technology requests from the
Department of Veterans affairs and for your longstanding
support of veterans and their families. I am accompanied by Mr.
Dewaine Beard, principal deputy secretary of Information
technology; Deputy CIO Dr. Timothy Puetz; OIT's chief financial
officer and deputy CIO for IT budget and finance; and Mr.
Nathan Tierney, OIT's chief people officer and deputy CIO of
the Office of People Science.
VA is committed to providing veterans a seamless, secure,
and unified digital experience through state-of-the-art
technology. Technology has become the very foundation of the
VA's ability to deliver on its mission and to continue to
provide world-class care and benefits to more veterans than
ever before. The President's Fiscal Year 2025 budget provides
$7.6 billion for VA IT systems and telecommunications support,
including $6.2 billion in base discretionary funding. In
addition, there is $1.4 billion in mandatory Toxic Exposure
Fund, or TEF funding, to continue the modernization of
systems--as authorized under the Sergeant First Class Heath
Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics
(PACT) Act of 2022.
OIT will make focused IT investments in cybersecurity, the
IT workforce, and modernization. The total Fiscal Year 2025
budget for IT is $49 million--, or 0.6 percent below the Fiscal
Year 2024 enacted level. Base discretionary funding for IT is
$169 million, or 2.6 percent, below the Fiscal Year 2024
enacted level, while TEF funding is $121 million, or 9.7
percent, above the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level.
The Fiscal Year 2025 staffing and administration support
services request of $1.686 billion funds 8,310 full-time
employees, or FTE. That is 160, or 2 percent, above the Fiscal
Year 2024 enacted level. The Fiscal Year 2025 budget provides
$670 million for cybersecurity, and VA's Zero Trust
acceleration efforts, a $118 million, or 21 percent, increase
in the base funding relative to the Fiscal Year 2024 level. OIT
will bridge the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level and the Fiscal
Year 2025 budget request to ensure consistent support of key
initiatives. Where practical, OIT will accelerate certain
investments in Fiscal Year 2024 based on the operating plan and
scale back other investments and technology roadmaps. This
ensures we have an investment plan that balances resources with
key initiatives to support continuity of veteran healthcare and
benefits and represents a consistent strategy across the two
fiscal years.
To successfully execute on the Fiscal Year 2025 budget, VA
will continue to manage its IT budget with transparency. OIT is
taking a critical look at all legacy projects, established
projects, and newly proposed programs as well. We are
evaluating the value that those projects bring to mission
delivery and determining if those funds can better be used
elsewhere, especially in areas of IT modernization,
cybersecurity, and IT workforce, which are vital in maintaining
VA's digital transformation efforts in pursuit of more
efficient and impactful service delivery to our veterans.
The TEF funding from Congress is instrumental in furthering
VA's IT modernization efforts. OIT is exercising extreme
discipline in allocating TEF investments, ensuring a strong
relationship between IT and the delivery of healthcare and
benefits relative to toxic exposure when modernizing related IT
systems. We recognize the necessity of tradeoffs and remain
committed to the strategic to strategically scrutinizing where
we deploy those investments.
When veterans leverage technology access to VA services,
they trust that the underlying digital ecosystem is safe,
reliable, and secure. For this reason, OIT has maintained
cybersecurity as a priority in Fiscal Year 2025. This will help
us to deliver a robust and resilient security posture for the 9
million veterans using VA care and benefits, and hundreds of
thousands of VA employees and contractors who access their
network every day.
As VA prioritizes key investments, we must also recruit and
retain an upskilled current IT workforce of over 8,000
individuals. VA is working hard to modernize its workforce with
targeted strategies. These include hiring, cybersecurity,
artificial intelligence, continuously talent development
incentives, and focused field staff expansion to support
veteran health and benefits mission growth. IT modernization is
essential for achieving our goals of creating a 21st Century
VA, where VA stands at the forefront of delivering veterans
seamless digital experience. VA will prioritize these funds in
the most essential modernization initiatives that bolster the
Department's ability to serve veterans. VA's model of
addressing IT improvements incrementally rather than via large
system replacement projects will help us manage IT spend,
reduce vulnerability to cyber threats, and strategically scale
IT modernization.
Chairman Rosendale, Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, and
members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you for allowing
us to appear today. We remain responsible stewards of our
funding and committed to maximizing the effectiveness of our
investments through the VA enterprise. I look forward to our
continued work with this subcommittee to address the greatest
priorities of the digital transformation in Fiscal Year 2025.
That concludes my testimony and I look forward to answering
your questions.
[The Prepared Statement Of Kurt DelBene Appears In The
Appendix]
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Mr. DelBene. The written
statement of Mr. DelBene will be entered into the record. We
are now going to proceed to questioning and I will recognize
myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. DelBene when everything is factored in, the White
House's budget for OIT amounts to a 3.3 percent cut, which I
mentioned in my opening statement. Within that development is
being cut by 99 percent, operation and maintenance is cut and
then plussed up by the Toxic Exposure Fund, and staffing and
admin is increasing by about 5 percent. Do you stand by this
budget request and what are the consequences of that going to
be as far as the, as you said, the integration of the delivery
of healthcare and its reliance on OIT?
Mr. DelBene. Thank you for the question. As you know, and
everybody knows from their own family experiences, budgets are
challenging things that imagine--that involve tradeoffs,
investments here, and modulation there. The Fiscal Financial
Responsibility Act certainly creates an overall top level
budget cap that we need to respect. We figured there are
difficult choices that have to be made across the entire
administration. I respect the challenges of making those cuts.
Mr. Rosendale. How is that, Mr. DelBene, how is that going
to impact the delivery of healthcare and this integration of
the information and the benefits that the veterans have earned?
Mr. DelBene. It will require us--it is a challenging budget
for us. I will say that up front. It will require us to be very
focused in where we invest. We have taken the initiatives that
the administration overall wants to focus on, and we agree with
those initiatives. The areas like cybersecurity we are
bolstering because that is where--absolutely critical in the
complexity of our organization in particular and the growing
threat actors' sophistication. At the same time, what we are
going to have to do is take the development of modernization
funds and judiciously allocate those against the highest
priority projects that we have.
My goal, and I think this is accomplishable, is we will not
hamper veteran care as a result of this. I will tell you, we
are going to have to be very targeted in our investment.
Mr. Rosendale. Forty, 60, and 99 percent cuts in the areas
of IT that are going to be instrumental in making sure that we
have smooth delivery of those services, I think you have more
than a challenge. Again, it seems that we are shifting it over
to payroll.
Mr. DelBene, the cuts fall heavily on the development
subaccount. How was that decision made? Is that something that
you make? Is that you make these recommendations? How was that
decision made?
Mr. DelBene. Thanks for the question. The first thing I
would like to address, the question of it moving over to Human
Resources (HR). It actually is not a significant move over to
the HR.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Well, we are going to go into that
later on.
Mr. DelBene. I just wanted to be very clear here.
Mr. Rosendale. How was the decision made on this funding
being stripped away from the development subaccount?
Mr. DelBene. Well, as you know, we submit a budget to the
administration and there is a back-and-forth process that goes
on.
Mr. Rosendale. The initial submittal that you made to the
administration, did it reflect that reduction?
Mr. DelBene. It did not.
Mr. Rosendale. By 99 percent.
Mr. DelBene. It did not.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. What was the initial reduction that
you recommended?
Mr. DelBene. I would have to take that for the record to
make sure I answer that----
Mr. Rosendale. Please do. I would like to know what that
original reduction was.
Mr. DelBene. If I may, may I address one point?
Mr. Rosendale. Let me move on. I have got a minute and 39.
Who decided to spend nearly all the Toxic Exposure Fund dollars
on operation and maintenance, but zero on development. Was this
another one of your decisions?
