VA Real Property: Realignment May Benefit from Adopting Elements of Defense Base Realignment and Closure Process, Provided Process Challenges Are Addressed
Released: 2017-10-12T00:00:00

Letter

VA’s Efforts to Align its Facilities Are Affected by Several Factors and Are Impeded by Limitations in Its Capital-planning Processes

Facility Alignment Is Challenged by Shifting Veterans’ Populations, Evolving Care Standards, Aging Infrastructure, and Limited Stakeholder Involvement

Geographic shifts in the veterans’ population, changes in health care delivery, an aging infrastructure, and limited stakeholder involvement affect VA’s efforts to align its services and real property portfolio to meet the needs of veterans. For example, there has been a shift over time from inpatient to outpatient care. This shift will likely result in underutilized space once used for inpatient care. In such instances, it is often difficult and costly for VA to modernize, renovate, and retrofit these older facilities. In June 2017, VA reported that its facility inventory includes 430 vacant or mostly vacant buildings that are, on average, more than 60 years old, and an additional 784 buildings that are underutilized.

The historic status of some VA facilities adds to the complexity of converting or disposing of them. In 2014, VA reported holding 2,957 historic buildings, structures, or land parcels—the third most in the federal government after DOD and the Department of the Interior. In some instances, it may be more expensive to renovate than to demolish and rebuild outdated facilities. In other cases, however, there may not be an option to demolish if these buildings are designated as historic. For example, planning officials at four medical facilities in our review told us that state historic preservation efforts prevented the VA from demolishing vacant buildings, even though these buildings require upkeep costs and pose potential safety hazards. (See fig. 1.)

VA has also encountered challenges to its facility alignment efforts, in part, because it has not consistently followed best practices for effectively engaging stakeholders. VA may align its facilities to meet veterans’ needs by expanding or consolidating facilities or services. Stakeholders— including veterans; local, state, and federal officials; Veterans Service Organizations; historic preservation groups; VA staff; and Congress— often view changes as working against their interests or those of their constituents, especially when services are eliminated or shifted from one location to another. We found that VA has not consistently engaged with stakeholders, and, in some cases, this inconsistency resulted in adversarial relationships that reduced VA’s ability to better align facilities with the needs of the veteran population.

In our April 2017 report, we recommended that VA improve stakeholder communication guidance and evaluate its efforts. VA agreed with our recommendations and outlined a plan to implement them.

Limitations in VA’s Capital- planning Processes Impede Its Alignment of Facilities SCIP Process

Two of the planning processes VA uses to align its facilities—VA’s Strategic Capital Investment Planning (SCIP) and the VA Integrated Planning (VAIP)—have limitations.

VA relies on the SCIP process to plan and prioritize capital projects system-wide, but SCIP’s limitations—including subjective narratives, long timeframes, and restricted access to information—undermine VA’s ability to achieve its goals. For example, the time between when planning officials at VA medical facilities begin developing the SCIP narratives and when they are notified that a project is funded has taken between 17 and 23 months over the past 6 fiscal-year’s SCIP submissions. (See fig. 2.) As such, VA routinely asks its facility planners to submit their next year’s planned project narratives before knowing if their project submissions from the previous year have been funded.

An official from the office that oversees SCIP told us that the timing of the budgeting process, which is outside VA’s control, contributes to these delays. While these aspects are outside of VA’s control, VA has chosen to wait about 6 to 10 months to report the results of the SCIP scoring process to the medical facilities. This situation makes it difficult for local officials to understand the likelihood that their projects will receive funding. A VA official said that for future SCIP cycles, VA plans to release the scoring results for minor construction and non-recurring maintenance projects to local officials earlier in the process. At the time of our review, however, the official did not have a time frame for when VA would do this. Although VA acknowledges many of these limitations, it has taken little action in response. Federal standards for internal control state that agencies should evaluate and determine appropriate corrective action for identified limitations on a timely basis. If VA does not address known limitations with the SCIP process, it will not have reasonable assurance that SCIP can be used to accurately identify the capital necessary to address VA’s service and infrastructure gaps.

In our April 2017 report, we recommended that VA address identified limitations to the SCIP process, including limitations to scoring and approval, and access to information. VA concurred with the recommendation to the extent the limitations were within its control. While VA has taken some actions, the recommendation remains open.

