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VA boosts EHR modernization contract with Oracle by $17B
Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images By Edward Graham | August 20, 2026 The modified agreement raises the contract’s total value to just under $27 billion. Veterans Affairs Health Records Contracts Oracle’s contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs for the agency’s new electronic health record system will increase by almost $17 billion as part of a modified agreement, according to an award notice posted on SAM.gov on Wednesday. VA first contracted with Cerner in 2018 to upgrade its health record system. Oracle subsequently acquired Cerner in 2022 and rebranded the combined unit as Oracle Health.The announcement comes after VA published a notice last week detailing plans to extend its EHR modernization contract with Oracle for an additional three one-year optional ordering periods. The award increase will now bump up the contract’s total value from just under $10 billion to roughly $27 billion.“Specifically, this modification will increase the overall contract ceiling and extend the Period of Performance,” last week’s contract modification documents said. “This action is necessary to continue [electronic health record modernization] deployment activities and associated support services until all VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) and related facilities have fully transitioned to the EHR system.”The agency’s modernization project — part of a broader federal effort to deploy a streamlined, interoperable EHR across VA, the Pentagon, the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — has been beset by cost overruns, technical glitches and usability concerns since the first software go live occurred in 2020. Ongoing issues ultimately led to VA and Oracle renegotiating their contract in May 2023, with the deal being modified from an additional five-year term to five one-year terms. The latest modified agreement now has the ability to cover work through May 2031.VA said extending its agreement with Oracle was necessary because “unanticipated co
Nextgov 2 days ago
Lawsuit seeks to enforce 2025 SCOTUS decision improving pay for feds called to active duty
A new lawsuit aims to force the Office of Personnel Management to issue new guidance reflecting a 2025 Supreme Court decision mandating federal employees are not forced to take a pay cut to accept an active duty reservist deployment. PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images A Veterans Affairs Department employee filed a lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management Wednesday seeking to force it to promulgate new regulations implementing a Supreme Court case opening up differential pay to more federal workers who simultaneously serve as military reservists that was decided more than a year ago.In 2009, Congress enacted legislation aimed at ensuring federal workers are not forced to take a pay cut when they deploy to active duty as part of their service in a military reserve unit, as their military pay is often lower than their civilian salary.Though the law tasked the Office of Personnel Management to issue regulations governing this differential pay, the HR agency instead issued policy guidance to agencies in 2009. That guidance, last updated in 2015, requires federal workers to prove that their active-duty deployment is “substantially connected” to a particular war or national emergency in order to be eligible for differential pay.But in April 2025, the Supreme Court overruled that test in Feliciano v. Department of Transportation, finding that the law requires only a “temporal link” between an employee’s deployment and a national emergency. That case, decided by a 5-4 vote, involved a federal air traffic controller who spent nearly five years on active duty as a Coast Guard reserve petty officer escorting military vessels to and from harbor in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.In a new lawsuit, VA attorney Marcus Colicelli, who also serves as a major in the Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, argues that OPM’s continued failure to issue binding regulations on differential pay or to update its policy guidance to reflect the new Supreme Court
Government Executive August 13, 2026
Judge rejects VA’s third attempt to cancel union contracts
For the third time since March, a federal judge has blocked Doug Collins' Veterans Affairs Department from cancelling its contract with the nation's largest federal employee union. Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images The Veterans Affairs Department for the third time this year has been admonished for attempting to terminate its contract with the nation’s largest federal employee union.The saga traces back to President Trumps March 2025 executive order that banned collective bargaining at the VA and many other federal agencies under the auspices of national security. The department first moved to terminate its contract with the American Federation of Government Employees last August, only for U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose, a Biden appointee in Rhode Island, to issue an injunction unwinding that decision in March.In response to that decision, the VA issued a new termination notice to AFGE, which prompted an update to the injunction as well as the threat of contempt proceedings. A federal appeals court upheld most provisions of that order in May.But last month, the VA told the union it would again seek to terminate the agreement on Aug. 8, the date that the contract was initially set to expire. The union again asked for the court to intervene, arguing that because the department requested that the contract be reopened for negotiations, management triggered a rollover clause that automatically extends the contract’s duration until a successor agreement can be reached.The VA for its part accused the union of refusing to meet for negotiations within 30 days of its request, despite a litany of written correspondence seeking to hash out the scope and ground rules for negotiations.In a three-page order published Friday, DuBose described VA’s latest effort to debride itself of AFGE’s collective bargaining agreement as “in direct contravention” of her prior orders.“The defendants’ assertion that the plaintiffs failed to comply with the 30-day clock to begin negotiations
Government Executive August 7, 2026

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DOE awards $500 million to Cleveland-Cliffs for steelmaking upgrade

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IRS Announces Open Virtual Meeting of Taxpayer Advocacy Panel Joint Committee

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