Mr. DelBene. No. I am glad you asked that question because
what I wanted to clarify is this distinction between what is
development and what is maintenance is actually a little bit
more sophisticated than thinking--than the terms apply. We can
do a lot of development under what we would--what would be
called a maintenance budget because those are programs that are
still----
Mr. Rosendale. Mr. DelBene, that is great, but I have
sheets here, okay, that show where--and I have to go by those
spreadsheets. Okay? Again, who decided to spend nearly all the
Toxic Exposure Fund dollars on operation and maintenance, but
zero on development?
Mr. DelBene. Well, that is what I was trying to explain
because systems like Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS)
are actually established programs, we are actually enabled to
do--what you might see as development----
Mr. Rosendale. Are you telling me that you are actually
using funds for development that most people are thinking are
going to be used for operation and maintenance?
Mr. DelBene. Not exactly. I am saying that what is defined
as maintenance, others might think of as development, because
it is an established program.
Mr. Rosendale. I am going by the spreadsheet. Does the
spreadsheet reflect information that is not accurate and that
you are actually moving funds into development that are
supposed to go to operation and maintenance?
Mr. DelBene. It absolutely does not.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Then we are talking about the same
thing. Who made that decision about operations and maintenance
and then zero going to development?
Mr. DelBene. Well, thank you for the question. I actually
believe that the investments we are doing on the benefit side,
thanks to the TEF funds, are actually very robust and strong,
and I feel very good about that. Through the use of the funds
in the appropriate way and, as I said in my testimony, we are
being very----
Mr. Rosendale. Well, Mr. DelBene, your testimony, you are
telling me that we do not understand how the funds are being
spent. I have got a spreadsheet that says Operation and
Maintenance, and I have got a spreadsheet that says
Development. You are either spending it on development or you
are not. If you are telling me that you are moving some of
these funds around, then clearly you are not.
With that----
Mr. DelBene. I am not.
Mr. Rosendale [continuing]. we are going to yield to
Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first
question is for Mr. DelBene. With almost 10 percent increase in
overall funding at VA, how do you explain the decrease in
funding for information technology?
Mr. DelBene. I think that there are requirements across the
VA and where money has to be spent. There is an increase in
demand in terms of healthcare. There is an increase in demand
in terms of benefits. It is a balancing act where we have to
figure out where we are going to spend the money and not. We
will figure out how to--and we already have planning in place
to figure out how to live within the budget that we have. As I
said, we are going to have to make some very strict tradeoffs.
I will also say I am very proud of how the team has come
together to have a very clear prioritization scheme that they
use. Whereas before we may have been allocating to a project
that may not have been as high a priority, I feel very good
that going into the 1925 budget, we will be able to assiduously
assign the dollars to those most pressing needs.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Do you think that the budget
request is sufficient to support VA's IT requirements for today
and into the future?
Mr. DelBene. I do think that we will be able to address the
critical projects that we need to address in Fiscal Year 2025
with this budget. I--having said that, I think we are making
some tradeoffs which will not work well if we sustain those
over multiple years. One of them, if I may, one of them in
particular is the modernization fund which you mentioned in
your opening statements. That is--we are at a reduced level in
this year, but that is going to have to be plussed up in future
years because you cannot just continue to be at a lower level
in terms of your modernization.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. That is my next question I was
going to.
Mr. DelBene. Okay.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. There are several major IT
modernization efforts currently underway at VA. I was quite
surprised to see the drastic cuts to the IT modernization
budget, especially since we have had a hearing last month
discussing yet another major modernization effort in the works.
Is this budget request sufficient to keep all of these
modernization efforts moving forward at their expected pace?
Mr. DelBene. I think we are going to have to make some
tradeoffs and we are going to have to figure out what we are
going to reduce the funding in. I think we get a lot of--there
is a lot of projects in place, as you say. They also come up
every day when you all want the systems to do new things. We
have to figure out development plans. I think the only way we
are going to get through and the way we will get through is
through very strict prioritization of the work that we do.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Do you know of any projects
offhand that you think would be traded off or deemphasized?
Mr. DelBene. Well, the one in particular is we--if you take
the 4-year typical lifecycle of a computer, that is about $150
million that it would take the annual spend at our current rate
of Personal Computers (PCs). That will be reduced fairly
significantly, I think, to the sort of the 15-to $20 million
level. We will replace PCs less frequently as a result. That is
where my point is that we cannot continue to do that every
year. I feel like with--especially with some of the funding we
have got recently and the fact we have--the fleet has been
updated, we can do that for 1 year and make that through, but
we are going to have to be diligent about it in future years
then to make sense,
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. What would be the impact on
programs such as FMBT? Will this budget cause delays in that
project?
Mr. DelBene. We are looking at that right now. We are--FMBT
remains a priority for us and we are going to have to figure
out the right funding to get there.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. How will these cuts impact the
broader OIT mission?
Mr. DelBene. I think we intend for it not to impact the
broad mission. We intend to be very strict in our allocation of
resources so that it does not impact our--the delivery of
critical services to any of the agencies underneath the VA.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. My next question is going to be
for Mr. Puetz. While I was grateful to see that 20 percent
increase in the cybersecurity funding, VA remains among the
lowest in cybersecurity funding in the Federal Government. VA
also holds a large amount of person health information and
personal identifiable information. How can you explain this
disparity?
Mr. Puetz. The investment in cybersecurity from Fiscal Year
2024 to Fiscal Year 2025 resulted, give me one moment, please,
resulted in a 28 percent increase, $169 million. Now, that is a
small drop in the bucket of where we need to go with our
cybersecurity. As more requirements are coming in from the
National Cybersecurity Strategy from the White House, and as we
begin to identify how cybersecurity is also part of the way we
need to modernize, so they go hand in hand, the intent is to
continue to move cybersecurity to the direction it needs to go
at the VA.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. I will yield back just because my
time has run out, and I will come back in my next questioning.
Thank you.
Mr. Rosendale. I would now yield 5 minutes to
Representative Self.
Mr. Self. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to delve
into some of the IT issues beyond the budget. Mr. DelBene, we
have had the Change Healthcare hack and the Microsoft Exchange
hack in the last few years. How familiar are you with the
Executive Order 14028, which is basically improving the
Nation's cybersecurity?
Mr. DelBene. I am fairly familiar with that, so.
Mr. Self. Describe how your office followed that playbook,
which is--that is exactly what it is, it is a playbook,
following these cyberattacks quickly.
Mr. DelBene. Sure, let me do it--I will do it quickly.
Basically, 14028 prescribes that we should follow a zero trust
model. What that says is that you cannot trust your perimeter
to be hardened defense against attackers. It has to be a
multipronged strategy.
I fervently believe in the zero trust model. We implemented
it at Microsoft as well. We have been working on that model for
the past 2 years that I have been here and so I would--and not
just with Change Healthcare. We have actually been working on
that well before. I think Change Healthcare and the Microsoft
hacks both do show the vulnerability that the entire industry
has, though, and they do draw concern to me.
Mr. Self. When did both Change Healthcare and Microsoft
start reporting and did they report everything required from
these two hacks?
Mr. DelBene. I cannot speak to whether they reported
everything required. I will say that in both cases we expressed
to leadership of those companies that we are disappointed at
the transparency and the speed with which they have delivered
information to us.
Mr. Self. Well, you may remember that Change Healthcare
(CHC) said there was a substantial portion of the people in
America that may have been impacted. In fact, you notified 15
million veterans that they could have been impacted. I think we
have, and you just alluded to it, I think we have the same
problem that they had with Watergate some 50 years ago. What
did they know and when did they know it? I think today we still
do not know what we do not know. Is that a correct statement?
Mr. DelBene. It is different between CHC and Microsoft, and
I say this not having spent a good portion of my career there.
