The House has voted in favor of the Department of
Veterans Affairs Information Technology Management
Improvement Act of 2005, which would make the department’s
CIO accountable for the agency’s IT infrastructure and
give that person authority over its budget and control
over its IT policies, procedures, personnel and assets.
Introduced by Congressman Steve Buyer, R-Ind., in October,
the bill requires the VA Secretary to develop, implement,
and maintain a process for the selection and oversight
of the department’s IT, including a strategic plan that
includes performance measurements and an integrated
enterprise architecture.
The bill directs the CIO to select the CIOs for the
Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefits
Administration, and National Cemetery Administration,
to carry out the plan in their departments.
The bill also requires the Secretary to submit to the
House and Senate intern and annual progress reports on
the act’s implementation.
“Since coming to Congress, I have witnessed VA’s
inability to adequately manage its IT funding and
modernization efforts,” said Buyer.
“The three separate IT infrastructures within the VA
cannot efficiently and effectively share important
information,” Buyer added, calling it, “a significant
and unacceptable inconvenience.”
VA has spent about $1 billion per year over the last
decade to upgrade its IT infrastructure, according to
a committee statement.
It said that while there have been improvements in VA’s
IT modernization efforts, prominent failures stand out
such more then $600 million spent over the course of a
decade on VETSNET — the automated compensation and
pension claims processing system that still has yet
to be implemented.
