Trump administration eyes 80K VA cuts nationally

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, in a video posted on the X site Wednesday, said the department will conduct a “department-wide review of its organization, operations and structure. Central to these efforts is a pragmatic and disciplined approach to eliminating waste and bureaucracy, increasing efficiency and improving health care, benefits and services to veterans.”

A memo obtained by the Associated Press instructs top-level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization in August to “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.” It also calls for agency officials to work with the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency to “move out aggressively, while taking a pragmatic and disciplined approach” to the Trump administration’s goals. Government Executive first reported on the internal memo.

Collins said the goal was to “reduce VA employment levels to 2019 in-strength numbers, roughly 398,000 employees, from current level of approximately 470,000 employees.”

That’s a 15% decrease, he noted.

“This will be a thorough and thoughtful review, based on input from career VA employees, senior executives, as well as the top VA leaders,” the secretary said.

He said cuts would not affect veterans' health care services or benefits, but added: “Things need to change.”

There are currently 2,355 full-time employees at the Dayton VA Medical Center. The VA has not released how many people will lose their jobs at the local center.

The VA today has about 482,000 employees, about 459,000 working full-time.

“This effort will require the entirety of VA staff and organizations to work together in a collaborative fashion as well as coordinate actions with DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) and the administration as a whole to achieve the desired results within the allotted time,” said the memo from Christopher Syrek, the chief of staff for Veterans Affairs.