[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                     VA CONTRACTING: CHALLENGES IN
                 COMPETITION AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

=======================================================================

                             JOINT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

                                AND THE

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                        THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-27

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
       

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                    Available via http://govinfo.gov
                    
                              __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                     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
                                 ------                                

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

               JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia, Chairwoman

AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,       FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana, Ranking 
    American Samoa                       Member
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan               CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire
MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, SR., Montana   SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, 
                                         Florida

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

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                        THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2023

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., Chairman, Subcommittee 
  on Technology Modernization....................................     1
The Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Technology Modernization.......................     2
The Honorable Jennifer A. Kiggans, Chairwoman, Subcommittee On 
  Oversight and Investigations...................................     3
The Honorable Frank J. Mrvan, Ranking Member, Subcommittee On 
  Oversight and Investigations...................................     4

                               WITNESSES

Mr. Michael Parrish, Chief Acquisition Officer and Principle 
  Executive Director, Office of Acquisition, Logistics and 
  Construction, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs..............     5

        Accompanied by:

    Mr. Phillip Christy, Deputy Executive Director, Office of 
        Acquisition, Logistics and Construction, U.S. Department 
        of Veterans Affairs

    Ms. Angela Billups, Ph.D., Senior Procurement Executive and 
        Executive Director, Office of Acquisition and Logistics, 
        U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

    Mr. Joseph Maletta, Executive Director of Acquisition, 
        Procurement & Logistics Office, Veterans Health 
        Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

    Ms. Luwanda Jones, Deputy Chief Information Officer for 
        Strategic Sourcing, Office of Information & Technology, 
        U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

                                APPENDIX
                     Prepared Statement Of Witness

Mr. Michael Parrish Prepared Statement...........................    27

                        Statement For The Record

Ms. Shelby S. Oakley.............................................    31

 
  VA CONTRACTING: CHALLENGES IN COMPETITION AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2023

             U.S. House of Representatives,
          Subcommittee on Technology Modernization,
      Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
                            Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 9:25 a.m., in 
room 360, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Matt Rosendale 
[chairman of the subcommittee on Technology Modernization] 
presiding.
    Present for the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization: 
Representatives Rosendale, Self, Cherfilus-McCormick, and 
Landsman.
    Present for the Subcommittee on Oversight and 
Investigations: Representatives Kiggans, Bergman, Rosendale, 
Radewagen, Mrvan, Cherfilus-McCormick, and Pappas.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, SR., CHAIRMAN, 
            SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

    Mr. Rosendale. The subcommittee will come to order. Good 
morning, everyone, now that the Veterans Administration (VA) 
has opted to provide witnesses, we are here today to resume our 
May 24th conversation about the competition and conflicts of 
interest of the VA contracts. We will be broadening our focus 
from IT contracts to consulting and professional services 
contracts. VA spends over $3 billion a year on management 
consulting contracts with companies ranging from the largest 
multinational consulting firms to boutique shops that rely on 
the VA for most of their business. Similar to the IT sector, 
the top 10 consulting firms receive about 40 percent of the 
VA's consulting dollars. These companies support nearly every 
function of the Department including contracting with other 
companies, and the VA is increasingly relying on them.
    I have no doubt that many of them operate ethically. The 
ranks of government contracting have never been known to be 
filled with saints. Of all areas of contracting, consulting and 
professional services contracts are the most fraught with 
conflicts of interest. That is not my opinion. That is what the 
regulators and regulations say. When contractors are virtually 
indistinguishable from government employees and they are privy 
to the most information that passes through the agency, there 
is a lot of opportunity to exploit access to nonpublic 
information.
    Here are some examples. In March, the Wall Street Journal 
reported that McKinsey consulted for VA on internal management 
while advising its opioid manufacturer clients how to sell more 
pain pills to the Department. That is problematic on so many 
levels. Let us not forget that happened during the height of 
the opioid epidemic that has shaken hundreds of thousands of 
lives and upended countless others. We have been getting 
complaints for years about how the VA's medical distributors 
substitute their own usually more expensive products for those 
of VA's contracted suppliers.
    It also seems to be a standard practice for VA 
organizations to hold their offsite leadership meetings and 
planning retreats in contractors' facilities. Not only are key 
strategic decisions made with contractors present, they are 
made under the contractors' roofs. We have seen time and time 
again how the same companies that staff the offices of VA 
decision makers tend to get contracts to perform projects for 
those other offices, not to mention when former VA executives 
take jobs with companies whose contracts quickly multiply.
    The revolving door on Capitol Hill rightfully gets a great 
deal of scrutiny, but it is swinging out of control in Federal 
agencies such as VA. We are not just talking about the actual 
conflicts of interest, but statute also describes the 
perception of. We have to eliminate both.
    For all these reasons, Chairwoman Kiggans and I found it 
unbelievable when Secretary McDonough stated in a May 31st 
letter that no organizational conflicts of interest exist among 
VA contractors. That is just absurd. I am going to let Ms. 
Kiggans describe her letter but let me emphasize how 
implausible the VA's answer is. VA's position seemed to be that 
in more than $3 billion of consulting contracts annually, there 
is nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here.
    On the contrary, I intend to lay out the situations that 
are happening as we speak in the VA, as reported by concerned 
employees and other companies. I welcome our witnesses' 
explanations. This issue is crucial to the integrity of the VA 
as an organization and its ability to serve our veterans. A 
culture of cutting ethical corners creates a breeding ground 
for fraud. That is not hypothetical.
    Every month, we see indictments and convictions involving 
companies defrauding the VA, often paying kickbacks or bribes. 
These schemes are keeping U.S. attorneys all over America busy. 
I want to encourage every company that plays by the rules to 
keep doing the right thing, and I urge everyone who sees 
conduct that may be criminal to report it to the VA Office of 
Inspector General Hotline. Thank you. With that, I will 
recognize Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick for her opening 
statement.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, RANKING 
        MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank 
you, Technology Modernization Subcommittee. The Technology 
Modernization Subcommittee conducted extensive oversight of VA 
modernization and IT contracting last year. A common thread 
identified was a fundamental lack of planning, budgeting, and 
adherence to contracting best practices by VA in its 
contracting center. VA Acquisition Management has been on the 
Government Accountability Office (GAO) high risk list since 
2019. GAO has also catalogued issues with competition for IT 
contracts. While VA's annual IT obligations have increased from 
42 billion in 2017 to 6.5 billion in 2021, the number of 
companies receiving those awards have decreased.
    A particular concern of mine is the management and 
oversight of the Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology 
Next Generation (T4NG) enterprise Contract run by the 
Technology Acquisition Center. The vehicle, which is currently 
being recompeted, has historically been dominated by a few 
large companies. The vehicle supports a number of IT programs 
across the VA. I do not think I have to mention again the 
record of success that VA has had with IT. It brings it into 
question how well VA is vetting and managing not only who is on 
the vehicle, but as how those companies are evaluated.
    I realize that the VA is at a disadvantage when it comes to 
holding these large companies accountable and attempting to 
mitigate conflicts of interest. Regardless, we need to find 
ways to hold poor performers that continue to win work at the 
VA accountable. It is unacceptable that we continue to award 
companies over and over again that have not led successful 
programs at the VA. Hopefully, our hearing today will provide 
insight into their needs and resources that Congress can 
provide. Thank you again for holding this important hearing, 
and I look forward to our discussion this morning. I yield 
back.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you Ranking Member Cherfilus-
McCormick. I now recognize Chairwoman Kiggans for her opening 
remarks.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, CHAIRWOMAN, 
          SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

