Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton A couple of months ago, we covered your first report in this disaster assistance high-risk series where you looked at the federal response workforce. You’re back with report number two, looking at state and local response capabilities. Talk to us about the headlines.

Chris Currie The headline for this report is that the capabilities of state and local governments across the country vary drastically for a disaster or other type of event. You know, what we did is we actually look at data that the states prepare and provide to FEMA as part of their justification for federal preparedness grants. It’s meant to be a very, very honest self-assessment of capabilities. And for that reason, we actually don’t provide states individually, we sort of roll it up and wrap it up anonymously because some of that information, as you imagine, could be sensitive. We looked at states that have been involved in major disasters over the last two to three years, and some of these states are very experienced, large states, and even they vary in terms of their capabilities. There’s actually 32 capabilities that FEMA sets in the National Preparedness System that you want to achieve to be prepared to respond for a disaster or a large event. And states vary. Some of the areas, they were less than 10% prepared — met less than 10% of those capabilities — and others, they were much more. So the reason that’s important right now is to understand that if you were to change the support that FEMA and the federal government provide to states quickly, then they’re going to have capability gaps that are going to have to get filled.

Terry Gerton Let’s talk about some of the support that FEMA does provide. One of the ways that they support the states is through preparedness grants, and those help build local capacity. What did you find as you dug into the preparedness grants?

Chris Currie Those preparedness grants started after 9/11, and since 9/11, there’s been over $60 billion provided to states. It’s the main way that the federal government transfers funds to state and local governments to get them ready to handle something bad that could happen, not just a natural disaster, but it could be a terrorist attack. And those grants have built capabilities tremendously over the years. But those capabilities change over time, and we identify through real-world events and exercises the gaps that still need to be addressed. So I’ll give you a great example. After Hurricane Helene and after other disasters, housing for disaster survivors is always a perennial challenge. Housing is a capability area that is assessed and we want to build up through these preparedness grants. It’s an area that states, even very experienced disaster states, still fall short of in terms of their capabilities. And the federal government kind of comes in after a disaster and provides a lot of that support because states don’t. So if the federal governments not going to provide it, then someone else is going to have to provide it. And that’s going to be someone at the state or local level.

Terry Gerton Talk to me about the flexibility and the allocation framework for these grants. Is it meeting requirements? Does it seem to be focused on the places that have the greatest need?

Chris Currie There’s a couple different ways they’re given out. There’s a portion of the grants that are supposed to go towards certain national priorities, and FEMA sets those targets. So think about things like election security or other national priorities. But then a large part of the grant, they’re discretionary, and the states can use them and they’re supposed to use them in the areas where they assess they have gaps. And that’s the data I was talking about earlier that we provided. For example, certain states may have gaps in their ability to handle a mass casualty situation or may struggle to house disaster survivors because they don’t have a lot of housing stock or rental. So those are things they’re supposed to identify and then target those grants towards those specific areas, which makes sense. You want to close your gaps so you’re ready to go when something happens.

Terry Gerton FEMA also provides a great deal of training and technical assistance. How effective has that been in helping states be ready?

Chris Currie This is, I think, one of the biggest success stories since Hurricane Katrina. If you remember Hurricane Katrina, the issue was the role of various levels of government was not clear, and thus, nobody stepped up and was proactive in responding to that event. And people lost their lives. Since that time, the National Preparedness System and FEMA leading that has been extremely effective through exercises, through training, through just regional relationships in taking care of a lot of those problems. So today we are way more proactive and responsive to disasters than we were 20 years ago in Hurricane Katrina. So that’s a huge success story. Having said that, a disaster is a disaster. There’s always going to be things that happen that you don’t expect. And there’s areas where states still have major gaps and require resources and people to address those. And the federal government comes in fills a lot of those gaps. Here’s a great example. Hurricane Helene happened and devastated a very remote part of our country in places like rural Tennessee and North Carolina and Virginia. States and localities don’t have the search and rescue assets for such a large swath of that kind of terrain. Federal government provided a lot of that. They provided a lot of the air support, the land support, the temporary bridges — Army Corps of Engineers. You know, the federal government really kicks in when something’s too big for a state or locality to handle.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Chris Currie. He’s director, Homeland Security and Justice at GAO. So Chris, all of this begs the question. This administration has been very clear that it wants states and localities to pick up more of the disaster response mission and that it wants a much smaller FEMA. Given what you found in your first study about the federal response workforce and the impacts of downsizing there, and now the variability in state and local readiness, what are the implications for national disaster response?

