Dive Brief:
-
Cost overruns of more than $1 billion at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Colorado have led the department’s head of construction to step down.
-
Members of Congress had called for the firing of Glenn Haggstrom, chief of the VA Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction, calling the unfinished hospital in Aurora, CO, “unacceptable” and VA hospital construction in general “a disaster.”
-
He should have been fired years ago," Rep. Mike Coffman, R-CO, said in a written statement. "Everyone knew [two years ago] that VA executives were incompetently managing this project."
Dive Insight:
More dismissals may be on the way. Members of Congress last week proposed stripping the VA of any construction authority. And Coffman has said other high-level VA construction executives should be fired as well.