    Ms. Kiggans. Thank you, Chairman Rosendale. I am glad you 
and I were able to bring our subcommittees together to 
collaborate on this important issue. Whether it is in corporate 
boardrooms, public agencies, law firms, or institutions 
throughout this country, conflicts of interest are ignored at 
great peril. Conflicts of interest have given rise to countless 
scandals and ended many careers. I know everyone in this room 
takes this issue very seriously. From what I have seen in my 6 
months on this committee, the Department of Veteran Affairs 
seems to have become complacent with its contractors' potential 
conflicts of interest.
    In 2021, the VA doled out over $38 billion to contractors. 
Every day, contractors are advising, analyzing, researching, 
drafting, and contributing to decisions at all levels of the 
Department. Sometimes it appears the contractors are even 
making some of the Department's decisions themselves.
    Today, a litany of consulting firms, healthcare suppliers, 
and other companies have spun the VA into a web of competing 
financial interests. VA's leaders appear surprisingly 
unconcerned about the situation and unmotivated to untangle the 
Department. This has very real consequences. Every dollar that 
is wasted on a contracting boondoggle fails to reach the 
doctors, nurses, and other professionals who directly serve our 
veterans. It is no wonder why, even as the VA's budget 
continues to grow, the quality of services that veterans 
receive barely improves. Veterans and taxpayers deserve to know 
that decisions in the VA are being made in the public interest 
by VA employees, not outsourced to unaccountable contractors 
who may harbor conflicts of interest.
    In March, I sent a letter to Secretary McDonough asking him 
how many times a VA contracting officer identified, mitigated, 
or otherwise resolved a contractor's potential or actual 
conflict of interest in the last two fiscal years. I wanted to 
know what the VA is doing to make sure that companies are 
operating on an even playing field. The Secretary's response on 
May 31 was not believable. It was, as I quote, ``the VA has no 
occasions where a contracting officer identified a potential or 
actual organizational, personal, or other conflict of interest 
in a solicitation or contract award for advisory and assistance 
services.'' Given everything we know about the size of VA 
spending and what functions have been outsourced, this was 
implausible. This would be like a town taking all its police 
off the beat and the citizens believing there is no more crime 
because arrests stopped happening.
    As Chairman Rosendale described, the Wall Street Journal 
highlighted a very serious potential conflict of interest on 
the part of McKinsey. For several years, they were carrying out 
a wide range of consulting projects for the VA while 
simultaneously advising pharmaceutical companies how to target 
the VA to increase their opioid sales. Somehow no one said a 
word about this until it was revealed years later. Secretary 
McDonough's response made it clear that the VA had no concern 
whatsoever about McKinsey's web of clients impacting its work 
for the department. I am eager to hear the witnesses here today 
explain this attitude toward contracting with a company that 
paid a $600 million settlement for their role in the opioid 
epidemic.
    McKinsey is not the only one. I have heard numerous 
complaints from employees and contractors about VA's apparent 
disinterest in managing organizational conflicts of interest. I 
find the magnitude of the spending on consultants questionable. 
Worse than that, when conflicts of interest are allowed to 
fester, that money is lining pockets rather than supporting 
veterans. This is fundamentally unacceptable. I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses today about how we can clean this 
up. Thank you, Chairman Rosendale. I yield back.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Chairwoman Kiggans. I now 
recognize Ranking Member Mrvan for opening statement that he 
may have.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF FRANK J. MRVAN, RANKING MEMBER, 
          SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

    Mr. Mrvan. Thank you, Chairman. As the chairman last 
Congress of Technology Modernization Subcommittee, and as 
ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee 
this Congress, I have seen how large an impact contracting has 
on the VA. My staff has heard of competition and conflict of 
interest issues with acquisitions across the Department. A 
major concern of mine is with the lack of oversight and 
controls of the medical surgical prime vendor contracts. MSPV 
is a collection of contract vehicles that enable VA to 
streamline supply chain management for an array of medical 
supplies. We have heard that large companies awarded contracts 
for distributing these supplies have historically been granted 
conflict of interest waivers. These waivers would allow a 
company to not only distribute supplies, but also sell their 
own supplies at the expense and in place of service-disabled 
Veteran Owned Small Businesses (VOSBs) that have contracts to 
provide supplies for the VA. VA has assured our committee that 
these waivers are no longer a part of the MSPV contracts but 
that has not remedied all the issues that veteran owned small 
businesses are experiencing.
    We all know on this committee that the VA lacks a 
sophisticated and well-equipped acquisition structure and 
workforce. Committee members all know that VA does not have the 
requisite employees to thoroughly oversee these huge vehicles. 
That does not absolve the acquisition leadership from doing 
better. The fox is in the hen house when it comes to providing 
supplies across VA and veteran small businesses are suffering.
    Today is an opportunity to voice to members of this 
committee your needs to ensure that competition is a priority 
of the Department and what exactly is needed to remedy the 
issues of conflicts of interest. I look forward to hearing from 
our witnesses this morning and I yield back.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Ranking Member Mrvan. I will now 
introduce the witnesses on our first and only panel. First, we 
have Mr. Michael Parrish, VA Chief Acquisition Officer. He is 
accompanied by Mr. Philip Christy, the Deputy Executive 
Director of the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and 
Construction, and Dr. Angela Billups, VA Senior Procurement 
Executive. We also have Mr. Joseph Maletta, the Veterans Health 
Administration Executive Director of Acquisitions. Finally, we 
have Ms. Luwanda Jones, Deputy Chief Information Officer for 
Strategic Sourcing. I ask the witnesses to please stand and 
raise your right hands.
    [Witnesses sworn.]
    Thank you. Let the record reflect that all witnesses have 
answered in the affirmative. Mr. Parrish, you are now 
recognized for 5 minutes to deliver your opening statement on 
behalf of the panel.

                  STATEMENT OF MICHAEL PARRISH

    Mr. Parrish. Good morning, Chairman Rosendale, Chairwoman 
Kiggans, Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, Ranking Member 
Mrvan, and members of the subcommittees. I am pleased to appear 
before you today to discuss the competition trends in VA's 
procurement, VA's enforcement of organizational conflict of 
interest regulations, and the Department's use of professional 
and management consulting services contracts. Joining me today, 
as you stated, Mr. Chairman, are my colleagues, Mr. Phil 
Christy, Deputy Executive Director of the Office of 
Acquisition, Logistics and Construction, Dr. Angela Billups, 
our Executive Director of the Office of Acquisition and 
Logistics and also the VA Senior Procurement Executive, Ms. 
Luwanda Jones, our Deputy Chief Information Officer for 
Strategic Sourcing from the Office of Information Technology, 
and Mr. Joseph Maletta, Executive Director for Acquisitions 
from the Veterans Health Administration.
    As the committee is aware, VA's procurements of goods and 
services has grown from 20 billion in Fiscal Year 2012 to over 
56 billion in 2022, which is 177 percent increase over the 10-
year period. This increase represents a significant rise in 
procurement workload and the need to efficiently and smartly 
execute all the contracting requirements that support VA's 
mission needs. Even with this increase, VA has always placed 
great importance on adhering to all laws and regulations and 
maintaining the trust of veterans and taxpayers in the proper 
execution of the procurement of all goods and services that 
support our mission.
    To deal with the major increase in procurement activities 
over the last 10 years, VA has established a formal category 
management program to support the smart and efficient execution 
of how we buy goods and services. This program is consistent 
with the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, Memoranda M-19-
13 Category Management: Making Smarter Use of Common Contract 
Solutions and Practices.
    It is important to note that category management has not 
resulted in the loss of competition nor hindered VA's 
enforcement of organizational conflict of interest regulations. 
In fact, we have demonstrated exceptional results in the last 5 
years, and our competition rates as of July 10 are currently 
achieving a 97 percent competition rate for all procurements to 
date. Also in Fiscal Year 2022, VA achieved a 90 percent spend 
under management, exceeding the OMB goal of 87 percent.
    VA aggressively promotes the use of fair competition and 
opportunities among all prospective vendors for VA awards. We 
use a variety of contracting vehicles to meet the Department's 
needs to ensure competition and deliver results that save 
taxpayer dollars while providing world class healthcare and 
benefits to our veterans. However, the use of these contracts 
are not prioritized at the expense of our agency's Veterans 
First Contracting program, nor our small business goals. VA's 
procurement processes include risk management controls to 
ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and VA 
policy. We are further strengthening our acquisition maturity 
and oversight by rolling out our new acquisition lifecycle 
framework, commonly known as ALF, which complements our 
improved governance structure.
    Because of VA's large annual spend on contracts, it is not 
uncommon for a vendor to be selected for several different 
requirements, but the Department follows Federal Acquisition 
Regulations, or FAR, and the appropriate law. It should be 
noted that contractors are selected based upon their competency 
and ability to successfully respond to the solicitation 
requirements. Many companies have multiple areas of expertise 
and compete on requirements for different services throughout 
the enterprise. VA takes the concern of organizational conflict 
of interest very seriously, as do I personally, and we ensure 
its contract awards comply with the FAR, the VA Acquisition 
Regulation, as well as the VA Acquisition Manual.
    In the last 12 months, VA has received three major Oracle 
Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) complaints by industry, which were 
independently investigated by the Government Accountability 
Office, GAO, who also determined that those OCIs did not exist 
and that VA did indeed follow the proper procedures in the 
determination process. VA does not have--or does have one 
current high visibility OCI allegation which is still under 
investigation and will follow the established procedures to 
make a final determination once that investigation is complete.
    Regarding the use of professional management and consulting 
services, VA is carefully monitoring this category of spend for 
work conducted by contractors while also looking for 
duplication of efforts as part of our category management 
program. VA is committed to addressing organizational conflicts 
of interest and finding ways of limiting the amount of taxpayer 
dollars being spent in government on professional services 
contracting to ensure they are only doing what the Department 
truly needs.
    While we at VA are following the FAR and continue to remain 
in compliance with the law, there is more that we can do and as 
Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), I have placed this among 
one of my top priorities and am adding additional policies and 
reviews where appropriate to ensure we are doing everything we 
can to ensure full and fair competition for all potential 
vendors to have an equal opportunity for government contracts. 
For example, we are incorporating a truly independent 
validation and verification contract to strengthen our 
oversight. We just rolled out a draft RFP, request for 
proposal, on Tuesday to get industry's input to make sure that 
we are planning on initiating the IVV for our major acquisition 
programs by the end of the year, which is in line with the 
draft legislation that you are proposing. This will enable 
true, independent, and agnostic oversight to validate and 
provide confidence that we have asked the contractor to do 
what--asked them to do was properly delivered on time and on 
budget.
    Chairman Rosendale, Chairwoman Kiggans, Ranking Member 
Cherfilus-McCormick, Ranking Member Mrvan, and members of the 
subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to speak here 
today. My colleagues and I are pleased to answer any questions 
you may have.