Microsoft has actually scanned through all the data, at least
in our portion of transactions and emails, and told us what
they have found in its entirety. CHC has not done that yet and
we have been pushing them very hard. They basically said, as
you say, a large portion of Americans, we believe they should
be able to tell us what portion of those folks are and who they
are that are veterans, if there are any. We suspect there are.
Mr. Self. Yes, you mentioned Microsoft. The U.S. Cyber
Safety Review Board, which was established in the executive
order that we were just discussing, concluded that Microsoft
committed a cascade of security failures and the company's
security culture needs an overhaul. Did you communicate with
anyone at Microsoft about the exchange hack and, if so, what
did you discuss?
Mr. DelBene. We did, and I was in that meeting as well and
we spoke with our executive representative. Paul Lorimer is who
I know from my Microsoft days. I will say that we were very
blunt and direct with them about needing information from them
on exactly what the exposure was. I am not here to defend
Microsoft. I mean, I think for them to get hacked in this way
is a very concerning thing.
Mr. Self. Did you report to--well, we will get into that. I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Representative Self. I
now yield 5 minutes to Representative Landsman for his
questions.
Mr. Landsman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all. I will
be brief and sort of hand this over to you all as we sort of
transition to the next round here.
I just want to give you the opportunity to talk through
anything that you felt like was not covered, that you want to
make sure was clear. We did not hear from everyone, so please
use this time just to clarify and, you know, express, I think,
the intent here, which is to make the argument for these
investments, understanding, to the chair's point, the real
tradeoff and appreciating the tradeoff, which I suspect you all
do.
Mr. DelBene. Well, thank you for the question. I might--
well, one, I would say the major theme here is, as I said,
folks need to work within budgets. We have a budget. There are
things we can do with more funds, but we will work within the
budget. I am proud of the fact that we have got a team now that
actually can do that kind of math and that kind of
prioritization, and actually that is the way we work every day.
We always have a one to end list. We publish that one to end
list with you all, which says rack and stack. The first highest
priority, followed by the 150th, looks exactly like this. That
is the capability that allows us to be able to work within an
environment that is more fiscally austere. I think there is
more we could do. There is more I would like to do, but I
respect and understand how--where we are at, and I support it.
I would like to spend some time maybe talking about, and I
appreciate the flexibility you have given us, talk about what
we have done in the HR space in particular, specifically
special salary rate, which has had a significant impact. It is
something I am actually proud of, the work we have done there.
Maybe I will pass it over to Nate Tierney, our chief people
officer, and have him speak a little bit about that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, sir. Just to take a step back,
whether you are in industry or in government, we went and
looked at what does it take to get somebody to join the team?
What are the attraction and attrition drivers in industry? What
we found is government is no different than the private sector
and that compensation was the top attraction and attrition
driver. The second one followed by that is work-life balance,
and the third is actually career tracks and development growth.
Armed with that information, right when I became the
executive, we partnered with four other Federal agencies to
examine is there, in fact, a pay gap between industry and
government? What we resulted in was that there was a pay gap of
about 66 percent. What this means for all you is if I want to
hire a software developer in the Federal Government, I cannot
pay them enough to join, to get somebody to come out of your
Amazon, your Meta, or whatever other tech organization. We had
to do something.
We prepared the analysis, we submitted it to U.S. Office of
Personnel Management (OPM) in June 2023. Then on January 11th,
the OPM approved our special salary rate with all the data and
the tables that they--that we submitted. From that, as Mr.
DelBene has said, we implemented, using the PACT Act
authorities, the special salary rate. Now, here is why this is
important. As mentioned earlier, it is the top attraction
attrition driver. As a result of this, in the past 9 months, we
have had an 80 percent increase in highly technical applicants
for job announcements. We have had 48 percent fewer
reannouncements, which means I do not have to pay the cost on
that. We have had 64 percent less separations and 46 percent
less retirements. This is critically important to us because
almost 30 percent of our workforce is retirement eligible
today.
When we talk about some of these systems, like Veterans
Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) and
whatnot, we have to keep those people. Not only has it helped
us on the retention front, it is also helped us in the
attraction front and recruiting that top tier talent to allow
us to be competitive.
Those are just some of the benefits of the special salary
rate. We are continuing to monitor and keep that finger on the
pulse and see if something else needs to be adjusted. I just
want to say thank you for the PACT Act authorities and your
support of being the best in government for IT.
Mr. Landsman. Thank you. I appreciate it. I yield back.
Mr. Rosendale. Mr. DelBene, you were talking about
priorities. I was really glad to hear that, because we all have
to prioritize the work that we do and the resources that we
dedicate toward that, whether it is time and/or money. You are
well aware of the troubles the VA.gov had and related systems
over the past year. We have held two hearings about it. This
budget request cuts VA.gov funding by $22 million, or 21
percent. Please explain to me the logic about that and how then
do you intend to provide the fixes or the improvements that
need to be made?
Mr. DelBene. Thanks for the question. You know, there is
prioritization of the budget overall, but then there is within
each project what you choose to focus on. We have talked to you
about the challenges we have had in VA.gov, and those become
the first and most critical things we do. I think I have been
super consistent with the team that anything you have around
quality, anything you have in terms of things like tracking
applicants through the system, cybersecurity, you do those as a
baseline before you think about adding new features. As we----
Mr. Rosendale. The problem that we have had was not in
cybersecurity. I truly do appreciate----
Mr. DelBene. But----
Mr. Rosendale. I truly do appreciate the investments that
are being made in cybersecurity to make sure that we protect
our veterans privacy and all of their data and information.
What I am saying is we have been hearing massive problems about
VA.gov.
Mr. DelBene. Right.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. It has very, very necessary needs for
fixes and improvements.
Mr. DelBene. Sure.
Mr. Rosendale. Explain to me how we are going to do that
with a 21 percent cut.
Mr. DelBene. Yes, that is--I was trying to explain is that
we think of certain things as must haves. Cybersecurity is just
an example of another must have. In the case of VA.gov, the
remediations around tracking, around making sure we do not have
those problems again, those are must haves. What it will impact
is the speed with which we deliver new features and new
capabilities into that project. We will have to reduce by the
budget that amount.
Mr. Rosendale. Basically, you are going to take the
remaining part of that budget and focus that on actually
repairing the system, make sure it functions properly.
Mr. DelBene. We will make sure, first and foremost, that it
functions properly and it is secure. Our rate of delivery of
new features we will have to reduce----
Mr. Rosendale. The budget request seems to prioritize
employee salaries over everything else. In black and white that
is what it looks like to us. That is our perception. I want to
get into that. First, are the contracts or contractors taking
any cuts under this budget request and, if so, who and how
much?
Mr. DelBene. When we do a contract, there are established
hourly rates based on the function of those contractors. Those
are already in place and they are based on what the market will
bear. I do not think we would be effective in getting strong
contractors if those rates were not successful, were not at the
right place. You would have to----
Mr. Rosendale. Are you telling me that you are not
proposing any reductions in the contracts or contractors?
Mr. DelBene. I did not say that. What I am saying is the--
--
Mr. Rosendale. Well, that is what I am trying to get at,
because we need to have plain language here. Are you proposing
any reductions in the contracts or contractors and, if so, who
and how much?
Mr. DelBene. As you know, we use contractors quite a bit.
It will be a necessity that the amount that we get--the work
that we get from those contractors will have to reduce in order
for us to meet the level of the budget in each of those
projects.
Mr. Rosendale. Will you be able to provide to this
committee the contractors that you propose reductions to and
who and how much you propose those reductions on?
Mr. DelBene. We need to be engaged in, which we are with
your staff, in a back-and-forth of exactly where our dollars
are going from--or going to across the year. We are happy to
provide that on an ongoing basis. It is going to be decisions
that are made day to day, week to week, month to month, where
we say this particular project, it is--we cannot do all this,
we are going to have to do this much We--but we are happy to
share all that with you. I believe in radical transparency.
