Collins Testifies at the Senate Appropriations FY27 VA Budget Hearing, Apr. 30, 2026
April 30, 2026 · Forbes Breaking News · 2:13:00
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
VA Secretary Doug Collins testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies on April 30, 2026, at its hearing titled “A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request for the Department of Veterans Affairs,” in Forbes Breaking News’ live carry of the session, with VA Chief Financial Officer Richard Topping beside him for technical budget support. The chairman put the request’s totals on the record as he stated them: $488.2 billion in fiscal year 2027 for the department, a 7.7 percent increase over fiscal year 2026 enacted levels, including $144.7 billion in discretionary funds and $337.7 billion in mandatory funds — among them $54.6 billion for the Toxic Exposure Fund — plus advance appropriations for fiscal year 2028.
The subcommittee’s agenda, as its members laid it out, ran from the $4.2 billion electronic health record request — an $840 million increase, as stated, to accelerate deployment of the new record after the troubled early rollout — to the RISE reorganization’s expected efficiencies and risks, mental health and suicide prevention, veterans homelessness, women veterans’ care, and rural care. The hearing closed on a small clarification that had plainly mattered locally: asked about a reported closure in Maine, Collins answered directly, as he stated it — there are no closures in Maine, none current or planned, and if that came across wrong, he took full responsibility.
Why it matters
The fiscal year 2027 request is the Collins program at full scale: a department asking for nearly half a trillion dollars while reorganizing its health system and accelerating the health-record deployment that has consumed VA modernization for a decade. The appropriators’ questions here — RISE’s efficiencies, the record’s cost curve, the workforce behind the workforce cuts — are the conditions the money will actually arrive with.
Scoreboard watch
Scoreboard watch: the fiscal year 2027 VA request as stated on April 30, 2026 — $488.2 billion total, up 7.7 percent over fiscal year 2026 enacted; $144.7 billion discretionary; $337.7 billion mandatory including $54.6 billion for the Toxic Exposure Fund; electronic health record funding of $4.2 billion, an $840 million increase. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.
Sources: Forbes Breaking News, “LIVE: VA Secretary Doug Collins Testifies Before The Senate” (live carry of the Apr. 30, 2026 hearing, embedded above; hearing title and subcommittee per the upload description; testimony as delivered by Secretary Collins, Mr. Topping, and members of the subcommittee).
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