    [The Prepared Statement Of Michael Parrish Appears In The 
Appendix]

    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Mr. Parrish. We will now proceed 
to questioning, and I would like to recognize Chairwoman 
Kiggans for 5 minutes of questioning.
    Ms. Kiggans. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Parrish, do you 
stand by the Secretary's May 31 response to my letter stating 
that no potential or actual organizational conflicts of 
interest existed in any advisory and assistance contracts in 
2021 or 2022, or would you like to amend that response?
    Mr. Parrish. I stand by that statement to the best of my 
knowledge, ma'am.
    Ms. Kiggans. My understanding is the VA contracting 
officers who ultimately report to you are relying on the 
contractor certifications that they do not have any conflicts 
of interest. Is that correct?
    Mr. Parrish. That is one of the steps in the process of a 
contract solicitation, correct.
    Ms. Kiggans. Mr. Parrish, have you instructed the 
contracting officers to do anything further like identify the 
other work a contractor is performing, or the business 
relationships a company has, or consider whether the 
representation seems to be true?
    Mr. Parrish. Let me pass that off to Dr. Billups, who can 
answer some of the processes that we have inside the VA. Dr. 
Billups.
    Ms. Billups. Thank you and good morning, everyone. What we 
actually do at the VA, we actually follow the requirements in 
the Federal Acquisition Regulation. In the Federal Acquisition 
Regulation, it actually lists a requirement for those 
contractors to certify any potential conflicts of interest. In 
addition to them identifying that, those contracting officers 
take that information that is in the proposal and they look at 
that to determine whether or not the information that was 
provided by that potential offeror, if there is additional 
information that needs to be considered, or if there is 
something there that would trigger them to make a different 
decision, the contracting officer. They follow the procedures 
that are there.
    Last year, well, let me step back, 2021, we actually looked 
at the personal conflicts of interest and we updated that area 
for standardized guidance throughout the VA, working with the 
Office of General Counsel, actually updated some training and 
ethics for the politicals that were coming into VA. One of the 
other things that we did in 2022, is updated the area in the VA 
supplement to the FAR as it relates to OCIs, as well as our 
internal procedures, guidance, and instructions, called the VA 
Acquisition Manual.
    All of these things--excuse me--are what the contracting 
officers and the Heads of Contracting Activities (HCAs) are 
using before they award these contracts. All of these things 
should be at least that first step toward looking at whether or 
not there is an issue that needs to be considered around this 
area of conflicts of interest.
    Ms. Kiggans. As a follow up to that, Dr. Billups, so we are 
pretty much taking the contractors' word for it that they are 
operating above board and under the letter and spirit of the 
conflict-of-interest regulations. You know, is that good 
enough? Do you believe that is adequate?
    Ms. Billups. That is what is required by the regulation 
from the standpoint of the certification and of course in the 
Federal Acquisition Regulation, there are also remedies. If we 
find later on that a contractor has certified that there are no 
organizational conflicts of interest, if we find something out 
later on, we have remedies that are already in the FAR. We can 
use the suspension and debarment, as well as other remedies. In 
addition, to that if it is something that we find out we also 
can create mitigation plans for those OCIs when they do come to 
our attention.
    From the letter that you sent to the Secretary in March, 
working with those heads of those contracting activities who 
all of the contracting officers report to, the information that 
came back was that there were none that aligned with the 
request that you had in your letter.
    Ms. Kiggans. Also as a follow up, how many times do you 
have to do the mitigation response where a conflict is 
identified and you actually have to take some action like 
mitigation response?
    Ms. Billups. I have been at VA now for almost 4 years and 
none of those have come to my attention. I am not sure if there 
has been any for MSPV or other areas if someone else has some 
input to that.
    Mr. Christy. Good morning. I just want to add two things. 
Obviously, everything that Dr. Billups has said is correct. 
With the letter and meeting with your staff, after we met one 
of the things that we went back to is that as part of category 
management we are required to submit formalized plans to OMB. 
Part of that plan is identifying duplication, i.e., contracts 
with the same contractors. We are going to start using that 
information to share with the contracting offices saying, hey, 
this company A has 200 contracts with the VA. We need to look 
at that and see if there is possible overlap.
    Everything that Dr. Billups talked about certification, is 
absolutely true. We are going to start taking more steps and 
then using the information from our category management plans 
to help the contracting field. The contracting officers that 
may not have that total visibility--give them those lists and 
say, hey, these contractors have multiple contracts throughout 
the VA, is there overlap?
    I will share with you a lot of times especially, you know, 
we have about 3,000 contracting officers in the VA. About 
2,300, 2,400 of them are out in the field and they do not 
always see everything what everyone's buying on your left and 
right. We are going to try to strengthen that, to capture that. 
That is why we are not seeing in the system, and by the way the 
system, at the moment, does not have a way for us to say, hey, 
was there an OCI here to kind of trigger through the system. A 
lot of this is through a manual data call that requires us, no 
kidding, to flip through pages to see was there an OCI, is 
there a mitigation there? We are not able to run an electronic 
report or have visibility at that level. These are things, 
obviously, since the letter that we have talked about and are 
going to start looking at that capability to attack this 
problem.
    Ms. Kiggans. Do you know what the timeline will be then for 
when you will start, because you are not currently doing all 
that.
    Mr. Christy. The category management plans, obviously, the 
information from there, those are pretty much wrapped up for 
2024. The information in them will be distributed probably 
within the next week or two to highlight folks like, hey, we 
have these many contracts with company XYZ and make sure that 
we start to get that out there. Part of the category management 
team is also going to be looking at going, hey, these 200, and 
I am just using fictional numbers here, these contracts with 
this particular company, let us see how similar they are and 
are they in similar mission sets? You know, so you could have 
one in Veterans Health Administration (VHA), you could have one 
of Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), but if we have some 
that look like there is overlaps there, we are going to start 
to trigger that and say, okay, hey, let us reach out to the 
contracting officer. Are you aware that we have one here and 
here that look similar? We need to take a peek at it to make 
sure that the contracting officer has that knowledge to make a 
determination about the OCI.
    Ms. Kiggans. I would love to hear a report of what that 
looks like once you implement it and how many conflicts you 
find, and any you are working out, or if you are ending the 
contract, or just kind of what the outcome of that action will 
be. Thank you for taking that outcome or that approach.
    Mr. Parrish, if I could ask one other oh, I am sorry. I am 
very over. Okay. I will save it for later.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Chairwoman Kiggans.
    Ms. Kiggans. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Rosendale. I appreciate that.
    Ms. Kiggans. I yield.
    Mr. Rosendale. I now recognize Ranking Member Cherfilus-
McCormick.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As is 
common now in Federal contracting, smaller companies are 
acquired by larger government contractors, which leads to 
decreased competition and conflict of interest. There has 
certainly been the case from our observation of the T4NG 
contracting vehicle, which is used by the VA and administered 
by the Technology Acquisition Center. GAO's testimony from our 
last hearing in recent reports highlighted that as dollar 
amounts have increased for IT contracting at VA, that the 
number of recipients of the awards have decreased. Ms. Jones, 
from your observation, has the Technology Acquisition Center 
done a sufficient job to manage the number of companies that 
were on the T4NG vehicle?
    Ms. Jones. Thank you for that question, ma'am. We have 
definitely oversight of the T4NG vehicle. I just want to 
highlight from an IT perspective, every acquisition that is 
awarded goes through the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act 
known as FITARA. We are looking at those particular--the Chief 
Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for all acquisition 
strategies and acquisition plans. Additionally, before anything 
is awarded on T4, or a General Services Administration (GSA) 
vehicle, or Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) 
vehicle, we conduct extensive market research. We feel that we 
are managing and are overseeing that contract appropriately.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Realizing that the new version of 
T4NG is currently being protested, we do not know which 
contractors will be eligible. What has VA proactively done to 
ensure that you are not limiting the pool of competition?
    Ms. Jones. First of all, we continue to conduct market 
research. I want to highlight the T4, and especially from a 
service disabled, veteran owned small businesses and VOSBs, 
that T4 contract is, to our knowledge, the only contract in the 
Federal Government that part of the acquisition evaluation is 
veterans' employment. From the time T4 was initiated in 2016, 
those vendors hired 16,000 veterans. Today, there are 58,000 
veterans hired by those vendors on the T4 contract.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. You have not done anything 
proactively, is that what you are saying?
    Ms. Jones. I think we have done a lot proactively to make 
sure that every acquisition that we do is competed 
competitively.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. In these circumstances, could you 
list what you have done? What proactive steps have you done to 
make sure that you are not limiting the pool, just need those 
steps.
    Ms. Jones. I will turn that over to Mr. Christy.
    Mr. Christy. Yes, let me jump in here real quick. Before 
the solicitation went out, there were three industry days where 
we had an opportunity for all of industry, so this went out 
through SAM.gov, a worldwide announcement, hey, this is in our 
requirement that is coming out. We want people to be 
interested. Here is what it means. We had multiple industry 
days, both virtually and in place to talk about what that was 
and to explain what the requirement was and just try to 
generate interest into this.
    If you will, it was not just the same folks from the 
current T4NG but trying to attract new folks to that. The new 
T4NG, obviously, at the moment, we are targeting 15 will be 
veteran-owned companies that will be on that contract that is 
the target for that. The rest will play out depending on who 
has the best there. The key there is to generate the interest 
and the newness of the folks applying for that.
    Also, some different things that we have promoted on there 
is the joint ventures and other teaming arrangements. Not only 
just kind of just a standalone company, but folks might be able 
to come together and propose on this and act as a joint venture 
to have opportunity for this.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. How are you measuring the success 
of what you are imposing now?
    Mr. Christy. At the end of the day, it will be a successful 
award of the contract vehicle, and we are targeting 30 awards 
for the new T4NG.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Will the success of recruitment 
and making sure everybody is aware of the opportunities, the 