Chris Currie I want to make one thing really clear, because all I know is what we know now and the data that we’ve looked at. And I want it to be clear that nothing has changed in terms of FEMA’s responsibilities today. There’s been a lot of talk about it. There’s the president’s council that studied it. But there has been no change so far. So FEMA is still responsible for what it was responsible for two years ago. They have lost some staff. We looked at that in our first report, as you mentioned. They have lost about 1,000 staff, and maybe a little bit more than that, at this point, but they haven’t been cut drastically or cut in half as has been discussed. So they still have the same responsibilities and they’re still performing the same functions on disasters throughout the country, even though last year we didn’t have a huge land-falling hurricane. So what’s important about that is that everybody’s waiting to hear what the next steps are going to be and what’s going to happen to FEMA. One of the things we wanted to do in this report is we wanted to provide a comprehensive picture of preparedness to show what’s going to be necessary if that FEMA support is pulled back or FEMA is made smaller. And the bottom line is that states and localities are going to have to do more. However, it’s going to be critical that they have the time to prepare for that. For example, a lot of the assistance that’s provided to individual survivors, like cash payments and housing, that comes from the federal government. It does not come from the state or local government. So if FEMA is not going to be providing that, the state of the locality is going to have to fill that need. And that requires a lot of money and a lot preparation and planning that you can’t just turn on in a heartbeat. You don’t want to start figuring out programs to help people after a disaster happens.

Terry Gerton You bring up a good point on that time to prepare. As you did the survey, you talked to lots of state and local response officials. What did they tell you, beyond time to prepare, that they were going to need to be effective?

Chris Currie Very simple: Just tell us what we need to do. Tell us what were going to expect from you, the federal government. Nobody knows right now. The FEMA Council has not finished its work. There has been reform legislation introduced in the House and in the Senate, but nothing has passed yet. So the key message is, tell us what the roles and responsibilities are going to be so we know what to prepare for, so we don’t get caught flat-footed in the case of something really bad happening. One of my fears is that last year, like I said, we didn’t have a large land-falling hurricane. It was the first year in a long time we did not. We did not have a catastrophic disaster, other than Los Angeles fires early in the year. So my fear is that folks are going to look at last year and say, hey, things have gone pretty well. We don’t need to be thinking about it. And that is an absolute mistake. Because we’ve seen in years like 2017, 2018, 2024 — my fear is we’re going to have another situation this year or next with multiple concurrent disasters, and we’re just not going to the resources to deal with them.

Terry Gerton So what will you be watching for in the next few months to see if Congress and the federal government and the states have taken your recommendations on board?

Chris Currie Well, when the FEMA Council report comes out, I would like to see, in whatever the execution is for FEMA reform or the changes in how the system works now, an understanding of how this needs to be rolled out so states and localities can prepare and have as clear roles and responsibilities as possible. We’d also like to see them address many of the problems that we’ve pointed out. And to be clear, we’ve pointed out a number of issues with FEMA, particularly in the frustrating recovery phase. I want to see that they’re making sure that we don’t break what’s not broken and we fix the issues that are broken. And there are a number those things.

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The Pentagon doesn’t know exactly how many civilian employees telework or work remotely across the Department of Defense, according to the Government Accountability Office.

While DoD has good data on which positions are eligible for telework or remote work, it does not consistently track whether civilian employees are actually using those programs. As a result, official figures have at times overstated remote work usage by counting eligible positions instead of the number of employees approved to telework or work remotely, a new watchdog report shows.

In May 2024, for instance — a period within the December 2021 to February 2025 span reviewed in the new GAO report — the Pentagon publicly reported it had 61,549 remote employees. One month later, however, the Defense Department told GAO it had 35,558 remote workers.

“The reason that happened is because they were reporting position eligibility. They were not reporting the individual employees. That’s exactly what we found — they had good data on the positions eligible but didn’t have such good data on who was actually using those programs,” Alissa Czyz, director of defense capabilities and management at GAO, told Federal News Network.

