Congressional Budget Office V. H.R. 5099, Communities Helping Invest through Property Improvements Needed for Veterans Act of 2016

H.R. 5099, Communities Helping Invest through Property Improvements Needed for Veterans Act of 2016 1 (October 26, 2016)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo3260 and id is 1 raw text is:

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
COST ESTIMATE

October 26, 2016

H.R. 5099
Communities Helping Invest through Property Improvements
Needed for Veterans Act of 2016

As ordered reported by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
on September 21, 2016

H.R. 5099 would authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to accept up to five
donations of real property such as land or facilities from nonfederal entities for a pilot
program to construct VA facilities. Any such donated property would need to meet a
requirement for capital improvements that VA had previously identified as necessary to
provide services or benefits to veterans. The department could help finance such a project
using any amounts that had been appropriated for that project before it entered into an
agreement with the nonfederal entity. The bill would prohibit VA from spending any funds
from a subsequent appropriation to complete construction of a donated facility or to pay for
the use of such a facility once it is complete. The authority to accept such donations would
expire five years after enactment of the bill.

VA is authorized to accept certain donations of land or facilities under current law. The
department can also accept in-kind compensation rather than cash-such as the use of
facilities-as part of its authority to enter enhanced-use leases.1 In some instances when
VA has accepted facilities as in-kind compensation, the department has explicitly or
implicitly committed to making payments from subsequent appropriations for the use of
those facilities. Such commitments constitute contract authority, a form of direct spending.
If VA entered into such commitments, the increase in direct spending would be significant.

H.R. 5099 includes provisions that are intended to prevent VA from making similar
commitments. However, the legislative language would be subject to interpretation by the
implementing agency. Thus, despite those provisions, CBO believes that in some
circumstances VA could still make such commitments under the bill. On the basis of
conversations with department officials CBO expects that VA is unlikely to do so.
However, because there is some probability of VA entering into such commitments, CBO

1. For additional information on enhanced-use leases see Congressional Budget Office, cost estimate for H.R. 3484, the Los
Angeles Homeless Veterans Leasing Act of 2016 (May 17, 2016), https://www cbo. ov/ublication/5i583.

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