proactive steps that you just described, how are you measuring? 
What are the variables to say this is a success, or we should 
amplify it, or move forward?
    Mr. Christy. Yes. This is where we get in a little clarity 
management where we do want new people on the contract. The 
reality is we put out the rules for how you will be decided if 
you win the contract. For whoever wins, wins. It is based on 
meritocracy, right? If you had the best solution, you bring the 
best value, you could win. That could mean a lot of the 
existing contractors. That is why we were trying to, again, 
with those industry days and creating the communications before 
the solicitation went out, is to try to reach folks that maybe 
not be aware of it and/or, hey, there might be other ways that 
you could team together to look at this to get on the contract.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield 
back.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Ranking Member Cherfilus-
McCormick. I now recognize General Bergman for 5 minutes 
questioning.
    Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sometimes we learn 
from historical examples, sometimes we do not. Does the name 
Fat Leonard ring any bells with any of you? Yes, probably the 
biggest bribery scandal in at least modern Navy history. I will 
say that was an example of how not to.
    Mr. Parrish, many of the crimes committed by contractors 
against the VA and other healthcare agencies involve bribery, 
kickbacks. I want to read to you just a couple of examples from 
the Inspector General. A Boston area spinal device company was 
charged for paying surgeons between 32,978 in bribes. A Florida 
lab owner was charged for perpetrating a $53 million fraud and 
kickback scheme related to genetic cancer screening. A doctor 
licensed in Texas and Oklahoma allegedly accepted kickbacks in 
return for writing prescriptions for certain compounded drugs. 
Mr. Parrish, do you have any procedures in place to detect 
suspicious ordering patterns, unusual changes to contracts, or 
other activities that may indicate criminality?
    Mr. Parrish. Let me pass that off to, I think, either Dr. 
Billups or Mr. Christy, or we will take that for action and get 
an answer back.
    Ms. Billups. Thank you, sir, for the question. Some of the 
things that--is there something in place today? The answer is 
no. One of the things that we are planning on doing is 
looking----
    Mr. Bergman. Can I ask you a question?
    Ms. Billups. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Bergman. If this is not new, why? If you are planning 
on doing something, how long do we have to wait before there 
are, if you will, triggers in place that would detect activity? 
What are we waiting for?
    Ms. Billups. We are really not waiting on anything. It is 
something that we have been talking about internally. What----
    Mr. Bergman. Do we have a timeline? Do we have a plan of 
action and milestones where we can say, 6 months from now, a 
year from now? What are we thinking here?
    Mr. Parrish. Congressman Bergman, I think to get to the 
gist of your question is we are implementing independent 
verification validation procedures, which will help and go 
toward assisting checking on contracts and focusing on the 
large contracts initially. We hope to have that in place by the 
end of the fiscal year. We have started that by, as I 
mentioned, having a draft RFP.
    Mr. Bergman. Well, the bottom line, this committee, we 
appreciate all you do, but we are required as Members of 
Congress to hold to timelines. I just I am curious, I mean, if 
I am the Fat Leonard of the guy working inside the VA system to 
do what I am doing nefariously and illegally, then I know that 
I can just keep on doing it because there are not anything in 
place yet. I am a little concerned with that, but I would like 
to go down a different way here.
    Ms. Jones, as VA CIO, Mr. DelBene committed to recuse 
himself from being directly involved in any VA procurement 
decisions of importance to his former employer Microsoft. Yet, 
since his appointment, the VA awarded Microsoft 1.6 billion 
licensing agreement contract on April 1 of 2022. Was Mr. 
DelBene involved in the decision?
    Ms. Jones. Thank you for that question, sir. The answer is 
absolutely, positively no.
    Mr. Bergman. Okay. Do you feel any pressure----
    Ms. Jones. I feel absolutely no pressure.
    Mr. Bergman [continuing]. to give Microsoft extra business?
    Ms. Jones. I would say we are not giving Microsoft extra 
business.
    Mr. Bergman. That is not what I asked you. I said, do you 
feel any pressure?
    Ms. Jones. I feel no pressure.
    Mr. Bergman. Okay. Ms. Jones, what is your policy to ensure 
that a broad range of companies can compete for business in 
their areas of unique expertise, for example, video 
conferencing and cybersecurity, moving forward, given 
Microsoft's ability to bundle, because having been in the 
private sector, working for small companies, working for large 
companies, I know a little bit from personal experience how 
things can work. Should we be concerned as the committee that 
there is a threat to good competition because of the reason for 
making the decision is, well, it is easier to bundle. We can do 
with one vendor as opposed to several.
    Ms. Jones. The government does not determine, sir, when 
industry bundle their products. The Microsoft contract that we 
currently have in place was awarded prior to the CIO's 
appointment. Second, for every acquisition that we have, again, 
we look at the market research to determine----
    Mr. Bergman. Okay.
    Ms. Jones [continuing]. but we also look----
    Mr. Bergman. I appreciate it. My time is up. I yield back.
    Ms. Jones. Thank you.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, General Bergman. We are going to 
recess now for votes. I am sure you all have been tracking, as 
I have, and we expect to resume at approximately 10:50, but it 
will be 15 minutes after the last vote.
    [Recess]
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. We are beginning again. Thank you for 
your patience. The country appreciates it. I would now like to 
recognize Mr. Mrvan for 5 minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Mrvan. Thank you, Chairman. I have introduced 
legislation to create an acquisition review board at the VA 
this Congress and testimony last week. VA was supportive of 
this legislation. I am happy to continue working with the VA on 
providing structure and solutions to ensure that the award and 
the management of large contracts ensures that we are making 
the best use of taxpayer funds and provide better healthcare 
and benefits to veterans. Dr. Billups, I appreciate your 
testimony and participation in our hearing last week and would 
like to give you an opportunity to discuss how this legislation 
will help VA with issues relating to conflicts of interest and 
competition.
    Ms. Billups. Thank you, sir, for the question. This 
particular legislation would really help from the standpoint 
that this gets back to the heart of just starting to look at a 
program from the aspect of that executive that is in charge of 
that particular mission area. As that executive in charge of 
that particular mission area, they have to put together the 
business case to support whether or not VA will actually be 
approving the program to move forward.
    As it relates to competition and OCI, this is also an area 
that they can start looking at also because they are the ones 
who know the different contracts that, across their portfolio, 
may be using similar contracts, or the executives, their peers 
in VBA, VHA, as well as National Cemetery Administration (NCA). 
Some of the things that we can work on is helping them to 
understand how important some of these areas are as it relates 
to competition. What is that current landscape as it relates to 
the contractors that are doing business with VA, how those 
contractors, and there may be that potential of an 
organizational conflict of interest. We are working all of 
these things together from the beginning in the outset with 
that executive that is in charge, and then moving that into the 
acquisition lifecycle where the acquisition workforce can 
provide that support, as well as the CIO, the Chief Human 
Capital Officer (CHCO), the Human Capital Chief, as well as the 
CAO, and Finance and all of that kind of working together. That 
is the way that this acquisition review board can really help 
us to make some improvements in all of these areas.
    Mr. Mrvan. Okay. My follow-up is, Dr. Billups, once we are 
able to move this legislation forward and codify this board, 
what in the future should we be focusing on as it pertains to 
providing you with tools and resources you need to effectively 
manage acquisitions and guard against conflicts of interest?
    Ms. Billups. We already, at the present time, have a plan 
for improving acquisition management from an end-to-end 
perspective at the VA. The GAO came out... and I think you 
mentioned GAO, Acquisition Management was on the GAO high risk 
list as of 2019. We, actually, have done--something that from 
what was shared with us from the Comptroller General, is that 
VA got its acquisition plan, I mean, its action plan to address 
those areas of concern in the GAO high risk list in a matter of 
3 years. It has never been done before, according to the 
Comptroller General.
    What we are doing now, we are moving from a plan to some 
strategies and some action. I can tell you we do have some gaps 
as it relates to resources to really, fully implement all the 
things that we have planned to do. That is one of the reasons 
why we put a ticket in for the Accident Review Board (ARB) for 
$25 million in 2024. We will need additional resources as we 
flush out the activities that are in the plan. In Fiscal Year 
2023, we have started working through all those activities that 
are in that plan, and we have already identified areas where we 
need additional resources.
    Mr. Mrvan. Thank you. Mr. Parrish, I wanted to give you an 
opportunity to be able to talk about acquisition maturity and 
the level that you are taking that to.
    Mr. Parrish. Sure. Thank you for that question, Congressman 
Mrvan. I guess what I want to highlight here is when I first 
took over this role back in March 2021, there was a belief that 
acquisition in VA was, you know, focused on individual 
administrations and kind of a focus on contracts only. As Dr. 
Billups said, we have grown exponentially over the last couple 
of years to focus on lifecycle management. Acquisition, as we 
say, big A acquisition, and it starts from cradle to grave, and 
we have implemented a lot of different policies and processes.
    One of the biggest impacts under the guidance and 
leadership of Secretary McDonough is around the jointness and 
transparency. It is really working collaboratively across the 
enterprise, working with all the entities, VHA, VBA, NCA, and 
focusing on understanding the business need from the very 
beginning, getting the requirements established correctly, and 
understanding what success looks like and have those metrics 
established before we ever start any major program. It really 
gets to the heart of really focusing on a systematic approach 
to be able to do some of these deployments of long term, major 
complex systems and trying to fix some of these efforts.
    More work to do. I am very proud of being part of this 
team. As I say, can I borrow from someone, we say acquisition 
is a team sport in VA now, and I think everybody is moving 
forward in the right direction. We are really working closely 
with the CIO, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and other 
teammates across the enterprise.
    Mr. Mrvan. Thank you, Mr. Parrish. Mr. Chairman, with that, 
and I had a private moment with you where I want to compliment 
him. Besides his tough exterior, I hope you all noticed his Ken 
dress-like for Ken and Barbie today. We should all make sure 
that he made that effort in support of the movie that is coming 
out.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you.
    Mr. Mrvan. Chairman Ken----
    Mr. Rosendale. I understand Ken was getting----
    Mr. Mrvan [continuing]. I mean, Chairman Rosendale----
    Mr. Rosendale [continuing]. I understand Ken was getting a 
bad rap, so I just thought I would I stand up.
    Mr. Mrvan. I noticed it right away, sir.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you.
    Mr. Mrvan. Montanans will love that.
    Mr. Rosendale. Absolutely. Thank you, Representative. I now 
