The House Veterans Affairs Committee is pushing for legislation that would give the department’s CIO centralized authority over all departmental information management, and elevate the CIO to the position of under secretary for information services, the same level as the under secretaries who run VA’s health, benefits and memorial affairs administrations, the committee has said in a statement.
It said HR-5835 would establish three deputy-under secretaries for security, operations and management, and policy and planning as well, in order to support the CIO.
The bill would also allow up to five scholarships each year to recruit people to pursue a doctoral degree in information security, computer engineering or electrical engineering who would agree to work at VA for at least two year for each year of paid tuition.
“These changes will provide VA a definite course of action to follow should a data breach occur in the future,” said chairman Steve Buyer, R-Ind., in reference to the department’s data theft last May.
