Washington – The Department of Veterans Affairs used prewar data to estimate the cost of caring for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, a mistake that contributed to a $3 billion budget shortfall since 2005, government investigators say.
Asked by lawmakers to examine what led to the agency’s financial troubles in the last two years, the Government Accountability Office said in a report Wednesday that the VA used “unrealistic assumptions, errors in estimation and insufficient data” to project its budget.
The VA failed to estimate correctly the costs for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans partly because it could not get accurate information from the Defense Department, the GAO found.
The agency also failed to tell Congress in a timely way that it was struggling to meet its expenses. The problems led officials to request an extra $3 billion last year, according to the GAO.
Democrats, who commissioned the report, used it to blast the Bush administration for not adequately caring for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The VA will receive about $31.5 billion to provide health care for about 5.4 million patients this year.
Democrats called on VA Secretary Jim Nicholson to provide an accurate plan for how it will meet veterans’ future needs.
“We should not be running a VA system that is going to be short on the funding for health care,” said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.
VA officials said they had not seen the report and were not immediately able to respond. In comments attached to the report, officials said they agreed with the findings and were working to improve.