recognize Representative Radewagen for 5 minutes of 
questioning.
    Ms. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is for 
Mr. Parrish. Do you believe it may create an organizational 
conflict of interest when a company staffs a senior executive 
or political appointee's office and at the same time holds 
contracts to perform projects for that office?
    Mr. Parrish. I believe if you can reword the question, 
ma'am?
    Ms. Radewagen. There is no other way to. Do you believe it 
can cause an organizational conflict of interest when a company 
staffs a senior executive or political appointee's office and 
at the same time holds contracts to perform projects for that 
office?
    Mr. Parrish. You are asking, if I understand the question, 
you are asking if a vendor or a contractor has one of their 
executives inside, like a VA organization or a government 
organization is that the question?
    Ms. Radewagen. I think that is what I am asking, yes.
    Mr. Parrish. Yes, ma'am. I think it depends, and it is 
based upon the FAR requirements. We do have a requirement that 
if they are doing program management support, they are not 
allowed to do, or they are not allowed to participate in the 
solicitation for a program in that area. That is part of the 
FAR and part of our VA acquisition regulations as well. It is 
possible would be the right answer? It depends.
    Ms. Radewagen. As a follow up, Ms. Jones, is it accurate 
that some of the companies that support or have supported the 
Office of Information Technology (OIT) front office also 
provide software or develop systems for VA?
    Ms. Jones. Thank you for that question, ma'am. I am not 
aware of that, and I can take that for the record.
    Ms. Radewagen. How do you monitor or restrict the 
information, Ms. Jones, those contractors are privy to in the 
course of facilitating meetings, managing calendars, preparing 
briefing materials, or other support functions?
    Ms. Jones. Can you repeat the question, please?
    Ms. Radewagen. How do you monitor or restrict the 
information those contractors are privy to in the course of 
facilitating meetings, managing calendars, preparing briefing 
materials, or other support functions?
    Ms. Jones. First and foremost, and I want to speak 
particularly about the acquisition meetings, we do not have 
contractors in those meetings. I am personally responsible for 
the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, of which the CIO is 
responsible for reviewing all IT acquisitions and acquisition 
plans. We do not have any contractors in those meetings, so 
they are totally restricted from that.
    Ms. Radewagen. Okay, so back to Mr. Parrish, what functions 
do contractors perform in your organization, either onsite, in 
VA offices, or remotely? As a follow up, how do you monitor and 
restrict those contractors' activities or access to 
information?
    Mr. Parrish. I do know that we have, and I can let my 
teammates here discuss what certain small business vendors do 
for them, we do have some program management support offers 
that work and help with some of the analysis of some of the 
work we do. However, I will reiterate that for those that are 
doing that area, they are not bidding on contracts that they 
otherwise would be helping us to facilitate. I do not know if 
Phil or Angela, you want to add on some of your contractors are 
working on?
    Mr. Christy. Yes, one thing that I think all of us maybe 
did not get to get out is in those types of situations, you 
mentioned access to calendars or maybe shared drives, things of 
that nature, information that the VA uses to operate, those 
type of support contractors do have to support nondisclosure 
agreements.
    Ms. Radewagen. Okay, so, Mr. Parrish, let us take today's 
hearing, what involvement did contractors have in preparing for 
today's hearing?
    Mr. Parrish. With me, none.
    Ms. Radewagen. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much Representative 
Radewagen. As we have discussed, the thing that we are trying 
to address here is conflict, but not only the conflicts, the 
actual conflicts, but the perception of conflicts. Mr. Parrish, 
you laid out very clearly that increased transparency is the 
best way for us to achieve that. Daylight is the best 
disinfectant, as they say.
    Ms. Jones, I understand you are responsible for engaging 
with IT vendors about contracting opportunities and maintaining 
relations with existing contractors. Can you explain exactly 
what that entails?
    Ms. Jones. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for 
that question. My IT Vendor Management Office is responsible 
for contractors who are either doing business with us or want 
to do business. What we do is we bring them in and we talk 
about their capabilities from a market research perspective. 
One of the things that we say upfront and early in any 
discussion is, one, we do not talk about ongoing solicitation. 
Two, I can not and will not, I can not guarantee you any 
contract because it has to go through the procurement process. 
We actually use that information for market research.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Do other OIT employees also engage 
with IT vendors?
    Ms. Jones. The answer is yes. However, we highly recommend 
that they use my IT Vendor Management Office to schedule those 
meetings. Therefore, we keep some consistency going on and we 
make sure that we do not talk about those things that I just 
said.
    Mr. Rosendale. How do you actually outline and enforce what 
they are permitted to do and what they are not to do?
    Ms. Jones. First of all, we give them training. Second, I 
personally attend most of the vendor session meetings. If I do 
not, one of my other executives do, or my vendor management 
director attends those meetings. To the best of our ability, we 
put controls in place.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Ms. Jones, how do the other OIT senior 
leaders engage with IT vendors, either with you or independent 
of you?
    Ms. Jones. They definitely--thank you, sir--they definitely 
engage with me because as vendors are coming in, one of the 
first things that we ask for is what are your capabilities? I 
want to make sure and we want to make sure that if you are 
providing a capability, then we have the right OIT stakeholders 
in the session to hear those capabilities.
    Mr. Rosendale. Are there any times that an OIT employee 
would engage with a vendor by themselves?
    Ms. Jones. Well, first of all, to the best of my knowledge, 
I am not there to police every OIT employee, so I can not 
definitively say yes or no.
    Mr. Rosendale. Let me ask, is all of the scheduling, 100 
percent of that, do you have access to that?
    Ms. Jones. I have access to the scheduling that my office 
schedules because it is from my calendar.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Ms. Jones, how does Assistant 
Secretary DelBene specifically engage with IT vendors?
    Ms. Jones. First of all, I am the one that schedules the 
sessions that he is going to have with any vendor when it comes 
to meetings.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Specifically, are those appointments, 
you are scheduling those, then what other staff participates? 
Do we always have additional staff in there?
    Ms. Jones. Absolutely. It depends upon the capability that 
the vendor is coming in to talk about. Our goal is to make sure 
that we have the right OIT stakeholder there.
    Mr. Rosendale. Microsoft is a very significant VA 
contractor. How many times in the last 2 years have you met 
with Microsoft? Roughly how many times have other OIT officials 
met with Microsoft?
    Ms. Jones. Thank you. That question I would have to take 
for the record because I am not counting or I do not have 
account in my head how many times every OIT vendor has met with 
Microsoft.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay, we would like to have that. I mean, 
could you make an estimate? Five times, 10 times, 25 times?
    Ms. Jones. No, sir, I will not make an estimate.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay.
    Ms. Jones. I will take it back for the record and we will 
look at the calendar. You know, Microsoft is a contractor that 
was there prior to our CIO.
    Mr. Rosendale. We should be able to, if you can just look 
at the calendar, we should be able to get that sometime next 
week then, provide that information?
    Ms. Jones. I will do my best to get it to you, sir, 
absolutely.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you. Ms. Jones, to the best of your 
knowledge, how many times in the last 18 months has Assistant 
Secretary DelBene met with Microsoft?
    Ms. Jones. Absolutely zero, to my knowledge. To my 
knowledge, zero.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. I would appreciate if you would also 
check in with him as you are checking the calendar so we can 
get an accurate description of that as he is not here for me to 
ask.
    Ms. Jones. Yes, sir. If I may, when it comes to the 
Assistant Secretary and Microsoft, it is my responsibility to 
make sure that he does not meet with them and I am pretty 
adamant about that.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Ms. Jones, committee staff met with 
Assistant Secretary DelBene on April the 27th. During that 
meeting, we learned that there is no formal process to document 
when Mr. DelBene recuses himself from Microsoft related 
matters. No official process. The Office of General Counsel 
attorney present agreed that it would be a very good idea to 
start keeping a record of Mr. DelBene and other VA executives' 
recusals when they actually recuse.
    On May 10, Chairman Bost sent a letter asking for a summary 
of VA's plan to document these recusals. VA never answered. The 
Chairman followed up on June the 5th with another letter. There 
still has been no answer. I would love to give you folks the 
benefit of the doubt. Right now, you have no way of proving why 
Mr. DelBene has ever recused himself. The fact that you have 
not responded to the two letters that simply asked for a plan 
to start documenting the recusals does not inspire confidence 
in me or this committee. We need a response to that. When will 
the VA respond?
    Ms. Jones. Thank you, sir. I am a veteran myself and I do--
--
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you for your service.
    Ms. Jones [continuing]. take my job extremely seriously. I 
will personally go back and I will work with our office and 
with the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs (OCLA) 
to see when we can get you that response.
    Mr. Rosendale. As we get the information next week, I am 
assuming, for the calendar, if you could give us a response 
next week on when this other information will be forthcoming, 
it would be greatly appreciated.
    Ms. Jones. Absolutely, sir.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you so much. With that, we are going 
to start the second round of questioning and go to Chairwoman 
Kiggans for 5 minutes questioning. Thank you.
    Ms. Kiggans. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Parrish, 
the Secretary's May 31 letter was not concerned about any 
conflicts of interest at McKinsey and its clients. When did 
anyone at the VA first become aware that McKinsey also had 
opioid manufacturer clients and was advising them on how to 
sell more pain pills to the VA and other healthcare 
organizations?
    Mr. Parrish. Congresswoman Kiggans we will take that for 
the record, and I will have to get you a better answer back. I 
am not aware.
    Ms. Kiggans. Okay. Along those same lines, do you know, did 
McKinsey ever certify in its contract proposals that it had any 
potential organizational conflicts of interest related to the 
opioid manufacturer clients or any other situations?
    Mr. Parrish. I will take that for action also----
    Ms. Kiggans. Okay.
    Mr. Parrish [continuing]. and get an answer back for you, 
ma'am.
    Ms. Kiggans. That was kind of the premise of my letter 
also. Then, Mr. Parrish, when someone did become aware of this, 
what was done to assess the situation, determine whether it 
posed a problem?
    Mr. Parrish. Without getting into details, I do know that 
we are continuing to look at that, and I mentioned that there 
are certain investigations ongoing. Once we have that resolved, 
we will be able to give you a better answer on that.
    Ms. Kiggans. Okay. Yes, please do. I would be curious. Now 
I would like to list some inherently governmental functions 
that contractors can support but are prohibited from 
