WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman is demanding answers from the Veterans Administration after the agency quietly promoted a manager in charge of its yet-unfinished Aurora hospital project — a boondoggle that’s about $1 billion over budget and years behind schedule.

In a letter to VA Secretary David Shulkin, Coffman — whose Aurora-area district includes the hospital — castigates the agency for picking Stella Fiotes to serve as its acting head of its division of acquisition, logistics and construction.

That’s a step above her longheld role as chief of the VA’s office of Construction and Facilities Management — the same position she occupied when the VA hospital in Aurora spun out of control.

“As you know, since 2013, Ms. Fiotes was responsible for overseeing the egregiously mismanaged construction project of the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado, which is finally nearing completion after ballooning in cost by over a billion dollars and being delayed by over four years,” he wrote.

The VA issued a one-sentence response to a media inquiry about the letter.

“We appreciate the congressman’s concerns and will respond to him directly,” wrote VA spokesman Curt Cashour.

An investigation by The Denver Post found that gross mismanagement by top VA officials was a major factor in the project’s inability to stay on schedule and budget.

An internal VA watchdog confirmed the findings a year later in its own report.

“Escalating costs and schedule slippages are primarily the result of poor business decisions, inexperience with the type of contract used and mismanagement by VA senior leaders,” noted investigators with the VA Office of Inspector General.

Coffman also blamed officials such as Fiotes for keeping Congress in the dark about the hospital’s lack of progress.

“Ms. Fiotes testified to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in March 2014 that the medical center’s design could be built within its appropriated amount, then $800 million, which all available evidence indicates was untrue,” wrote Coffman, R-Aurora.

Its price tag now is about $1.7 billion – a difference that led Coffman to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Fiotes for perjury. (The agency declined to prosecute).

“I urge you to appoint a permanent principal executive director of the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction who is well qualified and untainted by scandal as quickly as possible,” Coffman wrote.

Construction of the Aurora facility is scheduled to conclude next month with an opening expected sometime in 2018.