Mr. Rosendale. I really do not have a yes or no out of
that, if we are going to have reductions in spending for
contracts and contractors.
Mr. DelBene. I am confident there will be reductions in
spending.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. I would look forward to seeing those
reductions and who they are actually being proposed to.
Mr. Tierney, you got approval for a special salary rate for
OIT employees in late 2022. Please explain what that entails.
How many people were covered, how were they chosen, how large
is it, the amount that was awarded out, and how much does it
cost, and what is the purpose for it?
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much for the question. First,
the purpose behind the special salary rate was, as I mentioned,
was to close that pay gap between industry and Federal
Government in order to be able to attract and retain top tier
talent. That would be able to recruit, like, your Artificial
Information (AI) specialist, cybersecurity, software
developers, et cetera. That is what the purpose of it was.
On average, it closed that pay gap, that 66 pay gap, by
half, so it closed by about 30 percent. Each employee of our
2210 IT specialist series received a special salary. That is
how it was designed to do. On average, that was, I believe, a
17 percent pay increase for those IT specialists that we had on
board.
Mr. Rosendale. This is the existing staff?
Mr. Tierney. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay.
Mr. Tierney. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rosendale. Just clarifying.
Mr. Tierney. Yep. I do want to mention, though, that there
is a cap. The Federal compression of pay still limits them. If
you are bringing in like a GS-15, step 10, they are still
capped at the max.
Mr. Rosendale. How many of the staff received that pay
increase?
Mr. Tierney. I can take that number for the record, sir,
and get it for you, but not--if I can give you an estimate, it
is about 7,000 employees.
Mr. Rosendale. Clearly that was not used for recruitment.
That was the folks that were already there. These are existing
employees?
Mr. Tierney. Yes, sir. Now, right now, we have about just
over 8,000 on board. The thousand that we have been able to----
Mr. Rosendale. My time has expired. I will now yield to
Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you. I would like to
redirect my question, my previous question to Mr. DelBene.
Mr. DelBene, pretty much what I am asking is that the 20
percent increase for cybersecurity is, you know, impressive and
we are happy about that. That is still the lowest funding
throughout the whole Federal Government for cybersecurity. VA
holds large amounts of personal information and personal
identifiable information. What is your explanation for the
disparity between how much we are funding VA, even though it is
holding such information?
Mr. DelBene. Well, thanks for the question. I do not think
I can speak to the path of how we got here. I will say a couple
of things. One, I am happy about the increase, as you
mentioned. The second thing is, since I arrived, we have been
really focused around two aspects of our cybersecurity program,
all of it consistent with zero trust.
The first thing is just to do better in terms of our
certification. When a system comes up for review, for an ATO,
authority to operate, making sure people really do a good
analysis of----
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Well, I think, I am sorry to
interrupt you----
Mr. DelBene. Yes.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick [continuing]. but my question
really is, if we are looking at other government agencies, this
is still the lowest amount of funding for cybersecurity. With
the nature of VA holding all this personal information----
Mr. DelBene. Right.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick [continuing]. what is the disparity
between other agencies and the VA? That is still a low number.
As you are answering that, I guess I might give you my second
question, also, do you think that it is adequate or do you
think we are moving toward a more adequate number?
Mr. DelBene. I think we are definitely moving toward a more
adequate number. I do not think any person in my position is
going to tell you they think that what they are spending on
cybersecurity is adequate. It is probably the biggest concern I
have in my role as CIO. I have a very healthy concern for
cybersecurity.
I cannot speak to how others are using it. What I was
trying to--using it in other parts of the government. I will
say we are kind of laser-focused on doing a risk-based
analysis. We do exercises to figure out--to do red team and we
figure out how people can actually attack ourselves. We look at
if you look at this risk versus this risk, which is the one you
are really worried about? That is something you have to drive
in every employee, and I, in fact, spent time in the staff
meeting today of saying this is everybody's responsibility to
make sure that the systems that you review and that you manage
are secure, which means you should be paranoid about where are
the points of vulnerability, and you need to raise those to the
team at large so that we can fix them.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Do you feel that the current
funding request for VA, for cybersecurity, is adequate to
address the issues with securing veterans' personal health
information and protecting the critical IT programs?
Mr. DelBene. Well, as I said, I do not think anybody in my
position says in security that they would not want more money,
and I would certainly want more money for cybersecurity as
well. I will also say, we do not put that investment everywhere
in the same way. We look at places where there are things like
veterans' data, and we focus there, as well as one of the high
risk areas, because that is----
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Do you feel it is adequate, is my
question?
Mr. DelBene. Do I believe it is adequate? I believe we will
be able to work within the funding that we have been--that is
in the budget.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. How have the recent impacts on
ransom attacks changed your perception on the need for
increased cybersecurity spending for VA IT systems?
Mr. DelBene. They have reinforced that with me. I am not
new to the industry and I have seen these kinds of attacks
before. I think it just brings home the importance of us having
a very structured and sophisticated cybersecurity program.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. I was glad to see data prioritized
as a key priority of the CIO in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget.
However, I was concerned to see that only dedication of funds
for data efforts would be directed toward standard operations
and maintenance. I worry that this is keeping the lights on
budget will actually be more destructive and delay the
modernization of VA healthcare benefits delivery and IT
infrastructure. With this budget, how is VA working to bring
groundbreaking technology to benefit veterans while also
balancing veterans' privacy?
Mr. DelBene. Well, let me--the one investment I would
highlight, and I will probably pass it over to Mr. Beard
because he is been focusing on our data efforts in particular
with the folks and with our chief data officer as well. I think
we are investing and the budget has money set aside for AI. I
think there are huge opportunities for us to transform the
experience for veterans in the AI space, particularly on the
healthcare space and aiding doctors and being more effective
with their time, for example. Let me pass it over to Mr. Beard
on the data question more broadly.
Mr. Beard. Sure. Thank you for the interest in data,
because it is a passion of mine. What we are focusing on in VA
is really reuse of data, and we have a lot of data assets, but
traditionally they have been stove piped within the Department.
We are really focused on data sharing and making sure our
systems talk to each other.
As part of our ongoing development, modernization, and
sustainment efforts, we are focusing on those key
infrastructure portions that support our data strategy.
Platforms, data lakes, data bricks, these are all investments
that have already been in our budget and we are sustaining
those, so those trajectories continue in our budget. We will
not be able to do amazing modernization efforts in Fiscal Year
2025, but we will be able to sustain the work we are doing on
data interoperability and consistent definition of
authoritative data and reuse within our environment.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you so much. I yield back.
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much. Representative Self, I
recognize you for 5 more minutes.
Mr. Self. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DelBene, because of
your long history with Microsoft you had an ethics waiver to
take your current position. Now that you have served for 2
years, are there any restrictions in your waiver that no longer
apply?
Mr. DelBene. Thank you for the question. I am able to speak
to members of Microsoft in a place that I--while not strictly
part of the ethics restriction, we thought was good practice of
me not reaching out to anybody in Microsoft. We still believe
that I should do that with other folks involved, such as our
strategic sourcing organization. Then I will not be involved in
discussions around business relationships with Microsoft. Mr.
Beard takes over on those mostly or----
Mr. Self. Okay, so----
Mr. DelBene [continuing]. exclusively.
Mr. Self [continuing]. let us dive into the words. The
waiver allows you to participate in particular matters of
general applicability. It does not allow you to participate in
particular matters involving specific parties affecting
Microsoft. That is some pretty dense language.
Mr. DelBene. Yes.
Mr. Self. Can you quickly explain to us what that means?