VAIP Process

The VAIP process produces a market-level health services delivery plan for each Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) and a facility master plan for each medical facility. VA has estimated the entire process to create plans for VISNs and facilities to cost $108 million when fully complete. However, the VAIP process’s facility master plans assume all future growth in services will be provided directly through VA facilities. This assumption is not accurate given that (1) VA obligated about $10.1 billion to purchase care from non-VA providers in fiscal year 2015 and (2) VA can provide care directly through its medical facilities or purchase health care services from non-VA providers through both the Non-VA Medical Care Program (referred to as “care in the community” by VA) and clinical contracts. The Office of Management and Budget’s acquisition guidance notes that investments in major capital assets should be made only if no alternative private sector source can support the function at a lower cost.

In our April 2017 report, we recommended that VA assess the value of the VAIP’s facility master plans as a facility-planning tool, and based on conclusions from the review, to either (1) discontinue the development of VAIP’s facility master plans or (2) address the limitations of VAIP’s facility master plans. VA concurred with the recommendation, and in August 2017, VA noted that it has discontinued its VAIP facility master plans while VA pursues a national realignment strategy, after which it plans to adjust its future facility master plans to incorporate pertinent information, including care in the community realignment opportunities.

Key Elements and Challenges Affecting DOD and the Commission in BRAC 2005

Key Elements That DOD Used to Develop Its 2005 BRAC Recommendations That Could Benefit VA Asset and Infrastructure Review

As Congress evaluates proposed legislation for disposing of or realigning VA property, it may wish to consider seven elements DOD relied on as it developed its recommendations for the BRAC Commission.

Establish goals for the process. The Secretary of Defense emphasized the importance of transforming the military to make it more efficient as part of the 2005 BRAC round. Other goals for the 2005 BRAC process included fostering jointness among the four military services, reducing excess infrastructure, and producing savings. Prior rounds focused more on reducing excess infrastructure and producing savings.

Develop criteria for evaluating closures and realignments. DOD proposed selection criteria, which were made available for public comment via the Federal Register. Ultimately, Congress enacted the final BRAC selection criteria in law with minor modification and specified that four selection criteria, known as the “military value criteria,” were to be given priority in developing closure and realignment recommendations. Further, Congress required that the Secretary of Defense develop and submit to Congress a force structure plan that described the estimated size of major military units needed to address probable threats to national security for the 20- year period beginning in 2005, along with a comprehensive inventory of global military installations. In authorizing the 2005 BRAC round, Congress specified that the Secretary of Defense publish a list of recommendations for the closure and realignment of military installations inside the United States based on the statutorily-required 20-year force structure plan and infrastructure inventory, and on the final selection criteria.

Estimate costs and savings to implement closure and realignment recommendations. To address the cost and savings criteria, DOD developed and used the Cost of Base Realignment Actions (COBRA) model, a quantitative tool that DOD has used since the 1988 BRAC round to provide consistency in potential cost, savings, and return-on-investment estimates for closure and realignment options. We found the COBRA model to be a generally reasonable estimator for comparing potential costs and savings among alternatives. (See fig. 3.)

As with any model, the quality of the output from COBRA was a direct function of the data DOD included in the model. Also, DOD’s COBRA model relied to a large extent on standard factors and averages and did not represent budget quality estimates that were developed once BRAC decisions were made and detailed implementation plans were developed. Nonetheless, the financial information provided important input into the selection process as decision makers weighed the financial implications—along with military value criteria and other considerations—in arriving at final decisions about the suitability of various closure and realignment options.

Establish an organizational structure. The Office of the Secretary of Defense emphasized the need for joint cross-service groups to analyze common business-oriented functions. For the 2005 BRAC round, as for the 1993 and 1995 rounds, these joint cross-service groups performed analyses and developed closure and realignment options in addition to those developed by the military departments. Our evaluation of DOD’s 1995 BRAC round found that few cross- service recommendations were made, in part because of the lack of high-level leadership to encourage consolidations across the departments’ functions. In the 1995 BRAC round, the joint cross- service groups submitted options through the military services for approval, but few were approved. The number of approved recommendations that the joint cross-service groups developed significantly increased in the 2005 BRAC round. This increase was, in part, because high-level leadership ensured that the options were approved not by the military departments but rather by a DOD senior- level group, known as the Infrastructure Steering Group. As shown in figure 4, the Infrastructure Steering Group was placed organizationally on par with the military departments.