“We found that two-thirds of the positions in 2024 were eligible for telework, but the data were not very good when you got to the individual employee level,” she added.

Czyz said her team found that most DoD civilians were already working in person even before the current return-to-office policy, and that fully remote workers made up only a tiny fraction of the workforce.

“According to our data, the vast majority of civilians — about 81% — were in person. About 1% were doing remote work. That perception that large amounts of federal employees were teleworking, at least at the Department of Defense, did not bore out in our analysis,” Czyz said. 

Since President Donald Trump terminated remote work for federal employees, about 8% of the DoD civilian workforce — roughly 62,000 employees — had not returned to in-person work. About 6%, or 45,000 workers, did not return to office after accepting offers for deferred resignation. The government used the deferred resignation program last year to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Another 2%, or about 17,000 people, did not return due to reasonable accommodations.

No formal review of telework, remote work

Office of Personnel Management guidance requires agencies to evaluate how telework and remote-work programs affect their mission, employee recruitment and retention, and operating costs. However, GAO found that the Defense Department has not evaluated the impact of those programs on the department’s broader goals.

While there were scattered efforts across the department to assess some aspects of telework and remote work, there was no comprehensive, departmentwide evaluation of both benefits and drawbacks of those programs. One data source — the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey — previously included telework-related questions, but OPM canceled the survey this year. 

Czyz said her team was able to gather some anecdotal feedback on telework and remote work, with DoD officials citing benefits such as improved communication, recruitment advantages for hard-to-fill positions and potential cost reductions. Some disadvantages included reduced in-person collaboration and decreased morale among employees who were not eligible for telework. But ultimately officials were not able to provide concrete data demonstrating cost savings or other outcomes.

“I mean, the bottom line was they were not conducting formal evaluations of telework or remote work,” Czyz said. “There was maybe some anecdotal cost savings with reduction in office space and that sort of thing, but there had been no formal evaluation of cost savings in the department.”

DoD also hasn’t assessed whether increased in-person requirements have created new costs, but GAO is examining those potential increases as part of a separate review of the department’s use of office space. That review comes as DoD seeks to reduce its office footprint while simultaneously bringing employees back to the office. GAO expects to release that report in early spring.

The Pentagon updated its telework policy in 2024 for the first time since 2012, instructing DoD components to “actively promote” telework and remote work and to eliminate barriers to program execution through education and training. The department has since rolled back the policy.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.

