The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday said it is on pace to reduce its workforce by 30,000 people by the end of fiscal year 2025, claiming this eliminates the need for a large-scale reduction-in-force.
In a release, VA said the staff reduction would be achieved through normal attrition, early retirements, deferred resignations and the federal hiring freeze.
“Since March, we’ve been conducting a holistic review of the department centered on reducing bureaucracy and improving services to veterans,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said. “As a result of our efforts, VA is headed in the right direction — both in terms of staff levels and customer service. A department-wide RIF is off the table, but that doesn’t mean we’re done improving VA. Our review has resulted in a host of new ideas for better serving veterans that we will continue to pursue.”
The department originally planned to reduce its staff to 2019 levels, or just under 400,000, according to a March memo.
Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Ranking Member Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said the announcement made it clear that VA is bleeding employees across the board at an unsustainable rate because of the Trump administration’s and the Department of Government Efficiency’s “slash and trash policies.”
“This is not 'natural’ attrition, it is not strategic and it will inevitably impact veterans’ care and benefits – no matter what blanket assurances the VA Secretary hides behind,” Blumenthal argued in a statement. “Make no mistake, this is still a reduction in force - except VA has been able to do it without accountability and transparency to veterans and Congress. It is shameful and it will continue to ruin veterans’ trust in VA for years to come.”
The decision to forgo a large-scale RIF at VA was applauded by Senate Veterans Affairs Committee chariman Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)
“This decision provides greater certainty to VA employees and the veterans they serve,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to hearing more details about potential reorganization plans as VA works n coordination with Congress to right-size the VA workforce.”
VA had roughly 484,000 employees on Jan. 1, and 467,000 employees as of June 1, a reduction of nearly 17,000. Between now and Sept. 30, VA expects nearly 12,000 additional employees to exit through normal attrition, voluntary early retirement authority or the deferred resignation program.
All VA mission-critical positions are exempt from the DRP and VERA, and more than 350,000 positions are exempt from the federal hiring freeze, the department said.
VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt also applauded that VA went with a “scalpel” approach to the RIF rather than pursuing more dramatic cuts.
“This is a sigh of relief for the veterans who depend on the timely delivery of care and benefits, and a far cry from estimates that circulated in March,” he said.
In the release, VA said its disability claims backlog is down nearly 30 percent since President Donald Trump took office in January. VA is also processing record numbers of disability claims in FY25. In June, it processed 2 million claims.
VA also said it has implemented reforms to make it easier for survivors to get benefits, and accelerated the deployment of its electronic health record system.
The department is currently exploring a number of additional reforms to improve operational efficiency and service to veterans. It is reviewing the centralization of support functions to streamline operations and improve support to veterans, including in areas such as police, procurement, construction, IT, budgeting and more.
According to VA, its 274 separate call centers are not connected to each other. It stated that a centralized call center with modernized systems would lead to quicker and better service for veterans and could be operated with fewer staff members.
VA’s payroll system processes paychecks for more than 200,000 VA employees, but some 50 VAMCs still process their own payroll, it noted.
“VA is already working to consolidate payroll for all employees under the VA Time and Attendance System, which will save time, money and resources,” the release states.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.