I hope you are in good health. I wanted to take a moment myself to inform you of some positive news from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that should relieve some concerns regarding potential reductions in personnel and how they would impact our service to veterans.
Natural reductions, not forced layoffs
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins made the announcement to the public this week that the department will not have to suffer forced separations or a formal Reduction In Force (RIF) process in fiscal year 2025. With a mix of voluntary retirements and resignations and a strategically timed hiring freeze, the VA projects to decrease its workforce by an estimated 30,000 jobs by the end of September, all through natural attrition.
In the six weeks since Jan. 1, some 17,000 positions have already been cut, and officials expect another 12,000 to be cut in the next few months. Those reductions amount to approximately 6% of the VA’s overall workforce of roughly 484,000 employees last fall.
A strategic, Veteran-Centered Approach
As proposed by Secretary Collins, this is part of a broader reshaping to make things less bureaucratic, fewer operations, but above all, better serve the veteran.
“Since March, we’ve been conducting a holistic review of the department centered on reducing bureaucracy and improving services to veterans,” Collins said in a statement. “As a result of our efforts, VA is headed in the right direction—both in terms of staff levels and customer service.”
It’s reassuring that these staffing adjustments are being done at a gradual rate, not to the detriment of care or services to our veterans. Officials said that more than 350,000 jobs—most of them related to medical care—are still excluded from the federal hiring freeze so that essential services can be maintained.
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Balancing Efficiency with Responsibility
While negotiations were originally being made of possibly terminating as many as 80,000, VA executives now report no additional sizeable staffing reductions beyond the already planned 30,000 are expected.
Of course, this restructuring is not without critics. Some politicians and union representatives have raised an eyebrow that ongoing hiring freezes would have a negative impact on operations such as scheduling appointments and supply chain logistics. But VA leadership indicates that they actually do have contingency plans in place and are closely monitoring performance measures so that they can minimize harmful effects on benefits and care to veterans.
There have also been improvements in benefits and medical processing over the last several months, all part of a trend over multiple years of improved delivery of service—evidence that the department’s strategy is beginning to bear fruit.
Looking ahead
Secretary Collins went on to say that the process of cutting back has created new ways to shrink service delivery. The department is already progressing towards the goal of eliminating duplicative administrative activities and to study its 274 call centers to see if it should reorganize them—other actions that can generate savings without cutting back mission performance.
In short, the news is out: The VA is right-sizing, not downsizing. Carefully planned, the department can cut costs and red tape but maintain and improve care for our nation’s veterans.