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• A government watchdog found that the Defense Department has never formally evaluated telework and remote work programs against agency goals. DoD officials, however, reported “perceived” benefits and challenges. The Government Accountability Office said without formal evaluation of these programs, DoD cannot determine whether these programs help meet agency goals. While defense officials told GAO that their use of these flexibilities improved productivity, efficiency, and recruitment and retention, some officials said that telework reduced opportunities for collaboration and information sharing and decreased morale. The watchdog also found that the data on the number of teleworkers and remote workers DoD previously reported is likely inaccurate.
  (DoD never formally evaluated telework, remote work programs, watchdog finds - Government Accountability Office)
• The Defense Department is putting additional safeguards around the research it funds. The Pentagon is telling the military services and defense agencies to review fundamental research awards to ensure there is no foreign influence, intellectual property theft or any other form of exploitation that could threaten the security and economic interests of the country. A new memo from Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael establishes additional oversight requirements to protect government funded research. Along with the reviews of awards, DoD will establish a department-wide Fundamental Research Risk Review Repository to improve information collection and sharing across all components. It also will develop automated vetting and continuous monitoring capabilities to help detect and mitigate foreign influence risks.
  (DoD mandates additional oversight for research awards - Department of Defense)
• The Labor Department recovered more than a quarter billion dollars in back wages for American workers last year. That’s the most money the department’s Wage and Hour Division has recovered in a single year since 2019. Those back wages went out to nearly 177,000 employees. On average, that's more than $1,400 per employee. The department has launched new tools aimed at helping employers stay informed of their obligations.
  (Labor Department recovers more than $259M in back wages for workers in 2025 - Labor Department)
• The Air and Space Forces are "aggressively" implementing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition reforms. The services are replacing program executive offices with new organizations called portfolio acquisition executives. The Air Force has already redesignated five program executive offices as portfolio acquisition executives, including those overseeing Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) and Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3). Meanwhile, the Space Force has designated its first tranche of mission areas to be overseen by portfolio acquisition executives, including space access and space based sensing and targeting.
  (Air Force, Space Force replace program offices with portfolio acquisition executives - Space Force)
• Cohesity became the 22nd company to sign up for an enterprise software deal under GSA’s OneGov program. Under the agreement, GSA said agencies can buy Cohesity’s cybersecurity data protection and replication tools at a discount of more than 72% off the company's GSA schedule price. Agencies also have access to other Cohesity offerings, such as its FedShield tool bundle at discounted prices. The prices are good through September 2027. GSA’s contract with Cohesity is the third OneGov deal with a cybersecurity firm since December.
  (GSA adds third cyber firm since December to OneGov program - General Services Administration)
• Clearer numbers on the federal workforce are coming into view from the Office of Personnel Management. A new OPM website contains a far more detailed and modernized view on the federal workforce, compared with its predecessor, FedScope. The new platform also reaffirms the significant reshaping the federal workforce experienced over the last year. OPM’s numbers reveal a major drop in workforce size, a decline in federal union representation and far fewer telework hours.
  (OPM data overhaul reveals deeper federal workforce insights - Federal News Network)
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons is offering retention bonuses to correctional officers and other frontline positions, in an effort to address staffing challenges. The size of the pay incentive depends on the employee’s position and the staffing level at their facility. The retention bonuses will take effect in February, and will be reviewed annually, according to the agency. But federal union officials are urging a more permanent pay fix for the BOP, which has faced years of significant understaffing.
  (Update on BOP retention incentives - Federal Bureau of Prisons)
• The Social Security Administration is rolling out nationwide systems in the coming months that will impact how the agency triages its workload to employees. Someone applying for SSA benefits in California could soon be speaking to an employee in Maine. The agency is rolling out systems in March that will allow employees to tackle a nationwide inventory of cases. SSA employees say they’re used to processing claims submitted locally and that these changes could make their work much more complicated. The agency lost about 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year.
  (Social Security seeks nationwide system to manage caseload for smaller workforce - Federal News Network)

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Probationary federal employees are on track to see more restrictions when appealing any future terminations, according to a new proposal from the Trump administration.

Under new proposed regulations from the Office of Personnel Management, fired probationary employees would only be able to appeal their termination if they believe it was due to discrimination based on “partisan political reasons” or “marital status” — or if their agency diverged from standard termination procedures.

“These limited grounds of appeal for probationary terminations reflect the historical principle that probationary periods serve as a critical evaluation phase for new federal employees, and thus that agencies should enjoy great flexibility in separating employees serving probationary or trial periods,” OPM wrote in its proposal, which is scheduled to be published Tuesday on the Federal Register.

Generally, OPM’s regulations seek to alter both the latitude and method for probationary federal employees to appeal an agency’s decision to fire them. Along with limiting options for appeal, the proposal would put OPM in charge of adjudicating employees’ cases, rather than the Merit Systems Protection Board.

“Continuing to allow employees to appeal to the MSPB would not be as efficient as OPM adjudicating appeals,” OPM wrote. “MSPB procedures unnecessarily add complexity to a process designed for federal agencies to evaluate whether it is in the public’s interest to retain employees newly hired into the federal service.”

Instead of MSPB, fired probationary employees would rely on OPM’s Merit System Accountability and Compliance (MSAC) office to determine appeals — something OPM said “will provide much needed clarity and efficiency.” OPM also noted that unlike MSPB, the MSAC office does not have board quorum requirements — something that has previously stalled MSPB’s ability to complete some parts of its work.

But under OPM’s proposal, probationary employees would miss out on several key procedures MSPB uses in appeal cases. Currently, federal employees who appeal an adverse action at MSPB are given the right to a hearing, as well as an opportunity for a “discovery” phase to collect more information on the case.

OPM, however, argued that those steps of the process are costly and unnecessary. Under the proposed regulations, OPM in most cases would neither hold appeal hearings nor conduct a “discovery” phase. The agency would simply make decisions based on written records, unless it determines that additional information or a hearing is needed.

