Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

20. Department of Veterans Affairs · Minor

Reassess the VBA information technology top-line budget

Not started

650 20. Department of Veterans Affairs

“The VBA's Information Technology top-line budget should be reexamined and reassessed in light of the need for expanded automation across the enterprise.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    The benefits IT top line was reexamined in the ordinary budget cycle and came out smaller. VA's FY2027 IT submission puts the Benefits Services portfolio at $585.4 million, a decrease of $8.4 million (-1.4%) below the 2026 enacted level, and describes the result as "a targeted rebalancing" that sustains the highest-volume claims platforms while cutting education (-53.9%), housing (-14.3%) and insurance (-16.0%) lines. Within it, Disability Compensation rises to $370.6 million (+6.5%) and Benefits Claims Processing to $323.4 million (+4.5%), concentrated in VBMS and VETSNET. That is annual portfolio sequencing, not the reassessment of the top line in light of expanded automation the Quote asks for, and the document does not present it as one: the departmental IT topline is described as "near-flat" and the benefits share of it falls. Under §3b's budget rule a line that is flat or below inflation, and that the Budget does not itself present as an expansion, leaves the ask at `not-started`.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Leveled together with #1793, which asks the adjacent question — a larger VBA share — and gets the same answer from the same table.
  • The Toxic Exposures Fund view of the same portfolio moves the other way (+$228.1 million for Benefits Services, +$284.9 million for Benefits Claims Processing) but that is a reallocation of mandatory TEF resources within a $329.0 million overall TEF reduction, and the consolidated Benefits Services portfolio number, which is what a “top-line” means here, still falls.
  • No VA, OMB or GAO document records a review of the VBA IT top line as such. The Federal Register carries nothing; the FY2027 submission is the only place the number is reasoned about.
Action
other
Object
VBA Information Technology top-line budget
ID
1792