Estimates supporting the President’s budget request for the Department of Veterans Affairs could be more transparent and reliable, GAO has said.
GAO, which is required under the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009 to report on the President’s annual budget request to Congress for VA health care services, said that a lack of transparency regarding estimates for initiatives and ongoing health care services gives Congress unclear information.
According to GAO-12-689, the President’s fiscal 2013 request for VA health care services was $165 million above earlier advance appropriations. The request reflected both a $2 billion increase for initiatives and a $2.1 billion decrease for ongoing health care services. The decrease partially offset a decline in anticipated resources available to VA of $275 million, resulting in the net increase in the President’s request of $165 million.
However, two of the three factors that accounted for most of these changes were not transparent, GAO said.
It said the department used a new reporting approach for initiatives that combined both funding for initiatives and for certain ongoing health care services in its initiatives estimate, resulting in an increase in VA’s initiatives estimate and a commensurate decrease in VA’s ongoing services estimate.
Because VA did not disclose this change in its budget justification, it has not made it transparent that its initiatives estimate is greater and its ongoing health care services estimate is lower than they would have been using VA’s past approach, said GAO.
Further, the department included additional funding in its initiatives estimate, in part, to fund initiatives that were not identified in the fiscal 2013 advance appropriations request.
The report calls on VA to state in its budget justification whether the estimates for initiatives include funding for ongoing services and whether its advance appropriations request reflects funding that may be required if initiatives are continued.
It also recommends that VA’s non-recurring maintenance estimates fully account for the long-standing pattern of medical facilities spending more on NRM than originally expected.