Mr. DelBene. I can tell you what I believe it means and I
actually think we have over exercised beyond that as well. I
have mostly not spoken to my past colleagues at Microsoft over
the past 2-plus years. We have just said that is the safest
thing for us to do.
What it does say is that in general compute capability--
questions, like how the desktop software, that Windows
functions, that is a general thing. Like we have a fleet of
hundreds of thousands of PCs, I could engage in a discussion
around what--where should that go in terms of a particular
capability. I would never engage in a question like should we
purchase this software from Microsoft or another one? That
would be a specific situation where I would absolutely not be
involved.
Mr. Self. Who decides if it is a particular matter of
general applicability or the other where you need to recuse
yourself? Who makes that determination?
Mr. DelBene. Well, in most cases, as I said, we have
overperformed. I have just not been involved at all and--but
generally speaking, OGC would, Office of General Counsel.
Mr. Self. Okay. So----
Mr. DelBene. We would, if I may, just to finish, we have an
Office of Strategic Sourcing with Ms. Luwanda Jones, who runs
that organization, and she is very diligent about making sure
that I am following the confines with consultation from OGC.
Mr. Self. How many times have you recused yourself?
Mr. DelBene. I have not officially recused myself, but I
have--I have basically said I am staying away from anything
business-related to Microsoft.
Mr. Self. Go ahead.
Mr. Beard. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Self. One more question before you--so you have no
documentation of any recusals?
Mr. DelBene. I have--these business relationships have
never been in my hands. They have always been moved in Mr.
Beard's hands, so I have had no need to actually officially
recuse myself on paper. I have been involved in no business
with Microsoft since I joined this organization.
Mr. Beard. That is correct, sir. I am the agency official
that handles all matters related to Microsoft procurement,
sales, and our relationships with those teams. Only if there is
an operational issue in the morning, something is broken
overnight, Mr. DelBene leads all of those operational calls and
talks about break-fix engineering issues. Anything that veers
anywhere close to sales or the relationships with our contract,
our usage of contract service, or commitment of dollars, those
are exclusively mine. I handle them completely.
Mr. Self. Would you say that you can cause directly or
indirectly, Mr. DelBene, the purchase of any Microsoft product?
Mr. DelBene. I would say I cannot and I have been very
disciplined about it. I will tell you that the main thing I
have done over the past 2-1/2 years has been very hard on
Microsoft whenever they have had an operational issue.
Mr. Self. Meaning what?
Mr. DelBene. Meaning they are in these morning meetings and
I call them to task when they have not performed in the way we
expect them to.
Mr. Self. Ah. A couple of scenarios. We have got--let me
see, where do I want to go here? What is a Microsoft Governance
Council?
Mr. Beard. Mr. DelBene actually has very little knowledge
of that because I run that. Each of the executives that report
to me and our Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Charles
Worthington are part of a board of experts that consider how we
use Microsoft products and other vendor products to deliver
outcomes for VA and for veterans.
Mr. Self. Okay. Mr. DelBene, have you ever participated in
any meetings or conversations referenced the Microsoft
Governance Council?
Mr. DelBene. No.
Mr. Self. Then----
Mr. DelBene. Wait. That have referenced the Microsoft or
have been--not on any business whatsoever. I may have been in a
meeting where somebody said there is a Microsoft Governance
Council, I do not want to be unclear there. I have not been
involved in any of the business relationships with Microsoft at
all.
Mr. Self. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. My time is up.
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Mr. Self. I will now recognize
Representative Landsman.
Mr. Landsman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to go back to
the HR piece. Mr. Tierney, you talked about the pay inequities
and we are seeing this across Federal agencies and government
in general, just having a hard time keeping pace with private
sector wages and, as a result, just not being able to get the
workforce that we need, and you mentioned the work that you all
have done. When you reached out, obviously compensation
matters, work-life balance matters, I think you said growth was
up there.
We have heard that one of the issues has to do with the
time it takes when somebody applies for a job to when you
ultimately make the offer. I do not know if this is true or
not, but in my head I have 6 months. If you could imagine if
you are an engineer or you are somebody who has multiple, you
know, opportunities, that is going to be an issue. Right? Pay
is a piece, but if it takes 6 months to hear back, you may have
lost a lot of talent in that period of time.
I guess two questions. One is, is that an accurate
assessment? If not, please set the record straight. If it is an
issue, whether it is 6 months or shorter or longer, what can we
do to be helpful? What are you all doing that should give us
hope and/or do you need this committee to take some action to
expedite that so that that is not issue if, in fact it is?
Mr. Tierney. That is a great question. I read a Gartner
article about 6 months ago, and it said for a technologist who
is actually looking for a job, within 10 days they have three
job offers. Our average time to hire was 146 days. That means I
cannot be competitive, right?
Recently, OIT did not have their HR authorities and we are
about to get our HR authorities under 40 U.S.C., which is what
the CIO has for IT resource management. That helps us in our
ability to attract and retain talent. Let me be specific. My
other title is as the chief myth-busting officer and here is
why. I go on LinkedIn for some live events, and I say, hey,
here is why you want to come work for us. I leverage our
competitive brand. I mean, I am a retired veteran, and we have
the opportunity to deliver quality IT products and services to
veterans like myself and Tim. That matters. I go on there and I
debunk the myths of salary, of time off, of the products we are
working on, the data, all the healthcare data, et cetera, the
cybersecurity. You build some excitement. Then I field
questions, and I get about 40 to 50 questions in about a 30-
minute block. That is optimizing our offer and capitalizing on
our value prop.
The second thing we've done is we have optimized our search
criteria, to your point. We leverage data now like LinkedIn
talent insights and whatnot to source candidates into either a
virtual or an in-person hiring event. We have led that with OPM
and other Federal agencies with their Tech to Gov events, and
that is yielded how we have grown our staff by about 1,000 as a
result of this.
Mr. Landsman. Those are pretty stark numbers. If--very
helpful. Sorry, I did not mean to over----
Mr. Tierney. No problem, no.
Mr. Landsman. The 10 days for the average engineer versus
140 in the VA, will what you just talked about get that 140
down? If so, to what? Is there a way to get it down to 10? I
mean, I am just, you know, for----
Mr. Tierney. Actually, I think so, sir. With these, you
know, these HR authorities, the deal is I lose credibility. If
I source you to a job event and I cannot give you a job offer
on the spot, that is not cool.
Mr. Landsman. Okay.
Mr. Tierney. Right? I think I can get this reduced down
significantly. Give me an opportunity to try and I will--you
can judge me by my results over this next fiscal year.
Mr. Landsman. I think it would be very helpful for the
committee to track this with you. I mean this, it seems to me,
salary is tough. Obviously we have to be competitive, but there
are budget restrictions and work-life balance. That is
obviously something that you have to be able to sell. Growth is
also, you know, more complicated, but getting that number down
should be doable. I think it would be very helpful for, A, us
to just see where we are every 90 days maybe, whatever you
think is appropriate. If it is 140 now, what will it be in 90
days? Then what we could be doing to help.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Representative
Landsman. Mr. DelBene, you started a campaign in 2022, which we
have been touching on, during the tech slump to hire employees
from Silicon Valley companies. I believe you said in the press
that you hope to hire as many as 1,000 employees. How many of
those people were hired through this campaign?
Mr. DelBene. Go ahead.
Mr. Tierney. Sir, we have about 434 hired. I would like to
caveat that with we did not have our HR authorities and we are
only recently regaining them, so that was substantially tough
on our team. What I mean by not having HR authorities, sir, is,
is that meant I cannot post my own job announcement. I cannot
do my own technical evaluation of the person to determine, yep,
they are qualified.
Mr. Rosendale. That was a process that was in place when
Mr. DelBene made his statement about what his goal was.
Mr. Tierney. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. It was not changed. The process was
not changed as you began this. It was the process was in place.
You set your goal at 1,000. We have got 434. Okay.