“While employees may lack some procedural mechanisms … streamlining the process will not have a consequential impact upon the substantive outcomes of the appeals, while improving the efficiency and consistency of the process,” OPM wrote.

OPM’s proposal marks the latest change the Trump administration is making to the federal probationary period, impacting new federal hires and recently promoted federal employees. OPM said the changes would help streamline and standardize the appeals process, as well as hold probationary employees more accountable.

The Trump administration has repeatedly argued that agencies have not been effectively using the federal probationary period for decades. In the new proposal, OPM pointed to a 2005 MSPB study, as well as a 2015 Government Accountability Office report — both of indicated “pervasive” issues with the probationary period.

“To this day, poor performance in the civil service has not been adequately addressed,” OPM wrote.

Some federal workforce experts, despite agreeing there is a need for probationary period reforms, have argued that the Trump administration’s heavier focus on terminations runs counter to the core purpose of a probationary period: ensuring agencies have highly qualified employees.

OPM’s proposed regulations align with the Trump administration’s broader overhaul of the federal probationary period earlier this year. In June, OPM issued a final rule that cemented an executive order from President Donald Trump.

Under the June rule, probationary employees can be terminated for broader reasons. Agencies can now decide whether to keep probationary employees based on the needs and interests of the agency, whether a probationer’s employment would advance the organizational goals of an agency, and whether it would advance the “efficiency of the service” — on top of considering both performance and conduct.

Additionally, near the end of the probationary period, OPM now requires that agencies affirmatively certify that probationary employees should continue in their new jobs, rather than earning tenure “by default.” And if a probationary employee is being fired, agencies no longer have to give a reason why — they only need to provide a date effective, which can be as soon as “immediately.”

The Trump administration’s changes also come after agencies faced multiple legal battles earlier this year, after firing tens of thousands of probationary employees based on “performance.” In September, a federal judge ruled that the firings were unlawful. Over the course of 2025, federal employees at some agencies were reinstated, while others were re-fired.

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A few thoughts on the year about to close.

Driving on the Donald J. Trump George Washington Memorial Parkway the other day, I was impressed by the progress in the reconstruction of this vital artery. The contractors and the Trump National Park Service planned well, and the road has remained reasonably passable over the past couple of years. Now the trip to the Donald J. Trump John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has gotten easier. Ditto for trips to the Donald J. Trump Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

I’ve always liked where the Parkway runs close to the Trump Potomac River. You can see across to Trump Washington Monument and the Trump Tidal Basin. But, stately as the nation’s capital appears, change and lots of chaos have marked the calendar year about to end.

But seriously, looking at the D.C. skyline, one wonders about the real state of the republic.

If you search “trump timeline,” you’ll find timelines from many interest groups, most of whom feel aggrieved by the second Trump administration. The release of the Epstein files, “undermining elections,” deportation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, reversing energy policies, legal tangling with Harvard University, military activity against Venezuela — Trump activities make for compelling observation. A lot of this is press-induced, and the Trump style eggs it on. Yet norms have stretched.

I would add that only some of what Trump has done is completely original. But he does things, let’s say, in highly original ways. The result is we have two branches of government in contention with one another. The third branch, and the one detailed first in the Constitution, has rendered itself into an observant chorus with no say over the score.

For federal employees, 2025 will rank as the oddest year many have ever endured. It started with the DOGE swarms, slashing their way to and fro. Then came the deferred resignation program and layoffs. Mass return to the office. Cancellation of collective bargaining agreements at several agencies. Difficulties in settling retirement benefits.

So much news, it almost made me regret retiring. The workforce reductions and changes of conditions may all fall within an administration’s discretionary powers. But rough treatment of persons falls outside of decency. Let’s hope it stops in 2026. I remember a time when a new president of a company I worked for brought in a gaggle of MBAs to do cost cutting. The attitudes felt worse than the cuts, and the company eventually disappeared anyhow.

One thing 2025 has taught me: Keep things in perspective. The worst job situations I remember? I can chuckle about them now. That’s what time does. I once secretly flew to New Jersey and back for a job interview — all in a really extended lunch hour. To be honest, the new job seemed dull, and I never got the offer. Luckily, the situation I was seeking to leave changed overnight for the better, the way better. While you are going through cavalier and high-handed treatment, it’s no fun.

