Veterans affairs congressional committees have been busy this year, passing new accountability legislation and finalizing details to change the outdated veterans appeals process.
Now, lawmakers are beginning to turn their attention to some of the more nitty-gritty challenges facing the Veterans Affairs Department.
VA, however, doesn’t see the need for new legislative fixes, or at least, not these particular suggestions related to the department’s training and onboarding for acquisition professionals, as well as its procurement reporting standards.
But Congress, long frustrated by VA’s lengthy contracting processes and the scheduling and cost overruns it’s seen with major construction projects in the past, isn’t convinced the department can more effectively manage the procurement process and staff its offices properly without new legislation.
Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/veterans-affairs/2017/06/congress-turning-its-attention-to-acquisition-training-challenges-at-va/
In a press release, Shulkin said he took the unique step of signing a “determination of findings” in order to issue a solicitation directly to Cerner Corp., which—together with Leidos in a $4 billion contract—is developing DOD’s MHS Genesis platform.
Examining 1,154 contractors recently investigated by the Department of Labor, the Center for Public Integrity found that between January 2015 and July 2016 federal contracts were modified or granted with 68 contractors with substantive violations, according to an exposé by Talia Buford and Maryam Jameel.
President Trump tapped Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, to lead the new White House Office of American Innovation. The administration is billing the initiative — first reported by The Washington Post — as a SWAT team of former business executives. The goal, the White House said, is to shake up the status quo of the federal bureaucracy by infusing new ideas that allow private enterprises to succeed.
