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GAO-24-106858 1 (2024-07-23)

handle is hein.gao/gaoqpl0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Why This Matters Key Takeaways The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for administering benefit programs for veterans, their families, and their survivors. These programs include those for pensions, education, disability compensation, home loans, life insurance, vocational rehabilitation, survivor support, medical care, and burial benefits. VA's core Financial Management System is more than 30 years old and, according to VA, is extremely difficult to maintain, results in inefficient operations, requires complex manual work-arounds, and does not provide real-time integration between financial and acquisition information across VA. Two previous attempts to replace its legacy system beginning in 1998 failed after years of development and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost. In 2016, VA established the Financial Management Business Transformation program (FMBT) to replace its aging financial and acquisition systems with one integrated system to meet financial management goals and comply with legislation and directives. VA's new integrated system is to allow VA to track and report how funds are used to deliver benefits, care, and services. As of April 2024, the targeted completion date is 2030. FMBT's October 2023 life cycle cost estimate shows total program costs are estimated at $7.7 billion. This is an increase of approximately $200 million over the 2022 estimate of $7.5 billion. We were asked to review the program's implementation of the integrated system. This report addresses key project management practices on collaborating with stakeholders on changes such as cost and schedule estimates, assessing user satisfaction and concerns, and managing program risks. * The FMBT program has followed leading practices to collaborate with relevant internal and external stakeholders. However, program costs continue to rise and schedule delays continue to occur. VA could develop more reliable estimates by implementing two prior recommendations we made on cost and scheduling practices. * The program has followed leading practices to assess user satisfaction and address user concerns. However, survey response rates are low. VA has an open recommendation we made related to customer satisfaction to help report whether user needs have been met and the program is meeting its goals. * The program's risk management policies and procedures were generally consistent with leading practices. However, we found that it could develop more comprehensive risk response plans to help mitigate risks related to systems integration with other IT modernization projects. We recommend that VA ensure that responsible risk owners develop integration risk response plans that contain detailed and specific mitigation actions. Page 1 GAO-24-106858 VA Financial Management Systems Page 1 GAO-24-106858 VA Financial Management Systems

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