And what about the nation you serve? The absence of any serious debate about what the Government Accountability Office politely calls fiscal unsustainability strikes me as the worst quality in Congress and executive branch policy makers.

It’s not as if no one knows that next year alone the federal deficit will add $2 trillion to the $30 trillion national debt. That Social Security outlays increasingly surpass revenues for as far as the eye can see. That healthcare programs exceed the $3 trillion mark. That interest payments on public debt have passed the $1 trillion mark. The absolute numbers are big, and they are worsening when expressed as a percentage of the nation’s economic output.

So my wish for the nation in the year ahead is fact-facing and rationality, especially on the part of so-called lawmakers.

Beyond thinking of any possible policy and programmatic fixes, the government must resolve to become a better steward of the money it does print and spend.

I’m thinking of Minnesota. The federal prosecutor on the Minnesota Medicare fraud scheme described it as “staggering industrial-scale fraud.” As Trump would say, and McDonald’s used to say, billions and billions. The theft — and it is simple, naked theft — is both heartbreaking and maddening. At an estimated $9 billion, it makes the worst armed robbery seem like child’s play. One almost thinks the perpetrators deserve hanging, such is the extent and callous shrewdness of the crimes. But it also evidences a near total breakdown in program planning, execution and oversight — mainly at the state level, but there’s federal responsibility too. Did anyone notice or care that this was going on?

The staff cuts and turmoil have affected constituent service. People I speak to seem amusedly resigned to how places like the IRS, Social Security and the Postal Service operate. Line employees mostly want to serve effectively, but what kind of backing do they get?

The week before Christmas, I stopped in at my local Postal Service office. It’s busy, a beehive of a facility. I recently became president of a very small non-profit foundation, and we needed to move the P.O. box from Virginia to Maryland so I could easily get the incoming donation checks.

On a Thursday morning, only one employee manned the four-bay counter. Efficiently as she worked, still the line kept stretching to nine, then a dozen, people deep. For a reason I only dimly comprehended, I couldn’t complete the transfer because of a mismatch in phone numbers. I straightened it out a couple of days later, when I had the right information. Two clerks were then on duty, and they kept the lines short.

The post My wish for 2026: Rationality in the Trump era first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is embarking on major changes next year. It’s looking to get the rocky rollout of a new Electronic Health Record back on track. VA medical facilities already using the system have been beset with problems for years.

Meanwhile, the VA is planning to roll out the biggest reorganization of its health care operations in decades. Here’s a look ahead at VA’s plans for 2026.

VA EHR next steps

VA is planning for its new EHR from Oracle-Cerner to go live at 13 sites in 2026 — starting with four sites in Michigan in April 2026.

Dr. Neil Evans, acting program executive director of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office, told the technology modernization subcommittee of the House VA Committee that, based on lessons learned from previous go-lives, multiple sites will go live “simultaneously in each deployment wave.”

“This approach allows us to scale up the number of deployments, enhance efficiencies and improve the sharing of best practices within and between markets,” Evans said in a Dec. 15 hearing.

Carol Harris, the director of IT and cybersecurity issues at the Government Accountability Office, told lawmakers it would be “very risky” for VA to plan for simultaneous EHR go-lives.

“It’s going to take a tremendous amount of resources that I’m not quite sure is sustainable for multiple sites at once,” Harris said.

Status of EHR rollout so far

VA’s new EHR is currently running at six sites. Full deployment would bring the EHR to 170 sites. According to Evans, the department currently expects to complete the deployment as soon as 2031.

The VA has been in a “reset” period since April 2023, and paused new go lives until the department addresses persistent outages and usability issues reported by VA medical staff at sites already using the new EHR.

A GAO report in March found that only 13% of VA staff using the new Oracle-Cerner EHR believed that the modernized system made VA as efficient as possible, and 58% of users believed the new system increased patient safety risks.

Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), chairman of the technology modernization subcommittee, said the project’s lifecycle cost has grown to about $37 billion.

“This timeline is locked in, and the countdown is on. But the question remains: When the switch is flipped in April, will the system deliver, and will it do what we need it to do? Are we going to run into snags like we have in the past? For millions of veterans relying on VA hospitals and staff supporting them, this is not something that is theoretical. It’s real. It’s happening and we have to do it right,” Barrett said.

