Congress' Sept. 30 approval of an additional $625 million to complete the bloated Veterans Affairs hospital project in Aurora, Colo., also came with a big stick: The VA must relinquish management-preferably to the Army Corps of Engineers-of all construction projects over $100 million.
That stipulation arose after allegations that VA officials have "fundamentally mismanaged" the Aurora project-now at $1.675 billion, more than triple its original budget-and failed to control runaway costs on VA hospital construction in Orlando and New Orleans, among others. The Corps already has taken over project management in Aurora.