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Today, Rep. Rosendale, (R-Mont.), the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared, at the start of the Subcommittee’s oversight hearing covering VA’s Financial Management Business Transformation Program:

Good afternoon.

The Subcommittee will come to order.

We are here today to review VA’s progress in the Financial Management Business Transformation program, or FMBT.

FMBT is VA’s third attempt to modernize its hodgepodge of aging, inadequate financial and accounting systems.

These systems are a serious problem.

Every year, the VA barely manages to pass its financial statement audit with a clean opinion, despite carrying the same material weaknesses and deficiencies for a decade.

At the same time, the Department’s purchase card spending continues to be the Wild West.

It has been nearly 10 years since the former VA senior procurement executive blew the whistle on billions of dollars of unauthorized commitments, and nothing has fundamentally changed.

With so many purchase cards in so many different facilities and no central tracking, the Department is practically helpless to enforce its policies—much less root out waste and fraud.

And basic financial management functions stretch the capabilities of the systems, like maintaining records when VA transferred the CARES and ARP funds.

When the Committee asked basic questions about how the funding was handled during last month’s hearing, the VA witnesses struggled to answer.

One witness even seemed contemptuous to several members performing our oversight duties.

This situation is untenable, and I appreciate that our witnesses today are attempting to solve it.

Simply put, the FMBT program has to succeed.

After a false start in 2016 and 2017, VA relaunched the effort in 2018.

Since then, the integrated financial and acquisition management system, or IFAMS, has been implemented in the National Cemetery Administration, a few offices within the Veterans Benefits Administration, the Office of Information and Technology, the Office of Inspector General, and part of the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction.

From the information we have, the system seems to be relatively successful in those offices.

But there is still reason to be concerned.

These organizations only add up to a few thousand users and a small fraction of VA’s budget.

Implementing iFAMS in the major organizations, like the Veterans Health Administration and the big spenders within the Veterans Benefits Administration, keeps getting farther and farther away.

Meanwhile, the program’s implementation costs continue to rise.

I am not suggesting we have another EHRM on our hands.

Let me be clear, I believe most of the premises of FMBT are sound.

But this effort does seem to be suffering from some of the familiar problems, like poor coordination between the various organizations within VA, struggles to fit VA’s operational practices with commercial software, and extremely long schedules.

It has been three and a half years since the Subcommittee last examined the FMBT program.

I think veterans and taxpayers are overdue for an update.

I appreciate our witnesses joining us today to help us better understand the challenges they face.

I look forward to working to overcome the difficulties and deliver this system successfully.

With that, I yield to Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick for her opening statement.