What about the ayys, can we say something to them too?
VA’s projected $15B budget shortfall doesn’t exist and agency has a $5B surplus, House lawmakers contend
WASHINGTON — A $15 billion shortfall that the Department of Veterans Affairs disclosed to lawmakers in an urgent request for emergency funding to cover veterans benefits and close the projected budget gap does not exist, House lawmakers said Friday.
VA leaders told Congress in September that they needed $3 billion immediately to close a budget gap or veterans would lose their monthly benefits on Oct. 1, the start of fiscal 2025.
Instead, the VA has a surplus of $5.1 billion from fiscal 2024, according to Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, chairman of the committee’s subpanel on military construction, veterans affairs and related agencies.
The VA also no longer projects a $12 billion shortfall for fiscal 2025. Higher costs for an increase in health care enrollments, payroll and equipment purchases all fell within original budget estimates, the lawmakers said.
“No benefits shortfall ever existed, and much of the information your leadership team has provided about a purported health care shortfall is erroneous,” Bost and Carter wrote in a sharply worded letter sent Friday to VA Secretary Denis McDonough.
The lawmakers accused VA leaders of “an utter inability to forecast and determine costs accurately.” “For the sake of veterans’ and taxpayers’ remaining confidence in the VA, we urge you to come clean about this situation,” Bost and Carter wrote in the letter.
https://www.stripes.com/veterans/2024-11-01/veterans-budget-shortfall-house-lawmakers-15700575.html