The Veterans Affairs Department is turning up the scrutiny for all of its information technology, professional services and any other new contracts valued at least at $10 million.
A new memo from Joseph Maletta, the acting principal executive director in the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction and acting chief acquisition officer, establishes the requirement of approval from two U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Service representatives after the assigned senior advisor completed their review.
“No new contracts can be signed or modified unless and until Mr. [Christopher] Roussos or Mr. [Cary] Volpert have provided review and approval,” said the May 13 memo, which Federal News Network obtained.
“VA contracting officers shall provide Messrs. Roussos and Volpert a minimum of seven days for review. Furthermore, in order for Mr. Roussos and Mr. Volpert to conduct their review thoroughly, VA’s Acting Senior Procurement Executive will send Messrs. Roussos and Volpert weekly spreadsheets of all applicable contracts in descending order from most recent option period to least recent option period. Messrs. Roussos and Volpert will exclusively schedule all reviews and calendar invitations for the review sessions in order to prevent last-minute and incomplete reviews right before the option period.”
VA spokesman Peter Kasperowicz told Federal News Network the agency initiated these reviews of IT, professional services and any contract over $10 million “as these are areas where the department has already identified unnecessary spending as part of its larger review of VA’s 76,000 active contracts.”
The larger review came in February and March when VA initially cancelled 875 “consulting contracts” and had to pause the effort after realizing it may have impacted veterans’ services. In the end, VA cancelled 585 “mission-critical or duplicative contracts,” after reviewing nearly 2,000 professional services deals.
Added scrutiny to lead to delays?
Former VA contracting executives and industry experts say this new level of scrutiny and review while a good idea, shouldn’t get in the way of delivering mission services.
“I think extra scrutiny is always welcome so long as it doesn’t add to bureaucracy nor delay service to the veterans,” said Mike Parrish, the former VA CAO during the Biden administration, who left his position in December. “The reviewers must have the experience to understand the mission and how each given contract directly relates to positively impacting our veterans.”
It’s unclear if either Volpert or Roussos have that necessary experience.
WIRED reported in April that “Volpert, who is listed as a senior adviser to the chief of staff, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. On a third-party job site Volpert is listed as the founder of a startup called Lindy Live, which once offered social engagement for senior citizens. According to documents viewed by WIRED, Volpert has been reviewing VA contracts with what appears to be the intent of canceling those agreements. Roussos is the former CEO of 24 Hour Fitness and most recently was CEO of AllerVie Health, an allergy and immunology startup, according to his LinkedIn profile. Last February, he became chair of the company’s board of directors. He is also listed as an adviser to the chief of staff at the VA.”
Parrish and other VA experts say experience in VA matters and understanding the best ways to meet veterans’ needs is the only thing that should be taken into account.
“As long as there is an independent set of eyes the contract, that should be sufficient. I think there is a high potential that this could add more bureaucracy since there is a senior advisor check in place as well,” Parrish said.
Data from Deltek, the market research firm, shows that in fiscal 2024 alone VA awarded more than 1,500 IT contracts and more than 3,200 professional services contracts. Divided over 12 months, Volpert and Roussos could have to approve roughly 391 contracts a month.
One industry source, who is familiar with VA’s contracting process, said it’s unclear how these reviews will be able keep up with the pace of contracting.
“It will create more of a bottleneck and VA seems to already had one around contracts,” said the source, who requested anonymity because they work closely with the agency and fear retaliation. “The contracting process is brought to halt when these guys are final approvals. It could delay the roll out of new systems or other things that VA is trying to do in different areas. That is a real possibility that things could fall further behind. There are also a lot of questions about this process, including what’s going to happen when they decide not to approve a contract? Do they cancel it or make the contacting officer go back and reopen negotiations? Do they even know enough to do that?”
VA spokesman Kasperowicz said the contracting officers will have to plan appropriately and “provide the requisite justifications to ensure the reviews are completed on time and the contracts are approved on time.”
Greg Giddens, a former principal executive director for the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction for VA and now a partner with Potomac Ridge Consulting, said another big concern is VA is initiating this change entering the federal fiscal fourth quarter, where spending tends to be highest.
“This is especially true for all the crush of procurement activity that typically happens in the last quarter of the fiscal year. Having a smooth workflow process will be critical,” he said. “It will be key for the program offices to recognize this shift and plan the additional time into the overall acquisition process. This is not just something that should fall on the shoulders of the contracting community. One suggestion would be for them to include a similar review before a solicitation is published. That way, if it is not a priority and is not something to be funded, it can be stopped early in the process. Waiting until the award is ready to be made puts a lot of resources, time and money, at risk for both the government and industry. You want to kill a program as early as you can, so you don’t spend any more resources on it.”
Parrish said he initiated similar reviews starting in 2022 as part of the implementation of the Made In America Act. VA even created an internal tool, called ADDSUP, that consolidated data from about 20 disparate systems to help manage and optimize contracts to provide needed visibility into what VA was purchasing at the enterprise level.
Michael Parrish is the former chief acquisition officer and principal executive director for the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction at the Department of Veteran Affairs.
“This process is similar to the one we did for Made in America where I was personally the final reviewer of any non-compliant purchase,” Parrish said. “We had some of this scrutiny in place where the CFO, CIO and myself as the CAO reviewed every major contract. More importantly, we made sure we were reviewing each project early in the acquisition process at requirements step and not at the final award step. That’s why there were not a lot of new major programs coming out over the last few years because were scrutinizing them at the beginning of the process.”
With the added focus on cost reduction, Parrish said putting this independent review at the beginning of the process to ensure a potential contract meets the administrations requirements could help reduce workload up front.
Experts say these types of reviews are never a bad idea as they do highlight duplication or opportunities for consolidation, but they hardly ever find fraud or abuse.
One industry source said that VA’s review seems to duplicate those already done by the General Services Administration.
“The end goal has always been a government that’s faster, smarter and truly serves the American people—and technology can get us there. But to make real progress, it’s time to move past unrealistic timelines and duplicative reviews that waste time and slow everything down,” said the source, who requested anonymity, for fear of retaliation.
Giddens said on the positive side, the requirement for reviews could bring more thought to whether the exercising of options is necessary.
“Too many times, exercise an option becomes automatic and there is not a deliberative process to validate the continued priority/need and to validate that value is being provided. I believe the overall concern is ensuring contracts and contract dollars are going to support the administration priorities and that there is a clear value proposition behind the investment,” he said. “One second order affect will be that VA leadership sees how many transactions the VA does across its functional areas. I believe the reviews will highlight additional opportunities for category management as the two reviewers will start to see some similar efforts come across for approval.”
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