VA outlines plan to centralize software license tracking after GAO flagged gaps

Chairman Barrett opened a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing saying the Department of Veterans Affairs spends “over a billion dollars on software licenses every year” and must improve how it tracks and uses those licenses.

The hearing focused on a Government Accountability Office report that found VA did not fully track software licenses in use or compare usage to purchase records. That gap leaves the department unable to identify duplicate or unused licenses, GAO said.

The lack of a complete inventory has programmatic consequences, committee members said. “Without good data, the VA has no way of knowing how much money they're wasting on duplicative or unnecessary licenses,” Barrett said. Carol Harris, Director of Information Technology and Cybersecurity at the Government Accountability Office, told the subcommittee that GAO’s January 2024 work found VA “did not track software licenses currently in use, nor did it regularly compare the inventories of those licenses to purchase records.”

Jeff Van Bemel, Executive Director for End User Operations in VA’s Office of Information Technology, testified that OIT has launched a Software Asset Management (SAM) program to close those gaps. Van Bemel said the SAM program is building a centralized software repository, automating life‑cycle tasks where feasible, strengthening governance, and training staff on SAM processes. He said recent investments have produced measurable savings in a subset of widely used titles: “We’ve already had some significant cost avoidance just in the top 15 titles…about $136,000,000,” Van Bemel said.

Committee members pressed officials for specifics on progress and remaining gaps. Van Bemel said the department now has visibility across most of its enterprise endpoints and that one telemetry project—codenamed Tachyon from a vendor called OneE—provides near‑real‑time visibility across roughly 600,000 endpoints; he said that capability cost about $12,000,000. Van Bemel also said VA is managing roughly 4,433 commercial off‑the‑shelf titles and about 224 SaaS offerings, and that OIT is “90–95% through” the inventory required by the federal Chief Information Officer’s request, with remaining work focused on identifying the accountable owner for each title.

GAO reiterated two formal recommendations it made to VA: track licenses in use and compare usage to purchase records. GAO said VA has acknowledged the recommendations and expects to implement centralized tracking for its top titles by the end of the fiscal year. Van Bemel said the SAM program is designed to reconcile usage data with acquisition records and that OIT is working to close GAO’s outstanding recommendations.

Lawmakers asked how decentralized historical procurement and mission‑specific purchases—like medical devices with embedded software—will be folded into enterprise tracking. Don Carter, Executive Director for Contract and Operations Management, said acquisition teams now include contract language that allows VA to adjust license quantities if usage falls below thresholds and that acquisition reviews and product service codes are enforced during the procurement review process.

Several members emphasized that technology alone will not solve the problem, and that consolidation requires sustained engagement between OIT and VA business stakeholders. Van Bemel and GAO agreed that after technical inventory work is complete, VA must rationalize product families, negotiate enterprise agreements where appropriate, and lead stakeholder conversations to migrate users to chosen products.

The subcommittee did not adopt any formal policy changes during the hearing. Members asked for follow‑up information and commitments on timelines and data returns; officials said some requests would be taken for the record.

The committee closed by reiterating interest in transparency, timelines and accountability as VA implements the SAM program.