“Build the damn thing,” was the message delivered by members of a Senate Committee and Colorado’s congressional delegation at a field hearing held on Friday in Aurora to examine the beleaguered Veterans’ Administration hospital, long under construction and way over budget.

The phrase was lifted from pins that read “B-T-D-T” handed out by Steve Rylant, president of the United Veterans Committee of Colorado, and it expressed a nearly universal sentiment.

“Despite what is likely one of the biggest, most expensive construction debacles in the history of the federal government, so far all we’ve heard from VA is that nobody can be fired, everybody needs a bonus, and VA has pretty much already fixed the problem,” said an exasperated U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, an Aurora Republican who chairs the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation.

Coffman was joined by Senate Veterans Affairs Chairman Johnny Isakson of Georgia was joined by Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the committee, and South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, along with Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner, Coffman and Rep. Ed Perlmutter for the nearly two-hour hearing in city council chambers at the Aurora Municipal Center.

Bennet and Gardner had asked the committee to conduct the field hearing in order to fix blame and explore solutions to the hospital, which was scheduled to open last year but is only half built and more than $1 billion over budget.

In a March report, the General Accounting Office said that the cost to finish building the Aurora hospital is running more than five times initial estimates and three times what the VA said it would cost a year ago. Its completion date is unknown. According to the report, the project is on track to cost $1.73 billion, a figure lawmakers said the VA must meet. (The total cost is expected to top $2 billion after outfitting it with equipment and training staff, officials said.)

The 182-bed hospital, when completed, is supposed to house a spinal-injury clinic and a PTSD-treatment facility. It will replace the outmoded and cramped VA medical center in Denver.

Construction on the hospital came to a halt briefly a year ago after a ruling that said the VA had breached its contract with construction company Kiewit-Turner.

The Army Corps of Engineers has taken over construction at Coffman’s insistence, but officials aren’t in agreement over how to come up with the money. The VA has asked for an additional $830 million from the $5 billion Veterans’ Choice Act fund, established by Congress to fix the department’s health care delivery system nationwide, but Coffman wants the VA to suspend bonuses paid to employees until the hospital is paid for.

“The money has to come out of the VA’s hide,” Coffman said.

Veterans Affairs Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson, who testified at Friday’s hearing, said that a department-wide freeze on bonuses would hamper the VA’s ability to deliver quality care if doctors and nurses had to pay for problems at the Aurora construction site.

In lengthy remarks, Bennet blasted the VA as “arrogant” and “unwilling to learn” from multiple, repeated warnings that the budget was ballooning.

“Coloradans simply cannot understand how this project has gone so wrong and how it got so far off track. It’s not the way we do business here and it’s utterly unacceptable. Particularly because this is about caring for our veterans,” said Bennet, adding that veterans deserved answers to their questions about the hospital.

Saying he wanted to focus on how to finish the hospital and get it opened, Bennet asked, “I think it’s important to understand, how did this project get so wildly off track and over-budget. Second, we need to ask what the VA’s plan is for completing this project. And, third, what accountability measures we need in place so that this project or any future project is done without further waste to our taxpayers.”

Costs rose, the GAO said, in part because the VA decided to build a stand-alone medical center rather than share facilities with the adjacent University of Colorado hospital, and because of “unanticipated events.” Those included extensive asbestos removal and the discovery of a buried swimming pool on the site. In addition, once construction began, contractors discovered an underground mineral spring requiring treatment and pumping, as well as scuttling plans to build an underground parking garage.

Following a tour of the construction site, on the grounds of the Anschutz Medical Center in north Aurora, Blumenthal said that perhaps the Justice Department should investigate in order to hold to account those responsible for the “fiscal catastrophe.”

Blumenthal pressed Gibson over whether he would support an investigation that could lead to criminal charges and the VA official said he would.

“There has got to be an improved system of accountability within the administration and the VA to hold people who are responsible for poor jobs that have taken place accountable,” said Isakson. “There is a consistent failure of the VA to be able to manage its money, infrastructure and construction projects, and somebody has got to be put in charge to prevent this type of failure, and someone who was in charge must be held accountable.”

Following the hearing, Gardner thanked the committee for convening in Aurora.

“It is my hope that, following today’s hearing, the VA got the message that it’s long past time for this project to be completed,” he said in a statement. “That’s why I urged the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to hold this hearing, and it’s why I’ve introduced legislation to reform the construction process and ensure that this hospital, and future facilities across the country, are completed on time and on budget. Our veterans deserve the best. It’s time for the VA to deliver.”

Bennet likewise lauded his Senate colleagues and vowed to see the project through to completion.

“There is no question this medical facility needs to be built,” he said. “Today we took a step forward on the path to get that done. We appreciate that the chairman and the ranking member came to visit the site and that they committed to its completion. The Colorado delegation will work with them every step of the way. The VA still has work to do to justify its plan, but for the sake of Colorado and Rocky Mountain region veterans we have to finish this in a timely manner and in a way that protects our taxpayers.”

– Ernest@coloradostatesman.com