Mr. Tierney, what is the current average tenure of your OIT
employees?
Mr. Tierney. Sir, I believe the average tenure is 16 years
right now.
Mr. Rosendale. Sixteen years. Okay. How many employees does
OIT have today?
Mr. Tierney. We have about 8,000 on board. I can provide
you the exact number this evening----
Mr. Rosendale. Appreciate it.
Mr. Tierney [continuing]. or tomorrow, if you do not mind.
Mr. Rosendale. How many of those employees were hired since
2022, when the special salary rate was created?
Mr. Tierney. Total, I believe this Fiscal Year has been 464
in totality. I think we have been at 1,000. I can get that
exact number for what we have hired from July 17 of 2023 to
present.
Mr. Rosendale. Let me make sure I understand this. The
increased compensation was put in place to attract new talent
from Silicon Valley. However, to date, the funds were used to
provide 85 percent of the existing staff with pay raises.
Mr. DelBene. If I may----
Mr. Rosendale. Is that accurate? Before we go off on some
rabbit hole, is that accurate? Eighty-five percent of the
current, roughly, employees received the increases?
Mr. DelBene. I do not want to check the math here, but it
is roughly correct. The point I wanted to make, though, is
there is no way for us to increase the salary of just new
employees within the confines----
Mr. Rosendale. That is fine.
Mr. DelBene. Okay.
Mr. Rosendale. I just want to make sure that we are really
clear that 85 percent of the existing folks who have a tenure
of about 16 years received a 17 percent increase. Mr. DelBene,
I understand your objective to use the special salary rate to
make OIT a more attractive place to work and recruit new
talent. Get it. Does that not seem--it does not seem to be what
happened. We brought in 400 people.
Mr. DelBene. It is a journey.
Mr. Rosendale. The average tenure is still 16 years.
Mr. DelBene. It is a journey. We need to--we have made
progress in 1 year, we will make progress in the next as well.
The point I want to make, also, is----
Mr. Rosendale. Have we also implemented, though, like a
freeze and when people leave, that we are not bringing new
employees in?
Mr. DelBene. What we do is, because of the tightness of
headcount, we evaluate every position as it becomes available.
If I may, I want to make sure it is clear the employees at
the--in OIT deserve that increase as well. These are people
that are committed to serving----
Mr. Rosendale. Mr. DelBene, not arguing that.
Mr. DelBene. Okay.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay? What I am trying to do, though, is
make sure that the general public that is watching this
understands that there are things that are being done to drive
a lot of your budget into the HR department. Mr. DelBene,
please.
Mr. DelBene. It is just not that much of the budget.
Mr. Rosendale. A lot of money is being driven into the HR
department and we are starting to starve the very, very purpose
of your department, which is technology. Okay? I am afraid, as
I am looking forward, because I have seen this scenario play
out, that what you are doing is betting on Congress. You are
betting on your increases coming through. You are going to go
and what we are seeing here in this budget is a starving of the
actual purpose of your department, technology, and we are
plussing up HR, and that is creating a long-term problem.
With that, I am going to yield to----
Mr. DelBene. If I may?
Mr. Rosendale [continuing]. Ranking Member Cherfilus-
McCormick.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Mr. DelBene, you may continue.
Mr. DelBene. Thank you. The SSR is not a significant
portion of our budget in the absolute terms. I would do it
again because we need the best. The most important resource we
have as an organization, bar none, is our people.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. DelBene. My
question goes back to my concerns about this keep the lights on
budget, especially since we are focusing on the standard
operations and maintenance budget. Now, how are you going to--
is there enough money in this budget? Do you believe that it is
adequate for mitigating and preventing against future attacks
for the VA and also its partner systems, like the one we saw
with Change Healthcare in February?
Mr. DelBene. I do not think, and I am not trying to avoid
the question, I do not think there is ever--you cannot take an
amount and say, as a result of that amount, we have barred
every--that we have prevented every potential incursion. Some
of the stuff we do does not actually require incremental
investment. I will say, and I think most CIOs in this position
would say they would like more for cybersecurity, and I would
say that, too. I am very happy that we are making the
incremental investments. I was just telling my team before, as
I mentioned before, the first thing you need to do, and do not
do any new features until you make sure that you are secure as
an organization.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Well, I guess----
Mr. DelBene. Regardless, it is the top priority.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Well, I guess my question really
is, since the budget is really focusing on maintaining and
keeping everything intact, if there is a cyber attack, how
would you--is there any money there to mitigate for not just
the VA, but also----
Mr. DelBene. Oh, to mitigate.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick [continuing]. yes, to mitigate any
cyber attacks?
Mr. DelBene. We would shift people off of what they are
doing to mitigate as the absolute highest priority. There is
nothing higher than if you are in the middle of an incident, it
is all hands on deck. That is all you worry about.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. There is funding that you can
shift for those situations?
Mr. DelBene. We would basically--we would stop a lot of
stuff. We would--in this one to end list, a bunch of stuff
would fall down the list, and the cyber, the mitigation work
would be the number one thing we would do. Absolutely.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. What is preventing the VA from
making improvements in standing on the Federal Information
Security Modernization (FISMA) audits?
Mr. DelBene. Oh, that is a complicated question. I think
FISMA as a process is very broad and more of a compliance
exercise than it is a risk-based analysis of the places where
you have the greatest risk. I have talked to everybody who will
listen about this question. It needs to get more focused on
where the biggest risks are. In that kind of world, where it is
compliance-based, it becomes super easy to find those places of
``weakness'' by the numbers.
What we focus on, and I have a very good relationship with
Office of Inspector General (OIG) in this area, I look through
what they found and say, which are the ones I really care about
that impact our security in particular? Those are the ones that
we focus on for the team. There is a bunch of other stuff that
it is like, yep, strictly speaking, you have got me.
I will also say that, historically, we have been an
organization that has a lot of--that did security by policy,
not by risk analysis. What you get when you have an
organization that does that is you get a lot of policy and not
all that policy actually can be implemented universally and not
all of that policy is necessary in terms of being the highest
risk things. We have shifted toward doing analysis of real risk
that could potentially lead to an attack.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. What resources do you need to gain
ground in this area?
Mr. DelBene. It is a mixture of resources. What is called
the ISSO, the information security officer, is probably the
boots on the ground that need to look at each and every system.
I need to upskill those folks and they are energized to do so.
They need to be the first point of contact that says, I
understand my system, I understand the gaps in my system.
I think the other place that I have really pushed hard on
is having external people try to come into the system. Against
our knowledge, we will be monitoring everything as we do. These
what are called red teams, I believe a lot that red teams are
an important part of your security posture. Those are typically
best done by external folks. They are also very expensive
resources. We just have to make the money and the funds
available in the budget for things like red teams.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. How would you evaluate the risk
right now for a cyber attack to the VA?
Mr. DelBene. It is a hard one to answer. I am never happy
with our cyber posture and any good CIO would tell you the same
thing.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Do you feel that it has increased
or decreased?
Mr. DelBene. Do I feel that is increased or decreased? I
think under--hard to say. It is a subjective measure. I think
we have improved our cyber posture over the past couple years.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Ranking Member. I will
now recognize Representative Self.
Mr. Self. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DelBene, so you have
told us that there are Microsoft executives in morning
meetings. You have told us that you have been tough on
Microsoft on actual contract performance. You have told us that
there has been no official recusal. You have told us that there
is no documentation of any official recusal. I remind you, sir,
that you are under oath. How in heaven's name is not that at
least indirect, if not direct, influence over actual Microsoft
contracts from what you have told us this afternoon?
Mr. DelBene. I am highly confident I have had no influence
on Microsoft's--acquisitions of Microsoft products from the VA.
Highly confident.
Mr. Self. You are narrowly saying acquisition. I am talking
about influence over contracts.
