WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, are calling on U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary David Shulkin to take immediate action to remove the Veterans Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) “High Risk List.” The Veterans Health Administration has been included on the list since 2015.

The VA was identified as ‘high risk’ by the GAO due to ambiguous policies, outdated Information Technology (IT) systems, inadequate accountability measures and insufficient training for staff. The senators called for the VA to complete an internal analysis by June 1, 2017.

“Despite being initially placed on the list in 2015, it may still take the VA until this summer to have completed a root cause analysis of the significant challenges identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office,” the senators wrote to VA Secretary David Shulkin. “Without an in-depth review, the VA cannot expect to overcome the issues and be removed from the list. We strongly urge you to take this placement seriously, and cease delay on completing a root cause analysis.”

The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held a hearing last month on the inclusion of the VA on the GAO’s 2017 “High Risk List” and found that the VA has not completed a full analysis to identify the practices that caused the agency to be placed on the list.

At the beginning of every Congress, the independent, nonpartisan U.S. GAO produces a list of what it deems ‘high risk’ federal agencies and programs, bringing special attention to agencies or programs that may be susceptible to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. View the GAO 2017 high risk report here.

The senators’ letter to Shulkin can be found here. 

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The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 115th Congress. Isakson is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs since he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000 veterans.