A leading House Republican on the panel that oversees the Department of Veterans Affairs is calling for the VA secretary to reconsider job cuts across the agency, cautioning in a Tuesday letter that departmentwide layoffs are pushing out qualified veterans.
The missive from Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich. — the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization — comes following layoffs of roughly 2,400 total probationary employees across the department since February. VA said the majority of these personnel were in “non-mission critical” roles.
In his letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins, Barrett said he supported ongoing efforts to streamline VA’s operations and healthcare delivery services, but added that “this must be done in a way that keeps our promise to all veterans at the VA, including those who receive care and those who help carry out its mission.”
Barrett noted that the department has prioritized keeping critical personnel but said “I am concerned that probationary but otherwise qualified veterans are being unintentionally let go in the process.”
The congressman called on Collins to review VA’s workforce reduction efforts “to guarantee only those who have truly underperformed and not met the expectations of their assignment are relieved of duty,” and to further consider reinstating personnel who were laid off “despite meeting all performance-related expectations.”
Barrett, a 22-year Army veteran and first-term congressman, is one of the first Republicans to publicly voice concerns about VA’s workforce reductions.
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. — ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee — has been a vocal critic of VA’s mass terminations and previously led a Feb. 19 letter with 35 of his colleagues that called for Collins to reinstate employees who had been laid off by the department. Blumenthal led a failed effort on Tuesday to pass a Senate resolution by unanimous consent condemning layoffs across VA.
GovExec reported on Tuesday that, according to a leaked internal VA memo, the department is planning to lay off as many as 83,000 employees across its operations later this year.
VA’s workforce reduction efforts come amid a broader push by the Trump administration and its affiliated Department of Government Efficiency to reduce the size of the federal workforce and perceived government bloat.
As part of that effort, VA also announced on Monday that it would begin terminating 585 “non-mission-critical or duplicative contracts,” which the department said would save it more than $900 million.