Mr. DelBene. The presumption that I spent my career in
Microsoft and would not be objective, relative to the
commitment I have made to this organization, I just do not
accept. They are my previous employer.
Mr. Self. It is not presumption, Mr. DelBene. You have
testified to this committee to that effect.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Tierney, how much has OIT ceiling for
full-time equivalent employees (FTE) been reduced since the
special salary rate went into effect?
Mr. Tierney. Sir, the number we are using, and, Tim, please
confirm, for this Fiscal Year is 8,150 FTE is what we are
looking for this year. As I mentioned, we have about 8,000 on
board. With the Fiscal Year 2025 budget, we believe that number
goes to 8,310. Tim, do you want to confirm that?
Mr. Puetz. That is correct.
Mr. Rosendale. Walk through that again. You are----
Mr. Tierney. I apologize. Maybe I am not understanding the
question, sir, in terms of whether the headcount reduced.
Mr. Rosendale. I am trying to figure out where the--what
you are doing with your FTEs. Your ceiling for full-time
equivalent employees, your ceiling, has been reduced since the
special salary rate went into effect, has it not?
Mr. Tierney. Yes. Yes, it has. Let me get the numbers.
Mr. Puetz. Let me answer your question, Congressman. We
reduced approximately 800 people based on what the equivalent
cost of the special salary rate would be. It was approximately
$140 to $160 million for the SSR, as we talked about, 7,000
employees to drive that 17 percent increase.
Mr. Rosendale. I am just trying to get the FTEs that you
have reflected in your budget before the awards went into place
and where they are now. Before they went into place, the FTEs,
the ceiling for your FTEs. I understand what is actually there
at any given day fluctuates, but your ceiling, you have asked
for a reduction in the ceiling, correct?
Mr. Beard. Congressman, if I could, please. At the time
that we made the determination to implement the special salary
rate, we did not have the--we had a ceiling number based on
funds' availability. We decided as an executive team at a
strategic offsite, all 40 executives in the Office of
Information and Technology talked through the tradeoffs, and
intentionally we decided as a team that we were going to go for
implementation of the special salary rate and intentionally
reduce our available headcount. We did not have bodies in those
billets, so no one was riffed. We did that strategically as a
leadership team in order to recruit better talent and to reward
the talent we had on board.
As you know, all the money in the world that brings in new
equipment, printers, computers, they do not deploy themselves
at hospitals and clinics around the country. We need talented
staff out in the field in order to do that. Starving salary for
staff in order to do modernization, we have to do a balance
between that, and that is what we do as a leadership team. We
think through these issues and we work very hard to make solid
tradeoffs that support services.
Mr. Rosendale. I understand that. This committee, what our
understanding was is that there was going to be a demand for
additional staff, not higher compensation for the existing
staff, but there was going to be a high demand for additional
staff in order to implement all of this administrative process
that was going to be generated by the PACT Act. That is what we
were told. That is what we were told. Meanwhile, what I see is
that we have got a ceiling FTE cap at 8,150 now. Mr. Tierney,
you issued a memo on November 16, 2023, setting a headcount of
8,270 and instituting several procedures to restrict new
hiring.
What was the authorized headcount when the special salary
rate went into effect? What was the headcount at that point?
Mr. Tierney. For that Fiscal Year in July 2023, and I can
confirm the number, we were shooting for, 8,668, I believe, was
the authorized headcount we were trying for.
Mr. Rosendale. 8,668.
Mr. Tierney. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Again, this is where I am trying to
peel this onion back. We are being told as a committee that we
are going to need these additional sales. I understand
compensating people properly. I understand trying to attract
talent. What we are being told is that we have to have these
additional FTEs to make sure that this process is working. What
is the authorized headcount for OIT employees today? What is
it?
Mr. Tierney. 8,150, sir.
Mr. Rosendale. Okay. The OIT budget request, total full-
time equivalents for 2024 are 8,243 plus 139 from the Toxic
Exposure Fund. That is 8,382. It also says for 2025, there are
8,405 plus 139 from the Toxic Exposure Fund. That is 8,544.
That is what is in the budget request. How do you reconcile
those numbers with the authorized headcount in your memo that
is asking for 8,150?
Mr. DelBene. If I may, I suggest let us go back and work
with your staff to get you the numbers that you are looking
for. I mean----
Mr. Rosendale. I would appreciate that because the budget
request, again, is looking at 8,382 and what you are saying--
and we have a memo that shows that you are trying to hold it at
8,150.
Mr. DelBene. Again, we are probably better off if we get
you the exact numbers that you are looking for. 8,150 is the
current number, 83 whatever that number is, is what is in the
budget per se. We can--let us work with your staff and get you
the numbers that you are looking for.
Mr. Rosendale. Mr. DelBene, it appears that rather than
expanding the workforce, that your office is struggling to
afford the special salary rate and is throttling back hiring
and cutting the workforce. The payroll is continuing to grow as
the workforce itself is shrinking and, again, as we get these
demands saying we have to have the additional staff.
Mr. DelBene. Well, the request for additional staff is
fairly modest in this budget. I will say that the staff has not
shrunk and that is why you mentioned the memo that Nate put out
that basically went through the process of how you get a
position reapproved. That is--the goal there is to shape the
organization and put that headcount where it is most impactful
to the mission. I do think we have an opportunity to take some
particular roles that are less impactful and, as they turn
over, put them on jobs that are more impactful for the
organization.
I will also say I would do the special salary rate again
even if we have to find room for it. As you mentioned and as
others have mentioned, you have to pay people appropriately and
based on at least trying to get things closer to the
marketplace.
Mr. Rosendale. Mr. DelBene, I appreciate that. I am well
over my time and I apologize. The fact of the matter is I am
very concerned that you are directing all these funds into HR.
You are starving these other sections and then you are going to
come back and ask for a supplemental or use some of these
fungible funds that you are describing.
With that, I yield to Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
DelBene, this subcommittee has been paying close attention to
VA's efforts to address this tech debt. I am concerned when I
saw the 65 percent cut to the infrastructure readiness program.
It is hard to see this lack of prioritization return. How is
the aging infrastructure impacting the work of the frontline
staff?
Mr. DelBene. I think--as I said earlier, I do not think the
reduction that we have done to the infrastructure readiness
program can be sustained over multiple years. I actually think
we will be okay to do that for this 1 year of the budget
because we have made investments in the IRP over multiple years
leading up to that.
There was a comment made earlier about 10 minutes for a PC
to boot. We have statistics on the boot time of all PCs every
day in the VA. That, I do not even know that that is--when we
talk about long times for boot, we talk about 5 minutes, which
I am unhappy with, but they are not as significant as what was
implied. We do that because we have invested in technology that
monitors the performance of end users.
Right now, end users are pretty happy with the PCs and the
compute experience. They give us very high marks for that in
terms of their customer satisfaction. I think we will be okay
in this year of execution. I do not think it is sustainable
over multiple years.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. How will this cut impact VA's
effort to address the years of neglect of its IT
infrastructure?
Mr. DelBene. With this, we will have to push out some of
that IT infrastructure modernization. I think that is a
challenge we are going to live with.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. What is your plan to get the IRP
back on track, and how many years will that take?
Mr. DelBene. Well, as I said, I think because we have had
multiple years where it is been in good shape, I think we are
okay. I think I will have to come to you all with the next
budget and say that is a number that we cannot cut again. You
have my commitment that you will--that I will come back to you
with that sort of an ask.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. If we had approximately how many
years do you think, would that be next year's budget? The
following year?
Mr. DelBene. Well, we are talking about the 2025 budget
here. I think we cannot--I do not think I would support a
sustainment of that kind of a cut over multiple years.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Just for this year then?
Mr. DelBene. I think we can--I think we can deal with it
with this year. Yes.
