WASHINGTON — The future of a new VA hospital in Aurora was put in doubt Thursday after a congressional deal to fund the troubled project fell apart.
The impasse raises the possibility that work on the $1.73 billion facility could grind to a halt in a matter of weeks.
Congress now has only a few legislative days left to reach agreement on how to keep money flowing to a project that’s been called the “biggest construction failure in VA’s history.”
A major issue is the sheer amount of money needed to finish it.
Since the Department of Veterans Affairs revealed in March that the cost of the Aurora hospital to $1.73 billion, policymakers have scrambled to identify an additional $830 million in funding the VA says it needs to complete the facility.
One idea, proposed by the Obama administration, would have the VA from a $5 billion fund that Congress created last year to make the agency more efficient.
But the proposal has gotten pushback from key lawmakers, who want the VA to find money from elsewhere in its budget.
With no clear path forward, lawmakers were negotiating separately on a short-term deal to keep workers on the job for a few weeks.
Even that agreement, however, has hit a wall.
