VA axes another 1,400 employees

The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday fired another 1,400 employees amid outcry over a lack of transparency from the agency after 1,000 workers were axed earlier this month.

The VA said the individuals dismissed were “non-mission critical” probationary employees who have served less than two years, according to a department statement.

The agency defined the non-mission critical positions as those that were diversity, inclusion and equity-related, “among other roles.” It also claimed their dismissals will save the VA more than $83 million per year -- to be redirected back toward health care, benefits and services for veterans.

“These and other recent personnel decisions are extraordinarily difficult, but VA is focused on allocating its resources to help as many Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors as possible,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in the statement. “These moves will not hurt VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries. In fact, Veterans are going to notice a change for the better.”

The move follows the Feb. 13 firings of 1,000 probationary VA employees, a decision that caused outrage and condemnation among Democrat lawmakers and veterans groups.

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee ranking member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the latest firings an “illegal termination” that comes at a time of critical VA staffing shortages and increased demand for its services.

“Doug Collins continues to put the interests of veterans last with additional indiscriminate firings of VA employees,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “We know these terminations are already impairing the Department’s ability to deliver timely and quality care and benefits to veterans, especially as it works to serve more veterans than ever before.”

He adds: “These men and women were arbitrarily fired because Doug Collins views them as nothing more than a statistic for his press release,” warning it will erode trust in VA and damage the agency’s ability to recruit and retain talent.

The terminations -- led by the Department of Government Efficiency and part of the Trump administration’s bid to cull the 2.4 million-person civil servant workforce -- have created confusion within the VA, which employs nearly 480,000 people and provides lifelong care and benefits for 9 million veterans.

Democrat lawmakers last week said they were frustrated they have not been given any response to multiple inquiries about which roles were cut and how staffing changes have affected VA offices or veterans' benefits.

“There is an almost total lack of transparency and communication here,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) told reporters in a call Thursday. “I don’t know who’s in charge of these firings. I don’t know whether it’s the Department of Government Efficiency, or the White House, or who.”

The VA, meanwhile, on Monday said there were still nearly 40,000 probationary employees across the department, with the majority exempt from the dismissals because they serve in mission-critical positions -- primarily those supporting benefits and services for VA beneficiaries.

The agency also said it “continues to hire for more than 300,000 mission-critical positions” exempt from the government-wide hiring freeze.

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