Veterans Administration eyes technology upgrades amid scrutiny [View all]

Source: USA Today

Nov. 4, 2025 9:01 a.m. ET


Under the administration of President Donald Trump, the Department of Veterans Affairs plans to modernize its information technology systems and believes it can be done with fewer people and a tighter budget.

The strategy has raised concerns with a federal watchdog agency that has tracked the VA’s IT acquisition, implementation and support strategy for decades, with auditors concerned that the department must first address its shortcomings to successfully modernize.

Congressional Scrutiny

During a July 2025 hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, the VA’s acting chief information officer, Eddie Pool, said the VA has conducted a review of its Office of Information Technology (OIT) budget and all IT contracts, allowing it to reallocate $89 million for other programs and make plans to shift another $100 million for “strategic reinvestment” elsewhere.

Also, as of July 2025, according to the VA Deputy CIO Devon Beard, 1,172 of the OIT’s 8,205 employees had accepted the federal government’s deferred resignation offer or were approved for voluntary early retirement this year, resulting in a force reduction that VA officials say will not affect veteran services. But Carol Harris, director of information technology and cybersecurity at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), says that to effectively improve the VA’s IT infrastructure, the department must fix longstanding issues across the office with analysis, workforce planning and purchasing efforts.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/11/04/veterans-administration-eyes-technology-upgrades-amid-scrutiny/86594845007/

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The USA Today headline used the old term the "Veterans Administration", which is what it was called when my dad was a Computer Programmer (COBOL) for them from the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s. That was back when they had "in-house" civil servant IT staff (programmers and engineers, etc). But then they became a "Department" with a Secretary versus a standalone "Agency" - the Department of Veterans Affairs - (which happened via a law signed by Raygun that went into effect under Poppy), and the contracting out began.