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Rosendale. That brings us to the conclusion of our
hearing. Would you like to, Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick, go into
your closing statements?
Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate the testimony and answers from our witnesses this
afternoon. Our time today has been important to highlight an
expansive, but often under-recognized aspect of providing high-
class healthcare to veterans, VA's IT infrastructure. I have
serious concerns that the budget we have discussed today, when
primarily focused on keeping the lights on, will diminish VA's
ability to be effective in its mission. I worry that by not
prioritizing VA's aging IT infrastructure, we are doing a
disservice to veterans as well as those faithful servants
dedicated to VA's numerous ongoing modernization efforts, like
VBMS, FMBT, and digital GI Bill. I look forward to working with
the chairman and VA to ensure that VA is well prepared for the
future.
Last, I would like to add something to the chairman's
remarks regarding the timeliness of VA's testimony. I do not
want to speak out of turn, but I think one common goal among
all party here is to strive for collaboration and transparency.
Receiving the testimony for this hearing a mere 3 hours before
we begin is not productive to a collaborative or transparent
conversation. I hope we can work forward in improving this
communication moving forward.
Thank you so much, and I yield back.
Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Ranking Member. I want
to thank our witnesses for joining us this afternoon. I do not
think that anyone in this room believes the VA information and
technology budget requests would be helpful or improve service
for our veterans. The administration decided to reallocate a
modest amount of money away from OIT to other parts of the VA.
I can understand that, but it is extremely disappointing that
whoever wrote this budget request designed the cuts in the most
lopsided, damaging way possible. This is not a haircut. This is
a lobotomy to a few of the office's core capabilities. I would
like to see a successful project get rewarded and failing
projects be terminated. Slashing half the funding for some of
the key systems that have been struggling is a recipe for
disaster.
It is also disappointing that the Toxic Exposure Fund is
merely being used to plug budget holes when the bureaucracy
finds it convenient, not to boost the VA's ability to serve
toxic exposed veterans as Congress intended. I have already
been in conversations with my colleagues over in the Senate to
have that conversation.
I am very concerned that the special salary rate, which may
have been well intended, will become completely unaffordable
when combined with this budget and undermine the organization.
This situation risks spinning out of control. I am not going to
tolerate the VA workforce being hollowed out while the
contractors escape untouched, so I will be waiting to hear that
information from you as well, Mr. DelBene.
The subcommittee will keep a close eye on OIT's budget and
management over the course of this year. We expect VA to
deliver the modern, user-friendly tools to help veterans access
the care and benefits that they have earned. We cannot let the
bureaucratic politics in Washington get in the way of that.
I ask unanimous consent that all members have 5 legislative
days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous
material. With no objection, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
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Prepared Statement of Witness
----------
Prepared Statement of Kurt DelBene
Introduction
Chairman Rosendale, Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify in support of the President's Fiscal Year (FY)
2025 Budget Information Technology (IT) request for the Department of
Veterans Affairs, and for your longstanding support of Veterans and
their families. I am accompanied by Mr. Dewaine Beard, Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Deputy CIO, Dr.
Timothy Puetz, OIT's Chief Financial Officer and Deputy CIO for IT
Budget and Finance, and Mr. Nathan Tierney, OIT's Chief People Officer
and Deputy CIO for the Office of People Science.
FY 2025 Budget Request
VA is committed to providing Veterans a seamless, secure, and
unified digital experience through state-of-the-art technology.
Technology has become the very foundation of VA's ability to deliver
its mission and to continue to provide world-class care and benefits to
more Veterans than ever before. The President's Fiscal Year 2025 Budget
provides $7.6 billion for VA IT systems and telecommunications support,
including $6.2 billion in base discretionary funding. In addition,
there is $1.4 billion in mandatory Toxic Exposures Fund (TEF) funding
to continue the modernization of systems as authorized under the PACT
Act of 2022. OIT will make focused IT investments in cybersecurity, the
IT workforce, and modernization,.
The total Fiscal Year 2025 Budget for IT is $49 million (0.6
percent) below the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level. Base discretionary
funding for IT is $169 million (2.6 percent) below the Fiscal Year 2024
enacted level, while TEF funding is $121 million (9.7 percent) above
the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level. The Fiscal Year 2025 staffing and
administrative support services request of $1.686 billion funds 8,310
FTE, which is 160 FTE (2.0 percent) above the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted
level. The Fiscal Year 2025 Budget provides $670 million for
cybersecurity and VA's Zero Trust acceleration efforts, a $118 million
(21 percent) increase in base funding relative to the Fiscal Year 2024
enacted level. OIT will bridge the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level to
the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget request to ensure consistent support of key
initiatives. Where practical, OIT will accelerate certain investments
in Fiscal Year 2024 based on the operating plan and scale back other
investments and technology roadmaps to ensure we have an investment
plan that balances resources with key initiatives to support continuity
in Veteran health care and benefits and represents a consistent
strategy across the two fiscal years.
To successfully execute the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget, VA will
continue to manage its IT budget with transparency. OIT is taking a
critical look at legacy projects, established programs, and newly
proposed programs. We are evaluating the value that those projects
bring to mission delivery and determining if those funds can be better
used elsewhere - especially in the areas of IT modernization, cyber
security, and IT workforce which are vital in maintaining VA's digital
transformation efforts in pursuit of more efficient and impactful
service delivery to our Veterans.
The TEF funding from Congress is instrumental in furthering VA's IT
modernization efforts. OIT has exercised extreme discipline in
allocating TEF investments, ensuring a strong relationship between IT
and the delivery of health care and benefits related to toxic exposures
when modernizing related IT systems. We recognize the necessity of
tradeoffs and remain committed to strategic scrutiny of where we deploy
investments.
Cybersecurity
When Veterans leverage technology to access VA services, they trust
that the underlying digital ecosystem is safe, reliable, and secure.
For this reason, OIT has maintained cybersecurity as a priority for
Fiscal Year 2025.
The Fiscal Year 2025 Budget provides $670 million for cybersecurity
and VA's Zero Trust acceleration efforts, a $118 million (21 percent)
increase in base funding relative to the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted
level. This will help us to deliver a robust and resilient security
posture for the nine million Veterans using VA for care and benefits
and the hundreds of thousands of VA employees and contractors who
access our network every day.
IT Workforce
The Fiscal Year 2025 staffing and administrative support services
request of $1.686 billion funds 8,310 FTE, which is 160 full-time
equivalent employees (FTE) (2.0 percent) above the Fiscal Year 2024
enacted level. As VA prioritizes key IT investments, we must also
recruit, retain, and upskill our current IT workforce of over 8,000
FTEs. VA is working hard to modernize its workforce with targeted
talent strategies, such as hiring for cybersecurity and artificial
intelligence skills, continuous talent development, incentives, and
focused field staff expansion to support Veteran health and benefits
mission growth.
IT Modernization
IT modernization is essential for achieving our goal of creating a
21st Century VA, where VA stands at the forefront of delivering
Veterans a seamless digital experience. VA will prioritize these funds
on the most essential modernization initiatives that bolster the
Department's ability to serve Veterans. VA's model of addressing IT
improvements incrementally rather than via large system replacement
projects will help us manage IT spend, reduce vulnerability to cyber
security threats, and strategically scale IT modernization.
Conclusion
Chairman Rosendale, Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, and Members
of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today.
This subcommittee understands the value and importance Information
Technology brings to the Veteran through health care and benefits. We
remain responsible stewards of our funding and committed to maximizing
the effectiveness of our investments throughout VA's enterprise. I look
forward to our continued work with this Subcommittee to address our
greatest priorities in our digital transformation in Fiscal Year 2025.
This concludes my testimony, and I look forward to answering your
questions.
Statement for the Record
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U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Response to Questions for the
Record
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