Establish a common analytical framework. To ensure that the selection criteria were consistently applied, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the military departments, and the seven joint cross- service groups first performed a capacity analysis of facilities and functions. Before developing the candidate recommendations, DOD’s capacity analysis relied on data calls to hundreds of locations to obtain certified data to assess such factors as maximum potential capacity, current capacity, current usage, and excess capacity. Then, the military departments and joint cross-service groups performed a military value analysis for the facilities and functions based on primary military value criteria, which included a facility’s or function’s current and future mission capabilities, physical condition, ability to accommodate future needs, and cost of operations.

Develop BRAC oversight mechanisms to improve accountability for implementation. In the 2005 BRAC round, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for the first time required the military departments to develop business plans to better inform the Office of the Secretary of Defense of the status of implementation and financial details for each of the BRAC 2005 recommendations. These business plans included: (1) information such as a listing of all actions needed to implement each recommendation; (2) schedules for personnel relocations between installations; and (3) updated cost and savings estimates by DOD based on current information. This approach permitted senior-level intervention if warranted to ensure completion of the BRAC recommendations by the statutory completion date.

Involve the audit community to better ensure data accuracy. The DOD Inspector General and military department audit agencies played key roles in identifying data limitations, pointing out needed corrections, and improving the accuracy of the data used in the process. In their oversight roles, the audit organizations, which had access to relevant information and officials as the process evolved, helped to improve the accuracy of the data used in the BRAC process and thus strengthened the quality and integrity of the data used to develop closure and realignment recommendations. For example, the auditors worked to ensure certified information was used for BRAC analysis and reviewed other facets of the process, including the various internal control plans, the COBRA model, and other modeling and analytical tools that were used in the development of recommendations.

Key Challenges Affecting DOD and the Commission in BRAC 2005

We identified two key challenges that affected DOD’s implementation of BRAC 2005 and would need to be addressed for VA to adopt a BRAC- like process for its asset and infrastructure review.

Some transformational-type BRAC recommendations required sustained senior leadership attention and a high level of coordination among many stakeholders to complete by the required date. Implementation of some transformational BRAC recommendations—especially those where a multitude of organizations had roles to play to ensure the achievement of the goals of the recommendation—illustrated the need to involve key stakeholders and effective planning. For example, the Defense Logistics Agency committed sustained high-level leadership and included relevant stakeholders to address implementation challenges faced with the potential for disruptions to depot operations during implementation of the BRAC consolidation recommendation. To implement the BRAC recommendations, the agency had to develop strategic agreements with the services that ensured that all stakeholders agreed on its plans for implementation, and had to address certain human capital and information technology challenges.

Large number of actions and interdependent recommendations complicated the implementation process. The large number and variety of BRAC actions presented challenges during implementation. The BRAC 2005 round had more individual actions (813) than the four prior rounds combined (387). The executive staff of the Commission told us that it was more difficult to assess the costs and the amount of time for the savings to offset the implementation costs since many of the recommendations contained multiple interdependent actions, all of which needed to be reviewed. Specifically, many of the BRAC 2005 recommendations were interdependent and had to be completed in a sequential fashion within the statutory implementation period. In cases where interdependent recommendations required multiple relocations of large numbers of personnel, delays in completing one BRAC recommendation had a cascading effect on the implementation of other recommendations. Specifically, DOD had to synchronize the relocations of over 123,000 people with about $24.7 billion in new construction or renovation. Commission officials told us that in prior BRAC rounds each base was handled by a single integrated recommendation. However, in BRAC 2005, many installations were simultaneously affected by multiple interconnected BRAC recommendations. Given the complexity of interdependent recommendations, the Office of the Secretary of Defense required the military departments and defense agencies to provide periodic updates on implementation challenges and progress.

Chairman Roe, Ranking Member Walz, and Members of the Committee, this concludes our prepared statement. We are happy to answer any questions related to our work on VA’s efforts to align its medical facilities and services or on DOD’s BRAC process.

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

If you or your staff members have any questions concerning this testimony, please contact David Wise at (202) 512-2834 or wised@gao.gov regarding federal real property, or Brian Lepore at (202) 512-4523 or leporeb@gao.gov regarding the BRAC process. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement. Other individuals who made key contributions to this testimony include Keith Cunningham, Assistant Director; Gina Hoffman, Assistant Director; Tracy Barnes; Jeff Mayhew; Kevin Newak; Richard Powelson; Malika Rice; Jodie Sandel; Eric Schwab; Amelia M. Weathers; and Crystal Wesco.

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