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Veterans Affairs: Improved Planning Needed to Guide Development and Implementation of Education Benefits System

GAO-07-1045 Published: Jul 31, 2007. Publicly Released: Jul 31, 2007.
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Highlights

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) administers programs that provide educational resources to veterans, service members, reservists, and eligible family members of veterans. Under an initiative that the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) began in 1999, called The Education Expert System (TEES), VA is moving its education benefits claims processing systems to new technology platforms and replacing the current systems with a new system that is to add more automated processes and eliminate most human intervention. GAO was requested to (1) report on the results of TEES development to date and identify the remaining work to complete the project, (2) identify VBA's plans for completing and implementing TEES, and (3) assess the feasibility of developing and deploying TEES before the completion of VBA's Finance and Accounting System. To accomplish these objectives, GAO analyzed relevant documentation, interviewed program and project officials, and observed processing systems at VA regional offices.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Veterans Affairs To ensure the successful implementation of a system that provides consistent and effective delivery of education benefits payments, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should, before approving any new funding for TEES and related systems, direct VA's Chief Information Officer to develop a comprehensive, integrated TEES project plan that defines critical elements, including but not limited to project scope, budget, schedule, risk, planning for data management, needed knowledge and skills, and stakeholder involvement; and addresses redundancy between the requests for developing a TEES rules-based system, the department-level code conversion effort, and integration of the TEES development with FAS.
Closed – Implemented
VA took various actions toward implementing this recommendation prior to the department terminating the project. For example, it developed the The Education Expert System (TEES) Functional Requirements Document, which included requirements to integrate TEES with the Finance and Accounting System (FAS) and established the scope of the project. The requirements were prepared with stakeholder involvement. VA also developed a detailed master schedule for TEES.
Department of Veterans Affairs To ensure the successful implementation of a system that provides consistent and effective delivery of education benefits payments, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should, before approving any new funding for TEES and related systems, direct VA's Chief Information Officer to, once an integrated plan among related TEES initiatives has been completed and documented, revise the Office of Management and Budget Exhibit 300s for TEES and related efforts to ensure that duplication in efforts and budgets is eliminated and that funding is consistent with timelines.
Closed – Implemented
Prior to terminating the The Education Expert System (TEES) project, VA took steps to ensure that duplication between TEES and other related efforts was eliminated. For example, VA's decision to not exercise an option on a code conversion contract eliminated the potential for redundancy between the contract and TEES. Also, VA combined TEES with two planned efforts to establish the VBA Rules Based Claims Processing investment for the FY 2009 budget.
Department of Veterans Affairs To ensure the successful implementation of a system that provides consistent and effective delivery of education benefits payments, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should, before approving any new funding for TEES and related systems, direct VA's Chief Information Officer to obtain stakeholders' commitment of resources to ensure that functional requirements are revalidated and updated as necessary to provide an interface between FAS and the future VBA education systems.
Closed – Implemented
VA ensured that key stakeholders, including the Office of Resource Management, participated in the effort to re-validate The Education Expert System (TEES) requirements. The re-validated requirements document was delivered to VA in December 2008 and included functional requirements to interface TEES with the Finance and Accounting System (FAS).

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Topics

Claims processingManagement information systemsProgram evaluationProgram managementStrategic information systems planningSystems conversionsVeterans benefitsVeterans educationProgram implementationEducation benefits