Subcommittee ranking member Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.) said what she has heard from VA and Oracle this year “has not convinced me that VA is ready for launch at 13 facilities in 2026.”

“I have raised many questions with VA and Oracle. But the answers do not give me confidence. In fact, I worry that we are spending billions of dollars while simultaneously setting this program, particularly the six sites that are already live, up for failure,” Budzinski said.

Reaction from the Senate

Senate Democrats are also wary about VA’s EHR rollout plans. In a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said they have “serious concerns” that EHR problems flagged by GAO and the VA inspector general’s office have not been fully addressed

“While we should always strive to innovate and improve the quality of care for veterans, in practice, the rollout of EHRM has been so problematic that it created life-threatening problems and ongoing upheaval for veterans’ ability to get the health care they need,” they wrote.

New VHA leader & VA reorganization plans

Last week, the Senate confirmed John Bartrum, a former senior advisor to Collins, will serve as VA’s under secretary for health.

Bartrum, a combat veteran with more than 40 years of active-duty and reserve military service, previously oversaw policy and funding at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The VA earlier this week announced its intent to reorganize the Veterans Health Administration.

Collins said in a statement that VHA’s current leadership structure “is riddled with redundancies that slow decision making, sow confusion and create competing priorities.”

VA says the changes aren’t expected to result in a significant change in overall staffing levels. But the Washington Post first reported that the VA no longer plans to fill tens of thousands of vacant health care positions.

The VA says it’s briefed lawmakers on the reorganization, and that implementation will take place over the next 18-24 months.

Rather than pursue a reduction in force of more than 80,000 employees, as it had considered earlier this year, the VA shed more than 30,000 positions through attrition in fiscal 2025.

“The department’s history shows that adding more employees to the system doesn’t automatically equal better results,” Collins told lawmakers in May.

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At the recent Professional Services Council’s Vision Conference, one of the presentations on acquisition trends highlighted as many as 10 agency specific multi-award technology contracts that have been cancelled or put on indefinite hold.

These included COMET 2 from the General Services Administration, the Army’s Modern Software contract and the IRS’s digital services blanket purchase agreement.

The leaders of the vision team said agencies made the decision to cancel these and other contracts based on the requirements outlined in President Donald Trump’s executive order from March calling for the consolidation of contracts.

One of those acquisition programs that is bucking the cancellation trend is the Army’s huge multiple award contract for professional services.

The service said in a Dec. 19 posting on SAM.gov that it will proceed with the Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services (MAPS) contract after all.

The Army had shelved the program back in March when the White House issued the EO.

“We are pleased to announce that after careful consideration the Government has decided to PROCEED forward with the MAPS acquisition!” the Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground wrote.

MAPS would bring together two existing contracts, IT Enterprise Solutions-3 Services (ITES-3S) and Responsive Strategic Sourcing for Services 3 (RS3), and would have a 10-year life with a $50 billion ceiling.

The Army planned to combine the two contracts in MAPS back in 2024. Instead of recompeting its RS3 as a vehicle called Ascend and moving to version four of ITES-3S, the Army wanted to create its own broad-based professional services contract. Baker Tilly says in a blog post that the Army awarded RS3 in multiple phases between 2017 and 2019, with 260 companies currently participating in the $37.4 billion vehicle. The advisory firm says the service awarded ITES-3S in 2018 and includes 135 companies, and it has a $12 billion ceiling.

The Army had considered moving its requirements that MAPS will address to OASIS+ since there is some overlap of professional services requirements. Under MAPS, the Army is looking for a wide variety of IT and engineering professional services, including program management, business process reengineering, cybersecurity and many others. Baker Tilly says while more details are coming, it believes “MAPS is currently proposed as a full and open competition with small business reserves. The government intends to make 100 awards in total, 20 awards per domain with an unknown number of small business reserves for each of the five domains.”

Now MAPS is back on tap and the Army will hold an industry day on Jan. 28 at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to discuss the rebooted solicitation.

The Army’s decision comes as the General Services Administration is opening an on-ramp and expanding its OASIS+ contract.