performing. These come directly from the Federal Acquisition 
Regulations, and I assume the panel is familiar with them. 
There are reorganizations and planning, developing policy, 
developing regulations, developing requirement, and contracting 
documents. The VA has multiple contractors working in each of 
these areas today. How are these contractors monitored and is 
there anything in place to make sure they do not cross the line 
and start making decisions for the VA?
    Mr. Parrish. I will defer that to some of our colleagues 
who actually have those contractors working with them. Joe, if 
you want to give an example. I do know that one of the rules 
that we have, as I mentioned earlier, ma'am, is that if they 
are doing internal work on our support, program management, 
they are not allowed to be able to bid on any kind of efforts 
that they might be helping or assisting with. I will pass it to 
Joe.
    Mr. Maletta. For awareness, my responsibilities for the 
Veteran Health Administration procurement organization alone 
for our administration in support of our acquisition community, 
my office, we do not have any contractor support, with the 
exception of some contracting staff that actually do non-
inherently governmental functions to support and help us 
execute the administrative part of contract administration, 
such as preparing documents for closeouts, et cetera. We do not 
have any other contractor staff that help us with acquisition 
plans, et cetera.
    Ms. Kiggans. Does anyone else?
    Ms. Billups. Also, just like you said, in the Federal 
Acquisition Regulation, as it relates to inherently 
governmental, each one of those contracting officers also has a 
responsibility to work with their program offices to make sure 
that that determination has been made for each of those 
requirements. That is a requirement that is in the FAR. They 
have to list that information. They have to have documentation 
in the file that they have had those conversations and that is 
a requirement, like I said, that is in the Federal Acquisition 
Regulation.
    Mr. Parrish. I will also pass to Ms. Jones.
    Ms. Jones. Yes, ma'am. We do not have any, to the best of 
my knowledge, contractors doing anything that is inherently 
governmental functions. We do have technical management 
services contractors and they are working on, for example, some 
architectural designs of our programs. They are also doing 
configuration management. They may be doing some testing. They 
are working for our government program managers or our 
portfolio managers.
    Mr. Parrish. If I could just finalize that ma'am, is for 
all of contracts, and it is still a work in progress, all of 
our contracts, we expect any support contract services, or 
otherwise, to have clear deliverables and expect them to 
deliver what they promise on time and on budget.
    Ms. Kiggans. Thank you and I look forward to following up 
with you guys, hopefully next year and hearing how some of the 
changes you are putting in place are going to improve the 
system. Thank you very much, I yield back.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Kiggans. I 
will now recognize Ranking Member Mrvan for 5 minutes of 
questioning.
    Mr. Mrvan. Thank you. Ms. Jones, how long have you been the 
CIO?
    Ms. Jones. I am sorry sir, I could not hear you.
    Mr. Mrvan. How long have you been in your position?
    Ms. Jones. I have been in the Department for 12 years. I 
have been in this current position since 2018.
    Mr. Mrvan. Okay. Since 2018, has Microsoft been awarded a 
contract?
    Ms. Jones. We have----
    Mr. Mrvan. Let me rephrase the question. For how long has 
the VA utilized Microsoft?
    Ms. Jones. From a Federal Government perspective, as you 
know, all of us use Teams, all of us use MS Word. Microsoft is, 
that infrastructure has been in our department at least since I 
have been there. I would say if you look from a Federal 
Government perspective, if we are all using Word, we are using 
Microsoft. If we are all using Teams, we are using Microsoft.
    Mr. Mrvan. Okay. Do you have the information with you on 
what the spend was for the VA through your oversight for 2018, 
2019 and 2020?
    Ms. Jones. I do not have it with me, but I can get it, sir. 
I can take that for the record.
    Mr. Mrvan. Okay. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Jones. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Mrvan. Mr. Parrish, we have heard from a large number 
of service-disabled veteran owned small businesses that they 
are concerned that these large companies are putting them out 
of business. There are complaints of high fees being charged by 
distributors and a lack of use of the blanket purchase 
agreements that veterans' small businesses are awarded. What 
are you doing to ensure that the next version of the MSPV 
contracts that these large companies are not able to sell their 
supplies in place of the veterans' small businesses?
    Mr. Parrish. I will defer to Mr. Maletta first, and then I 
will have another additional response on a macro scale. Joe?
    Mr. Maletta. Thank you, sir, for that question. I think it 
is most important to note that the upcoming Med Surg Prime 
Vendor contract will have accountability for the prime vendors 
to utilize the blanket purchasing agreements that have been 
established by the folks in my office, of which greater than 50 
percent of them are small business concerns. That 
accountability will help us to determine whether or not there 
is any gamesmanship or malfeasance going on if a prime vendor 
is not utilizing the vendors we have assigned to them to 
utilize. That has been in response to our similar concerns as 
to what you just expressed.
    Mr. Parrish. If I could just highlight, you know, we 
acknowledge that the amount of small businesses getting 
contracts government wide has been significantly reduced over 
the last 10 years. I think there are some concerns around 
consolidation of industry where small businesses are being 
acquired by the largest, and that is one area. I think the 
other area is we have created an unintentional bias against 
small businesses to be able to bid on some of our contracts, 
especially in the IT space. For example, as the cloud services 
are exponentially growing in technology, the FedRAMP rules, 
which are absolutely required to make sure that we have proper 
cybersecurity oversight, it takes years to get FedRAMP 
certified, and it takes hundreds of thousands, if not millions 
of dollars to get FedRAMP certified. In fact, the FedRAMP, 
Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, has been 
around since 2011, and only 300 cloud offerings have been 
certified. That basically limits who can then bid on our new 
contracts that we are putting out that are cloud-based and 
cloud services. We have to find a way, government wide to 
improve some of these regulatory requirements to help small 
businesses.
    Mr. Mrvan. Okay. With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Ranking Member Mrvan. Mr. 
Parrish, the attitude of the VA toward documenting ethical 
matters seems to be extremely hands off. There seems to be no 
process whatsoever to track organizational conflicts of 
interest or recusals. You and the other panelists have assured 
us that everything is fine, but you have very little to show us 
to demonstrate that is true.
    You can not provide transparency if we do not have any 
documentation or record to look into. I mean, I have got a very 
old saying that has been helpful to me in my business, inspect 
what you expect. If you do not have any documentation or 
record, then you are not going to be able to provide that 
transparency. You have no way to measure. You have no way to 
check. Do you believe that you, personally, and the Department 
of Veterans Affairs as an organization, need to do better? What 
specifically can you do, are you willing to do to provide this 
transparency, this documentation?
    Mr. Parrish. Thank you for that question, Chairman 
Rosendale, and you have my commitment that we will do better 
and make sure that we have proper documentation based upon your 
earlier comments. I will follow back up with you and your 
staff.
    Mr. Rosendale. Again, we need to see some processes, okay, 
that you are going to be following. Mr. Parrish, if a company 
holds contracts in competing areas such as Veterans Health 
Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) and 
Cerner or the VA's internal scheduling project and commercial 
scheduling software, or maintaining the existing human 
resources systems and replacing it, do you believe that may 
give rise to a conflict of interest that requires further 
scrutiny?
    Mr. Parrish. To your earlier comment, Chairman, I believe 
there is potential for perception of conflict. One of the 
things I do want to reinforce of what we have been doing, I 
will use the supply chain modernization effort as an example 
that the panel has talked about, is we are really focused on 
overcommunicating and having large transparency and jointness 
with our vendors and our industry partners. We talk to them 
quite a bit. Industry days, we have had lots of draft RFPs. One 
of the requirements we do with these big programs is once we 
think we are ready, instead of just throwing it over the fence 
to industry, we make sure industry has input. By shining 
sunlight on that, every vendor has the opportunity to see it. 
There is not one vendor that gets an advantage.
    We have communications with companies all the time and we 
offer up, if one company wants to come give us a discussion, we 
offer it up to everyone else to be able to have that same kind 
of discussion. We always post any of the questions and answers 
that are posted out there fully transparent on SAM.gov. You can 
use the supply chain modernization effort that is ongoing right 
now with the RFP on the street that you can see that we have 
leveled the playing field from an e-library that has all of our 
internal workings and all our technology that everybody can 
see.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Mr. Parrish, do you consider it 
permissible for the same company to support a project and 
actually perform that project? For example, the electronic 
health record modernization or the human resources 
modernization?
    Mr. Parrish. If you are mentioning, Chairman, the Program 
Management Office Services----
    Mr. Rosendale. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Parrish [continuing]. that is one of the rules that I 
mentioned earlier, that if someone is providing internal 
support to us, then they are not allowed to bid on that same 
support contract. For supply chain, if they were doing supply 
chain admin work, they were not allowed to bid on the supply 
chain solicitation.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Mr. Parrish, how about if two 
companies merge and the combined entity is supporting and 
performing the project?
    Mr. Parrish. That does trigger a review and that is where 
we have to go back and look at it inside the team with the 
contracting officer.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. The VA is obviously not the Justice 
Department and can not impact a merger. What would you do in 
that situation?
    Mr. Parrish. I am not going to speculate, but I will take 
that for action, Chairman.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. Again, this is something that we need 
to have the process laid out so that we can see so we have some 
kind of consistency of the application.
    Mr. Parrish. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. We have lost our ranking member. 
Representative Radewagen, do you have any additional questions?
    Ms. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no 
additional questions at this time, but I am happy to yield my 
time to you.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. I have got my questions all filled up. 
That was my last one. it looks like we are in good shape. Where 
is my closing? Here we go. Okay.
    Thank you again for all the witnesses this morning. As our 
time has concluded, I will dispense the closing remarks. I want 
to assure everyone the committee will be continuing to monitor 
these issues which are so important to the integrity of the 
Department of Veterans Affairs. With that, I ask unanimous 
consent that all members have 5 legislative days to revise and 
extend their remarks and include extraneous material. Without 
objection, so ordered. This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m., the subcommittees were 
adjourned.]    
      
