Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald and House Veterans Affairs Committee chair Jeff Miller are both committed to finishing the long-delayed VA medical center in Aurora, but getting to that last $604 million is proving tricky.

The top federal VA bigwigs came together for two hours before a packed crowd Monday at the Disabled American Veterans national convention at the Denver Sheraton Downtown, and while they didn’t always see eye to eye, those anticipating a brawl were disappointed.

“People kind of thought this was going to be a Donald Trump rumble between the two of us,” Miller said. “You’re going to find out that we are very, very good friends.”

Miller called on the Obama administration to find the money somewhere besides the VA construction budget to finish the Aurora facility, calling it a “crisis” that the House has been unable to resolve the issue because other members won’t delay their own projects in order to let Colorado move to the head of the line.

“I believe that if the administration wanted to, without making it come from within the VA budget, they could find the money,” said Miller, a Florida Republican.

He said the latest figure for completing the Aurora medical center has hit $1.73 billion, nearly three times the original $600 million.

“The secretary has been very thorough in trying to sweep as much money that is remaining in accounts as he could in order to put this project together,” Miller said. “But I believe that if we went outside of the VA budget — this is a crisis. It is a crisis at a facility that needs to be resolved.”

Meanwhile, McDonald took a jab at House Republicans for trimming President Obama’s latest budget request for the Veterans Administration.

“Remember the context here. We need to find another $600 million or so to complete this hospital,” McDonald said. “[R]emember the budget that was passed by the House reduced the request from the president and the VA by 50 percent in construction. That would eliminate four new sites that we had planned and six new cemeteries.”

“So not only are we having a problem just trying to keep the business going with that budget, but we’re going to have a problem paying for the hospital, too,” McDonald said.

Miller countered that the project should be fully funded now by the administration instead of waiting for Congress to dribble out funds bit by bit through the annual budget appropriation.

“It doesn’t need to be done piecemeal, as we have been forced to do,” Miller said. “We need to give the last number to the Secretary to allow the facility to be complete. Where that’s going to come from is where the debate is going to happen, and that’s one of the things that’s on Congress’s plate for the Colorado veterans’ community.”

At the same time, Miller praised McDonald for his work in overhauling the scandal-ridden Veterans Health Administration, which was plagued by long wait times and phony waiting lists during the tenure of the previous VA secretary, Eric Shenseki.

“When you have a gentleman who agrees to come out of retirement basically to take the helm of a rudderless ship that was in desperate need of leadership at the very top level, you can’t do anything but salute the person who takes this role,” Miller said.

McDonald, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, said 97 percent of medical appointments are now filled within 30 days of the desired date even as the number of veterans seeking care is rising. Meanwhile, he refused to approve bonuses for VHA department executives who were in place when Shenseki resigned in 2014.

“As you can imagine, our leaders were not happy about that, and I took the heat for it,” McDonald said. “But my point of view is, how could anybody get a bonus when your secretary was forced to resign?”

In Colorado, “None of the people who were involved in the construction at Denver as it went on the rails in 2010 and 2011 are now employed by the VA, with one exception. Everybody’s gone,” McDonald said.

“Only the former project executive is still with the VA, and he’s assigned elsewhere to a non-supervisory role in a downgraded, lower-grade position,” he said. “So we’ve taken action and we are trying to make a difference.”

An engineer by training, McDonald said he was stunned when he toured the construction site for the medical center last weekend.

“I looked and I said, ‘Oh my goodness, the architects went nuts, there were no engineers on this project,’” McDonald said. “The design is over the top, but nevertheless that is the design. And we’re now value-engineering it as we go to try to make sure we save as much money for the American people.

“The mistakes that occurred in the construction of this building were terrible mistakes,” he added. “We all own it. We apologize for it. And there’s no excuse. They shouldn’t have happened.”

Miller said that “the hospital is at the point now where most everybody is thinking that it has to be completed,” but the current appropriation will run out on Oct. 1.

Meanwhile, convincing other House members to delay projects in their own district in order to complete the Aurora facility has resulted in a stalemate.

“The outcry from other members of Congress was deafening because money was being taken away from their project to finish this project and that basically is not fair to those other members who have waited in line,” Miller said.

Both agreed that the VA now has a rare opportunity to tackle longstanding problems such as updating its aging facilities, addressing a lack of health-care providers and streamlining an inefficient bureaucracy.

“We’re united on virtually everything and the other things that we have differences on, we can sort out,” McDonald said. “I think we have a unique moment in time. It’s a moment in time that probably will never come again.”

He cited widespread support for veterans among the American public and in Congress, as well as “a chairman and a secretary who work well together.”

“If we don’t do those right things today, we’re going to be back in the crisis we had in 2014 in another 10, 20 years,” McDonald said. “So let’s get after it today.”

— valrichardson17@gmail.com