“The Department of Veterans Affairs is aiming to overhaul its single 30-year-old core accounting system, as part of a financial systems modernization push that follows a more long-term approach to technical reform.”
“The agency appears to be contending with the challenge of modernizing a system that was first launched in the 1980s — a potentially sensitive process considering the sheer breadth of service lines dependent on an antiquated foundation. The solution may lie in a more gradual approach that allows the VA to fine tune a new financial services system without outpacing other modernization initiatives or interrupting core business processes, said VA Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Business Operations Avie Snow at the AGA Financial Systems Summit last week in Washington, D.C.”
“Snow highlighted two prior failed initiatives that have been instrumental in encouraging a more procedural blueprint going forward…”
“While VA modernization has been well funded, and the agency itself is quite expansive, Snow sees this as an essential reason for following a more gradual approach to systems reform…”
“Similarly, Snow admitted that the VA’s stature and breadth of managed services has instilled caution in overhauling systems that cross the entire agency. VA leadership appears to be prioritizing initiatives that more immediately impact veterans, preferring to manage core system changes in a way that enables — rather than interrupts — these modernization efforts…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA Aiming for Gradual Reforms of Finance Management System – By Adam Patterson, January 13, 2020. GovernmentCIO.
