Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

1.      Shinseki: VA Distributed Over $1 Billion In Stimulus Funds. Via a Business Wire release (10/15), VA officials announced that the agency “has distributed more than $1 billion in funds made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,” which will be used to “modernize and replace existing VA medical facilities, make improvements at national cemeteries and award grants to states for Veterans homes.” VA Secretary Shinseki stated that, ” “America’s Veterans are getting more modern, efficient and greener facilities that are better suited to provide them the comprehensive care and service they have earned,” adding that the upgrades “are possible through Recovery Act funds that are not only revitalizing VA’s extensive infrastructure, but also moving needed money into the economy.” The agency said that stimulus funds will add 26,000 parking spaces, nearly 14,000 inpatient bed spaces, 14,400 clinical improvement projects and 16 pharmacy renovations at VA medical facilities. In addition, the stimulus law will also bring nearly $400 million to various energy and water projects, including installing solar photovoltaic, wind, geothermal and co-generation projects, and adding meters. Another $50 million in Recovery Act funds will support 392 improvement projects underway in VA’s 131 national cemeteries, including restoring and preserving 47 historic monuments and memorials and adding various infrastructure projects, including renewable energy, roadways, paving and grounds maintenance. Grants totaling $150 million will aid states in building, buying and improving nursing homes. Domicilary or adult-care facilities.

 2.      Columnist: VA Likely To Drop Second Agent Orange System Contract. The syndicated “What’s Brewin'” column (10/15, Brewin), appearing on the Nextgov website and elsewhere, reports having “picked up very strong signals that the Veterans Affairs Department has dropped plans to issue a second contract to develop a system to process claims for veterans suffering from diseases related to the Vietnam-era chemical Agent Orange. IBM won the original claims processing system contract in July, and evidently did such a poor job that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki personally called IBM chairman Samuel Palmisano to express his dissatisfaction with the lack of progress. The solicitation for the second contract, I’m told, was an added tool to get IBM’s attention, vendors told me, more of a club than a real plan to go ahead with another deal. The VA quietly informed interested bidders it did not plan to issue a second contract over the past week.” The columnist adds, “I keep asking the VA” about the status of the project, “and so far have not received a reply.”

 3.      VA’s Baker Named GCN Civilian Agency IT Executive For 2010. The website for Government Computer News (10/15, Walker), in a round-up of its award winners for the year, profiles Roger Baker, VA assistant secretary for information and technology, who was named Civilian Agency Executive of the Year. The publication says that for Baker, “the bottom line for IT is providing dynamic and efficient support for the programs that serve US military veterans. When Baker joined VA in May 2009 after the Senate confirmed his appointment, IT wasn’t doing that — far from it. ‘The Office of Information and Technology was fighting with its customers,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t work.’ Baker set about transforming the office’s culture by changing attitudes and making customer service the agency’s highest priority. With the staunch backing of VA’s top management, including VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Baker’s efforts quickly yielded results.” Baker uses Program Management Accountability System, or PMAS, to reinforce his five main priorities, suspending or cancelsing projects that don’t meet performance goals. VA Secretary Shinseki “said that by establishing PMAS, Baker ‘has driven home the importance of discipline and strengthened a culture focused on our clients — America’s veterans.”

 4.      Obama: Agencies Eye 5% Budget Trim, Veterans’ Claims Are Unpopular Service Cut. The Washington Post (10/16, Davidson, 605K) reports, “Facing Republican complaints about big government and federal salaries, President Obama said Friday that government agencies might leave some vacancies unfilled as his administration looks for ways to save money. He did not rule out furloughing employees, as some states have, but he warned that such action could result in a loss of services for taxpayers.” Obama told an organization of black journalists that “if cutbacks are ‘the only way to achieve the savings… then we have to make some decisions about what that means in terms of services.’ Veterans, for example, “might have to wait longer for their disability claims to be processed. That’s something that people object to pretty vigorously, and rightly so, because we’ve got a sacred trust to our veterans.” The president also disputed complaints from Capitol Hill Republicans and conservative think tanks that federal employees are overpaid, saying that his administration has studied civil service pay levels and found that “high-skilled workers in government are slightly underpaid. Lower-skilled workers are slightly overpaid relative to the private sector.” He called that finding “not surprising” because the government has “a unionized workforce,” unlikely the typical case in the private sector.