GSA to expand OASIS+

GSA said it will enter phase 2 of OASIS+ on Dec. 4. This means the updated multiple award professional services contract will add five new service domains across all six current contracts. OASIS+ eventually will have 13 total domains. The five news ones are:

• Business administration
• Financial services
• Human capital
• Marketing and public relations
• Social services

GSA says this expansion is a direct response to the market research and feedback it received from federal and industry partners.

“Through in-depth spend analysis, customer engagement and a formal request for information (RFI) that was posted on June 17, 2025, GSA identified critical service areas that represent a significant portion of unmanaged government spending,” GSA said in a release.

GSA expects to release the RFP for OASIS+ phase 2 on our about Jan. 12. Additionally, on Dec. 16 the agency posted draft scorecards outlining the evaluation criteria for all 13 domains combined under the six solicitations.

In its first year, OASIS+ saw agencies obligate more than $366 million through 102 task orders, according to GSA’s data-to-decisions dashboard.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Air Force accounted for the biggest agency customers based on total task orders, awarding 31 and 29, respectively, in fiscal 2025.

Deloitte Consulting won the most task orders with four, and Leidos won the largest task order for $219 million.

And speaking of GSA contracts, its Polaris small business governmentwide acquisition contract is moving forward. As of Dec. 3, agencies can place task orders against Polaris service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) and Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) pools.

Among the IT services included on Polaris are:

• Artificial intelligence and automation
• Cloud and edge computing
• Distributed ledger technologies
• Immersive and emerging technologies

“More awards in both pools are expected in Fiscal year 2026. Through this approach, GSA can ensure strong program oversight, manage vendor onboarding effectively and create room for additional opportunities,” wrote Larry Hale, GSA’s assistant commissioner in the Federal Acquisition Service’s Office of Information Technology Category (ITC), in a blog post. “Polaris was built from the start with flexibility in mind. The contract includes key features that help it stay current and responsive, such as on-ramps, no contract ceiling, and technology refresh capabilities.”

GSA still is reviewing bids for the small business and women-owned small business pools.

GAO dismisses AI contract protests

Another program that has garnered a lot of interest and attention received some good news last week as well.

The Government Accountability Office dismissed the protest by AskSage of GSA’s awards to artificial intelligence providers under its OneGov initiative.

GAO rejected the complaint not on its merits, but because it doesn’t have jurisdiction over contract modifications. GSA modified its schedule contracts with Carahsoft to offer access to AI providers for $1 or less.

“Under the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) and our bid protest regulations, we review protests of alleged violations of procurement statutes and regulations by federal agencies in the award or proposed award of contracts for the procurement of goods and services, and solicitations leading to such awards,” GAO wrote in its decision. “Once a contract is awarded, our office will generally not review protests of allegedly improper contract modifications because such matters are related to contract administration and therefore not subject to review pursuant to our bid protest function.”

GAO says because AskSage challenges the reasonableness of the modification of the schedule contract between GSA and Carahsoft, “AskSage’s protest raises matters of contract administration and therefore is not subject to review pursuant to our bid protest function.”

GAO also determined that AskSage isn’t an “interested party” and therefore not in a position to challenge the modifications.

“To challenge the scope of a contract modification, a protester must demonstrate its direct economic interest with respect to its status as an actual or prospective offeror,” GAO stated. “Here, AskSage is a subcontractor or supplier to Carahsoft, not an actual or prospective offeror for the FSS contract between GSA and Carahsoft that has been modified.”

Nic Chaillan, the founder of AskSage, wrote LinkedIN that there are always loopholes when it comes to federal acquisition rules.

“We are obviously right on the merits. Sad day for America. Now [F]ortune 500 can build a $1 dollar unlimited offering in a contract modification for 12 [months], get agencies locked in and charge billions [in] year 2. Uncompeted. Sad day,” Chaillan wrote in response to others’ comments. “Sad to watch the administration letting those shenanigans happen.”

AskSage filed protests with GAO in August, claiming the awards for access to Anthropic and OpenAI tools violated several laws and regulations, including the commercial item pricing requirements under FAR Part 12 and CICA.

GSA said at least 43 agencies have taken advantage of the low-cost OneGov agreements for AI tools.

The post Army bucks trend, to move forward with $50B MAPS contract first appeared on Federal News Network.