On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs began canceling 585 non-mission-critical or duplicative contracts.
According to a VA release, the move comes after a thorough review of nearly 2,000 professional services contracts. The contracts set for cancellation total about $1.8 billion and will be phased out over the next few days. The canceled contracts represent less than one percent of the roughly 90,000 contracts VA currently has in place.
“We are putting veterans first at VA,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said. “That means finding new and better ways to do our jobs and focus our resources. Every dollar we spend on wasteful or duplicative contracts is one less dollar we can spend on veterans, and given that choice, I will always side with the veteran.”
VA said the contract cancellations include those that paid contractors to generate “contract deliverables” for other contractors to fulfill. Other canceled contracts cover administrative services that VA can perform on its own, such as staff mentoring, leadership coaching, preparation of meeting agendas and meeting minutes, as well as services such as “executive support” that involve creating PowerPoint slides.
After accounting for the money already spent on the contracts, the cancellations will enable VA to redirect about $900 million back toward health care, benefits and services for its beneficiaries, it said.
VA also stressed that the termination of these contracts will not negatively affect veteran care, benefits or services, and will help VA better focus on its core mission of providing the best possible care and services to veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors.
The contracts being cancelled were identified through a deliberative multi-level review that involved the career subject-matter expert employees responsible for the contracts as well as VA senior leaders and contracting officials.
During the review, VA career employees evaluated the contracts based on how closely they support veterans and VA beneficiaries. Contracts that directly support veterans, beneficiaries or provide services VA cannot do itself, such as a nurse who sees patients or an organization that provides third-party certification services were not canceled. Contracts that involved services VA has the ability to perform itself were typically canceled.
VA career subject-matter expert employees responsible for the contract cancelations were also given the option to stop a cancellation if they felt it would negatively impact health care, benefits or services for veterans or VA beneficiaries.
VA said it found many duplicative contracts during the review that were providing the exact same services, such as third-party certifications for items like enhanced-use leases. VA said it eliminated duplicative contracts while keeping in place others that provide those services to ensure operational continuity.
VA said the contract cancellations are the first step in its ongoing audit of roughly 90,000 department contracts worth more than $67 billion. VA expects to announce more changes to optimize its contracting operations in the future. Contracts will be canceled in some instances, and in other instances new contracts will be created, it said.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.
After accounting for the money already spent on the contracts, the cancellations will enable VA to redirect about $900 million back toward health care, benefits and services for its beneficiaries, it said.
VA also stressed that the termination of the contracts will not negatively affect veteran care, benefits or services and will help it better focus on its core mission of providing the best possible care and services to veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors.
The contracts being cancelled were identified through a deliberative multi-level review that involved the career subject-matter expert employees responsible for the contracts as well as VA senior leaders and contracting officials.
During the review, VA career employees evaluated the contracts based on how closely they support veterans and VA beneficiaries. Contracts that directly support veterans, beneficiaries or provide services VA cannot do itself, such as a nurse who sees patients or an organization that provides third-party certification services were not canceled. Contracts that involved services VA has the ability to perform itself were typically canceled.
VA career subject-matter expert employees responsible for the contract cancelations were also given the option to stop a cancellation if they felt it would negatively impact health care, benefits or services for veterans or VA beneficiaries.
VA said it found many duplicative contracts during the review that were providing the exact same services, such as third-party certifications for items like enhanced-use leases. VA said it eliminated duplicative contracts while keeping in place others that provide those services to ensure operational continuity.
VA said the contract cancellations are the first step in its ongoing audit of roughly 90,000 department contracts worth more than $67 billion. VA expects to announce more changes to optimize its contracting operations in the future. Contracts will be canceled in some instances, and in other instances new contracts will be created, it said.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.