The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced that they’re facing a $2.5 billion budget deficit.

Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said during today’s committee meeting that the current budget woes, “proves to me once again that VA’s current problems reflect a management issue far more than they represent a money issue.”

Despite this harsh criticism, the house committee has given its support, allowing the VA to be more flexible with its spending. Supporters like Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., said the House must immediately solve the crisis instead of “pointing fingers and assigning blame.”

Sloan Gibson, the VA’s Deputy Secretary, called his agency’s lack of planning for this shortfall “inexcusable.”

Gibson said the VA saw a 10.5 percent increase in workload for the 12-month period ending in April, as the agency’s funds were used to lower wait-times of Veterans seeking treatment – citing expensive and new (life-saving) Hepatitis C treatments as a contributing factor.

“This Committee cannot help VA solve its problems, if VA refuses to be honest, upfront, and transparent with us and with the American people about the position it is in, the struggles it is facing, and the help that it needs,” Miller said.

This budget problem is the most recent problem for the failing department, after it attempted to emerge from an even worse scandal last year when it became evident that health-care staff across the country had falsified patient appointment data to hide long delays in treatment for veterans.

The VA received $16.3 billion from Congress to help the agency recover from that scandal. The department is now asking for additional funds to help complete its $1.7 billion VA hospital; this request angers Republicans, like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who say that the VA is slow to send care outside its system.

“Congress has approved every budget increase for the VA since 9/11 – in many cases going above and beyond increases requested by the VA – and yet the department continues to tell us how it is short of funding,” McCain said in a statement.