 5.      Veterans Affairs FY 2010 Spending Came In $6.9 Billion Lower Than Expected. The website of WDBO-AM Orlando (10/15, Dupree) posts the summary from a joint statement by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and acting Office of Management and Budget director Jeffrey Zients giving final details on the recently completed Fiscal Year 2010 budget. The statement notes that actual outlays at the Department of Veterans Affairs “were $108.3 billion in FY 2010,” $6.9 billion less than the July 2010 Mid-Session Review. Of that difference, the agency’s Compensation and Pensions program accounted for $4.9 billion, with $4 billion in supplemental costs of liberalized Agent Orange benefits that, due to a delay for Congressional review, was pushed into the next Fiscal Year. The remaining differences were attributed to a decline in retroactive benefit payments from the levels observed earlier in the year, and fewer-than-expected original claims for Disability Compensation. The Readjustment Benefits program came in $0.5 billion lower outlays, as “nearly 150,000 more service members and veterans than expected chose to use the less generous, but somewhat more flexible, Chapter 30 education benefits rather than convert to Chapter 33 education benefits.” Changes in Information technology deadlines and staffing under the Project Management Accountability System reduced outlays by another $0.6 billion.

 6.      GAO Reports Burn Pits Still Being Used In Iraq, Afghanistan. The UPI /Medill News(10/15, Koeske) reports, “A US government report released Friday finds that waste disposal methods at military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to expose troops to potentially harmful emissions, despite recent legislation aimed at curbing hazardous disposal practices. The Government Accountability Office investigated four bases in Iraq in the past year and found none were entirely in compliance with regulations. The regulations, passed in 2009, prohibit the disposal of hazardous and bio-medical waste in open-air burn pits, except in circumstances where the US secretary of Defense deems that no feasible alternative exists. In spite of these regulations, the GAO found that all four bases routinely burned plastic, which releases dioxins, the family of chemicals found in the Vietnam War herbicide known as Agent Orange.” In a statement Friday, WI Sen. Russ Feingold (D), a sponsor of a bnill to ban burn pits, said he was “deeply troubled to learn that the Defense Department has not taken simple steps, such as segregating plastics, to ensure that our troops are not exposed to harmful emissions.” He added that the Defense Department’s “slow reaction has exposed another generation of veterans to the exact same carcinogens found in Agent Orange.” A Feingold aide said that the Senator would likely offer an amendment to force the military and contractors to comply with burn pit regulations.

7.      VA Aims To Document If Security Tools Are Being Used On All Its Computers. Federal Times (10/16, Davidson, 40K) reports that Veterans Affairs “this summer launched a cybersecurity initiative to verify whether a variety of security tools are being used on each of its computers. When it comes to a veteran’s electronic health records, that means VA will verify the security of the computer used by a VA physician entering a diagnosis, a pharmacist filling a prescription, or a billing clerk making note of a patient’s co-pays.”

8.      VA Will Not Move To Old Northwest Airlines HQ. The Minneapolis Star Tribune (10/15, Bjorhus) reports, “A $19.5 million deal for investors to buy the old corporate headquarters of Northwest Airlines in Eagan has fallen apart” after the US Department of Veterans Affairs “nixed a move to the site.” The US General Services Administration “said Thursday that…VA will stay put at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling.”

9.      VA, Defense Work To Make Health IT Systems Interoperable. Federal Times (10/15, Johnson, 40K) reports, “The Veterans Affairs Department aims to be able to share its patients’ electronic medical records with private-sector health care providers and the Defense Department by 2012. But most people tracking VA’s efforts agree that progress is slow. VA and the Defense Department have struggled for years to create a common system that supports VA’s mission of caring for veterans and DoD’s mission of caring for the active-duty military.” In an October 6 Senate Veterans Affairs hearing, Sen. Richard Burr (NC), the panel’s ranking Republican, “criticized the departments’ efforts to achieve interoperability between VA’s Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture and DoD’s AHLTA system (once known as the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application).” According to testimony from the CEO if health IT software firm Allscripts, even a North Chicago facility serving both veterans and active-duty military “cannot share records on allergies, health problems or clinical orders.” Under the interoperability plan, the VA and Defense will be able to exchange clinical health data by 2012, then two years later be able to exchange housing, insurance, education and memorial data.

 10.    VA Awards Contract For Pilot Study Of Speeding Medical Record Retrieval. A PR Web release (10/15) announces that the VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration “has awarded DOMA Technologies the contract for a Pilot Study into the Centralized Retrieval, Assembly, and Secure Transmission of Private Medical Records to expedite claims processes. The project aims to reduce the 40 days it presently takes to retrieve medical records from private healthcare providers down to seven days. The pilot study will be conducted in six VBA regional offices is expected to be finished within six months. The release also appears in News-Medical.Net (10/15) and the Kansas City Star (10/15, 233K).