In the News

A solar panel project at Little Rock's veterans hospital is four years behind schedule and expected to go $1.5 million over budget, an agency watchdog entity reported Wednesday.

Included in unplanned costs is a $906,000 charge to disassemble and reassemble nonfunctional panels to make way for a parking garage at John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock.

About 7,300 solar panels were installed at the hospital in 2013 at a cost of about $8 million but were never activated because they did not meet the requirements to go online in electric utility Entergy's system. They were disassembled in 2015.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officials now expect the 1.8 million-megawatt solar panel system to be complete and placed atop the parking garage in January.

The VA office of inspector general blamed the project's problems on poor planning, design modifications, contractor delays and a lengthy interconnection agreement process between the VA and Entergy.

U.S. Sen. John Boozman and U.S. Rep. French Hill, both Arkansas Republicans, in responses to Wednesday's report criticized the VA.

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