      
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                         A  P  P  E  N  D  I  X

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                     Prepared Statement of Witness

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                 Prepared Statement of Michael Parrish

    Good morning, Chairman Rosendale, Chairwoman Kiggans, Ranking 
Member Cherfilus-McCormick, Ranking Member Mrvan, and Members of the 
Subcommittees. I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss 
competition trends in VA's procurement, VA's enforcement of 
organizational and personal conflict of interest regulations, and the 
Department's use of professional and management consulting service 
contracts. Joining me today are my colleagues, Mr. Phillip Christy, 
Deputy Executive Director, Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and 
Construction; Dr. Angela Billups, Executive Director, Office of 
Acquisition and Logistics and Senior Procurement Executive; Mrs. 
Luwanda Jones, Deputy Chief Information Officer for Strategic Sourcing 
from the Office of Information Technology (OIT); and Mr. Joseph 
Maletta, Executive Director for Acquisitions from the Veterans Health 
Administration (VHA).
    As the committee is aware, VA's procurement of goods and services 
has grown from $20.2 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2012 to $56.2 billion 
in FY 2022, which is a 177.3 percent increase over a 10-year period. 
This increase represents a significant rise in procurement workload and 
the need to efficiently and smartly execute all the contracting 
requirements that support VA's mission needs. Even with this increase, 
VA has always placed great importance on adhering to all laws and 
regulations and maintaining the trust of Veterans and taxpayers in the 
proper execution of the procurement of all goods and services that 
support VA's mission. To deal with the major increase in procurement 
activities over the last 10 years, VA established a formal category 
management program to support the smart and efficient execution of how 
it buys goods and services. The Department has executed a robust and 
efficient category management program to drive how VA spends its 
financial resources on procurement. VA's program was devised in 
accordance with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memoranda M-
19-13, Category Management: Making Smarter Use of Common Contract 
Solutions and Practices and the results thus far have been exceptional.
    In FY 2022, VA achieved an OMB standard of 90.1 percent for spend 
under management, exceeding the OMB goal of 87 percent. VA aggressively 
promotes the use of fair competition and opportunities among all 
prospective vendors for VA awards; uses a variety of contracting 
vehicles to smartly meet the Department's needs, ensures competition, 
and delivers results that save taxpayer dollars while providing world 
class health care and benefits to Veterans; VA's procurement processes 
include risk management controls to ensure compliance with applicable 
laws, regulations, and VA policy. VA also uses an acquisition lifecycle 
framework to enable the development of effective requirements, 
appropriate acquisition approaches; identification and mitigation of 
potential organizational conflicts of interest, and targets the 
prevention of duplication, waste, and unethical or unfair behavior.

