Veterans Affairs Department information technology spending this fiscal year would amount to $3.11 billion under an appropriations bill approved by the House and Senate.

The bill, known as an omnibus because it consolidates a majority of individual spending bills, secured Senate passage Dec. 17 in a 67-32 vote a day after the House approved it 296-121. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

The omnibus amount straddles figures approved earlier by the House--$3.02 billion--and the Senate--$3.16 billion--which is also the amount the VA requested for the current fiscal year.

A report by a conference committee of lawmakers from both chambers convened to iron out differences between earlier versions says that the total amount should be broken down into $915 million for salaries, $1.6 billion for operations and maintenance and $580.36 million for systems development, modernization and enhancement.

The report language also directs VA to fully fund an effort to build a joint, integrated electronic health record system with the Defense Department known as the iEHR. The report says the VA told members of congressional appropriations committees that the iEHR needs $100 million during fiscal 2012, $73.2 million for that in development funds.

Other notable VA IT efforts include the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record, for which the omnibus allocated $45.49 million in development funds.

For more:
- download the conference committee report section on the VA (.pdf)

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