Congressional Republicans are angry at the Veterans Affairs Department for forecasting a $3 billion budget shortfall that didn’t come to fruition and want more budget oversight.
The VA notified Congress in July that it was facing a potential $15 billion shortfall — $3 billion for fiscal 2024 and $12 billion for fiscal 2025 — due to an uptick in veterans seeking health care and other benefits.
Without more funding, the VA warned Congress it couldn’t pay out certain veteran pension, disability and education benefits.
In September, Congress passed a bill to plug the $3 billion projected shortfall for fiscal 2024, which ended on Sept. 30.
Now, lawmakers are learning that the VA didn’t use the money in fiscal 2024 as intended and instead carried over a $5.1 billion surplus into the new fiscal year.
The topic came up Wednesday at a House Appropriations Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee hearing.
“This inability to accurately forecast is unacceptable,” Texas GOP Rep. John Carter, the subcommittee chairman, said. “The VA’s irresponsibly insistent fear that benefits and pensions would be interrupted for American veterans caused us certain concern.”
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, didn’t attend the subcommittee hearing but submitted remarks for the record questioning why the VA’s projection was so off base.
“It is unclear how the estimate could have deviated so significantly from the time the President’s Budget Request was submitted in March, to the time Congress acted on that request,” he said. “The timeline — and lack of communication regarding an approximated $15 billion shortfall — is extremely concerning.”
The VA is still requesting $12 billion in additional funds from Congress in fiscal 2025, but Republicans are questioning whether that money is needed, given the VA didn’t use the $3 billion in supplemental funds Congress approved for fiscal 2024.
“This all calls into question the remaining balance of the potential VA shortfall,” Mr. Cole said.
House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Democrat, said she was concerned about the VA’s “apparently unnecessary request” for the $3 billion to be expedited in fiscal 2024 when it ultimately was not needed before Oct. 1.
“Quite frankly, it does make it more difficult for this committee to pass and provide the necessary supplemental appropriations if we cannot be confident of the accuracy of what agencies are telling us about their need and when they need it,” she said.
The hearing on the VA budget comes as Congress is considering a separate supplemental funding request from the Biden administration for $100 billion in disaster aid spread across federal departments and agencies.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat and ranking member of the VA appropriations subcommittee, said it’s important to reevaluate the accuracy of the $12 billion projected shortfall for fiscal 2025 after the additional funding wasn’t needed for fiscal 2024.
But she applauded the VA for coming in under budget, rather than spending “like drunken sailors.”
“The fact that VA did not need the full supplemental is rare,” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said.
Shereef Elnahal, the VA’s undersecretary for health who testified at Wednesday’s hearing, said the department is projecting it will need less than the $12 billion in extra funding it requested for fiscal 2025 but hasn’t finalized an updated estimate.
“With more updated information, we’re analyzing our revised funding needs carefully and methodically,” he said.
Mr. Elnahal said that while the VA is optimizing every resource Congress appropriated, the strategies it used to stay under budget in fiscal 2024 “are not sustainable in the long run.”
“For instance, we cannot continue to delay medical equipment purchases year over year,” he said. “And we continue to believe that growth in staff, rather than attrition, is needed to meet increases in veteran care demand.”
Soon after the House hearing, 16 Republican senators, led by Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, sent a letter to Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Jon Tester about the VA’s projected $3 billion shortfall not materializing.
“Whether by negligence or deceit, this is a stunning about-face that demands our attention,” the senators wrote.
They said the department’s handling of budgetary issues came up during a September oversight hearing in which the inspector general for the VA testified about a “pervasive lack of accountability” within the VA.
“It is high time that we take the necessary steps to change VA culture and make the VA accountable to the people it serves,” the GOP senators wrote.
They suggested enacting guardrails to create more oversight over the VA, like ones offered in the Protecting Regular Order for Veterans Act.
The measure would make the VA secretary provide the House and Senate Appropriations and Veterans’ Affairs committees with in-person quarterly budget briefings. In the event of a budget shortfall, the bill prohibits the VA from providing bonuses to any senior executives.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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