The Veterans Affairs Department will temporarily halt 45 technology projects with a combined value of $200 million that are either behind schedule or over budget, the agency announced Friday. The worst offender was 110 percent more expensive than planned and 17 months behind schedule. During the coming weeks, the VA will audit all the projects to determine whether additional resources or new management teams can get them back on schedule. If they cannot be fixed, the projects will be canceled, officials said. The VA was able to catch the troubled contracts, in part, due to the Obama administration's new Web-based IT dashboard, which sheds light on the performance of projects across the federal government.
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki ordered a review of the department's 300 IT projects and implementation of an internal program designed to increase the accountability for technology initiatives agency-wide. "VA has a responsibility to the American people, who are investing millions of dollars in technology projects, to deliver quality results that adhere to a budget and are delivered on time." he said. "They need to have confidence that the dollars they are spending are being effectively used to improve the lives of our veterans." Read a blog post on the VA news by White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra here. The announcement is part of a broader administration effort to make the government more transparent, boost accountability and drive better performance, he wrote.
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