The Competitive Procurement Process

    VA's Procurement program is consistent with OMB Memoranda M-19-13, 
Category Management: Making Smarter Use of Common Contract Solutions 
and Practices and has not resulted in the loss of competition nor 
hindered VA's enforcement of organizational and personal conflict of 
interest regulations. In fact, VA has demonstrated exceptional results 
the last 5 years with competition rates and, as of July 10, 2023, 
continues to maintain this tradition and is achieving a 97 percent 
competition rate for all procurements.
    To complete our contracting needs while ensuring robust 
competition, we use a host of Federal contractual vehicles, including 
Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), General Services 
Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedules program, and VA strategic 
and individual contract vehicles. We regularly review requirements to 
improve the efficiency and effectiveness of acquisition activities to 
further VA mission outcomes, service delivery, and effective 
stewardship. Category management principles seek to identify 
unnecessary contract duplication using OMB recognized spend under 
management contract vehicles. However, the use of spend under 
management contracts are not prioritized at the expense of the agency's 
Veterans First contracting program nor small business goals.
    As part of our VA category management program, we actively work to 
create strategic intelligence activities to include reviewing 
government and industry best practices, prices paid data, trend 
analysis, and other information to facilitate informed buying 
decisions. Our category management analyses often conclude that 
combining similar or duplicative procurement spend into larger 
enterprise actions will increase our ability to leverage our agency 
buying power. When consolidation of multiple requirements is determined 
to be in the Government's best interest, VA complies with the 
requirements in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) developing and 
approving a determination verifying the need and justification for 
consolidation. The written determination ensures that market research 
was conducted, alternative contracting approaches that involve a lesser 
degree of consolidation were considered, any negative impact of the 
acquisition strategy on contracting with small business concerns were 
addressed, and steps were taken to include small business concerns in 
the acquisition strategy. The determination must also be coordinated 
with VA's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization 
(OSDBU) and with VA's Office of General Counsel (OGC).
    Once an acquisition strategy is decided upon by contracting 
officers (CO), a source selection evaluation plan is created to 
evaluate proposals received in response to a solicitation to select a 
proposal that represents the best value to the Government in accordance 
with the FAR, VA Acquisition Regulation (VAAR) and VA Acquisition 
manual (VAAM). Evaluation factors are tailored to each acquisition but 
generally consist of technical, price, past performance, small business 
participation, Veterans' involvement, and Veteran employment with a 
weighting of all the factors. The CO's contract award decision is based 
upon a comparative assessment of proposals against all source selection 
criteria in the solicitation. While the CO may use reports and analyses 
prepared by others, the source selection decision represents the CO's 
independent judgment. The source selection decision is documented, and 
the documentation includes the rationale for any business judgments and 
tradeoffs made or relied on by the CO, including benefits associated 
with additional costs.

Competition, Competency and Organizational Conflicts of Interest

    Because of VA's large annual spend on contracts, it is not uncommon 
for a vendor to be selected for several different requirements, but the 
Department follows the competitive acquisition process outlined above. 
It should be noted that contractors are selected based on their 
competency and ability to successfully respond to the solicitation 
requirements. Many companies have multiple areas of expertise and 
compete on requirements for different services throughout the 
enterprise. Prior to an award, a determination is made to ensure the 
awarded contractor is competent in the areas that they are providing 
services. Where there is the potential for related services to be 
provided by the same company, the solicitation includes Organizational 
Conflict of Interest (OCI) clauses requiring vendors to disclose if 
they believe there is a conflict as well as put them on notice that if 
they were to win the contract, they could be conflicted out of 
potential future work.
    If any potential OCIs are identified, these are brought to the 
attention of the CO who investigates the potential OCI in conjunction 
with the requiring program activity. The results of the investigation 
are shared with Office of General Counsel (OGC) for their review and 
advisement. If the CO determines an actual or potential OCI exists, the 
Government must act to avoid, neutralize, or mitigate the actual or 
potential OCI. In the last 12-months VA has received three major OCI 
complaints by industry and VA conducted thorough analysis and 
determined OCIs did not exist. These three instances were challenged by 
industry and were independently investigated by the Government 
Accountability Office (GAO) and the GAO also determined OCIs did not 
exist, and VA followed proper procedures in the determination process. 
VA does have one current high visibility OCI allegation which is still 
under investigation. VA will follow its established procedures and make 
a final determination once the investigation is completed.
    VA takes the concern of OCI seriously and ensures its contract 
awards comply with the FAR, VAAR and VAAM. Furthermore, VA requires the 
inclusion of OCI as a topic as part of all Senior Executives and 
Acquisition Workforce annual mandatory ethics. Safeguarding sensitive 
information and compliance with ethical behavior is a high priority for 
VA. As such, we embrace the principles of least privilege in all our 
daily activities; this extends into our management of contracts and our 
oversight of contractor personnel.
    Industry-wide vendor consolidations have been ongoing for years in 
the marketplace. Due to size and scale, many of VA's contracts consist 
of a prime contractor working with one or more subcontractors, either 
directly managed or through a joint venture. As subcontractors may only 
provide specific targeted outcomes for the prime on a part-time basis, 
the subcontractors employees may participate in multiple VA contract 
actions at the same time. This necessitates our use of confidentiality 
and Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). These artifacts specifically 
discuss requirements for contractor personnel to safeguard information 
and not disclose information to unauthorized individuals. In addition, 
VA's contract language requires contractors to limit access to the 
minimum number of personnel necessary for contract performance for all 
information considered sensitive or proprietary. To be clear, an NDA 
alone is not sufficient to avoid or mitigate an OCI for the prime and 
subcontractor. When a prime or subcontractor is identified as 
potentially participating in related contracts, the government OCI 
investigation would take into consideration whether the prime and 
subcontractor performance under one contract would impact or create 
impaired objectivity, unequal access to information, or biased ground 
rules on the additional or new contract.

Information Security

    Safeguarding Veteran data is VA's top priority. All contractor and 
subcontractor employees requiring access to VA information or VA 
information systems must pass a security background check and complete 
the VA Privacy and Information Security Awareness training and 
acknowledge their understanding of any responsibilities for compliance 
by signing VA Information Security Rules of Behavior.
    When it comes to VA's development of future acquisition needs, we 
closely safeguard the sensitive information from our industry partners 
by ensuring this information is not included in written or oral 
communication that would give any incumbent vendor a competitive 
advantage. When our market research and contract development activities 
necessitate industry interaction, we make use of broad industry 
announcements to ensure all potential bidders receive equal access to 
information provided and equal access to provide feedback on VA's 
approach to acquiring future products and services.
    In reference to vendors performing work across VA's enterprise, 
situational awareness is ascertained and made available by using data 
captured in various systems including, but not limited to, Contractor 
Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) and the Federal 
Procurement Data System--Next Generation. Reports are routinely run by 
COs and program offices leveraging these systems to obtain oversight of 
a contractor's portfolio within VA's enterprise. Additionally, the 
program office and contracting officer representatives and COs 
continuously monitor performance and enter performance information into 
these systems to allow for the documentation of this information.
    Regarding the use of professional management and consulting 
services, VA is carefully monitoring this category of spend for work 
conducted by contractors while also looking for duplication of efforts 
as part of our category management program. It is noted that the 
Mission Act, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the PACT Act drove an increase 
in spending on professional management and consulting services 
contracts over the past few years. Currently, VA is projected to spend 
less and execute fewer contracts in FY 2023 for the purchase of 
professional management and consulting contracts. VA is committed to 
ensuring the use of professional management and consulting services is 
necessary and prudent.

Conclusion

    Chairman Rosendale, Chairwoman Kiggans, Ranking Member Cherfilus-
McCormick, Ranking Member Mrvan, and members of the subcommittees, 
thank you for the opportunity to speak on competition trends in VA's 
procurement, VA's enforcement of organizational and personal conflict 
of interest regulations, and the Department's use of professional and 
management consulting service contracts. My colleagues and I are 
pleased to answer any questions that you may have.

                        Statement for the Record

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                  Prepared Statement of Shelby Oakley
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