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Browsing: Veterans Affairs
Harvey Pekar, the sarcastic and irritable writer who chronicled his life and experiences as a Veterans Affairs Department file clerk in the underground comic book American Splendor, was found dead this morning at age 70. Pekar’s darkly humorous comic was about as far from standard superhero fare as could be. Besides his misadventures at the Cleveland VA, he wrote about his everyday troubles and anxieties, battles with cancer, family life, and love of jazz. But although his collaborations with artists such as Robert Crumb brought him fame (and several notorious appearances on David Letterman’s show), Pekar had to keep working…
The Office of Management and Budget is going to announce today that it’s halting all financial systems modernization projects across the government. That means 30 projects worth $20 billion are now effectively on hold until OMB can come up with a way to improve the procurement process in this area. The most well-known failure in this area is the Veterans Affairs Department’s CoreFLS project (since replaced by a new program called FLITE that hasn’t gone much better). The department has spent a total of about $300 million on this boondoggle over 10 years and has seen no tangible benefits. Jeff…
The Veterans Affairs Department has expanded its information technology oversight program designed to weed out underperforming IT projects to include all of the agency’s 282 projects. The program management and accountability system – PMAS – will be used to evaluate and restart or terminate all VA IT projects. The change was effective Feb. 15 but announced by VA’s Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology Roger Baker at a House Veterans Affairs Committee subcommittee on oversight and investigations hearing Feb. 23. Using the system to evaluate all of VA’s IT projects will give officials greater insight into how the projects are…
The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, Texas, today became the 100th facility in the U.S. to be certified through the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes rating system. The medical center joins another 15 VA facilities that have been certified through the Green Globes system, which recognizes achievements in energy efficiency and environmental management practices. In the U.S., Green Globes has trailed behind the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) as the preferred tool for measuring and certifying green buildings. But like the little engine that could, Green Globes is steadily making inroads in the…
Congratulations to Nancy Fichtner, a Veterans Affairs Department employee from Colorado, for winning the first ever SAVE (Securing Americans Value and Efficiency) Award contest. Her money saving idea: Allow veterans to take home the medications they use while at the hospital, instead of tossing the prescriptions in the trash when veterans are discharged. The idea would not only save the government money, but veterans too. Fichtner’s idea beat out 38,000 other ideas submitted by fellow federal employees in the contest designed to harness the experience of frontline employees to save the government money. Her idea was one of four finalists…
President Barack Obama said in August he wanted to hear from Veterans Benefits Administration employees on how to improve the agency, and employees are responding. In the first week, the survey site for VBA employees was visited 29,000 times by 7,000 employees, who submitted more than 3,000 ideas, said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and VA Chief Technology Peter Levin in a blog post on whitehouse.gov Monday. Obama said he wants employees to contribute their ideas to solving its claims backlog and improving agency efficiency, and the survey is yielding results, Chopra and Levin wrote. Employees can also vote…
The Veterans Affairs Department will soon start a new program to take advantage of VA employees’ expertise nationwide, President Barack Obama said Monday. Obama announced the program at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Phoenix, Ariz., where he spoke of the agency’s need to better serve veterans. He said asking employees for their ideas can help solve many of the VA’s critical problems, including the backlog of more than half a million veterans’ claims. Obama said he’d told VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients to…
Before departing for its August recess, the Senate approved advance appropriations for the Veterans Affairs’ health programs Thursday, clearing the way for advanced funding of VA hospitals. Advocates said advance appropriations would ensure consistent, quality health care for veterans in case in case Congress does not pass the annual VA appropriation bill by the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30. VA is currently funded yearly, which has has resulted in late funding for VA programs in 19 of the past 22 years. The House-passed 2010 spending bill for VA and military construction includes fiscal 2011 health care funding, and…
The White House announced six more political appointees Tuesday, including three for the Veterans Affairs Department. Roger Baker, nominee for assistant secretary for information and technology, Veterans Affairs. Baker is the former president and chief executive office of Dataline, a technology company in Norfolk, Va. He also is a former chief information officer of the Commerce Department and served on President Barack Obama’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications policy group during his 2008 presidential campaign. William Gunn, nominee for general counsel, VA. He represents military members and veterans in his Northern Virginia law practice. He retired in 2005 from the Air…