The dismissals of more than 1,000 new employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs as part of the wave of federal government layoffs have led to serious concerns that it could hinder operations at medical facilities and impact benefits for former service members.
The VA exempted many of its frontline employees from a government hiring freeze and made many ineligible for the Department of Government Efficiency’s “deferred resignation offer” but veterans advocates and terminated VA personnel are warning the reduction in just two percent of the agency’s probationary workforce is expected to have ripple effects, especially at an agency already battling severe shortages.
The employees responsible for processing claims at the Veterans Benefits Administration have not been exempted from the hiring freeze or the reduction in force executive order, and are among the personnel cut.
“This could be life or death situation,” said Ben Jeffrey, a veteran advocate in Phoenix, a place he believes was “ground zero for the VA crisis” 10 years ago.
“We were making progress on calling out the shortcomings of the VA in general across the United States, we were having the momentum of lobbying and advocating for an increase in federal employees and now suddenly you’re going to reverse it and call it a course correction and say that we need less staff to save money for the taxpayers, that doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Jeffrey, who served two combat deployments in Iraq, and other advocates remain concerned about the agency’s ability to process claims, specifically those submitted under the PACT Act, legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, which dramatically expanded veterans benefits eligibility for those exposed to toxic substances during their military service.
To prepare for a deluge in new claims from newly eligible veterans, the VA went on a hiring spree, with the Veterans Health Administration adding a 5.5% increase to its workforce in 2023 alone. Since the legislation became law, 5.6 million Veterans have been screened for toxic exposures, and more than 740,000 Veterans have enrolled in VA healthcare, according to a VA PACT Act Performance Dashboard in September 2024.
“When the PACT Act began, I don’t think they realized how many veterans would take advantage of it and start filing claims,” said Chuck Byers, a veterans advocate and co-chair of the Veterans Health Care Committee for the Vietnam Veterans of America.
“The VA has done a good job, but now that they’re laying people off, we don’t want to see a holdup or backlog of claims,” said Byers, who is a decorated Vietnam veteran himself, receiving the Purple Heart and numerous other medals.
Even before the reduction in the workforce, a watchdog report in December found staff at the VA incorrectly processed disability claims from veterans and underpaid benefits to some who were eligible. The VA inspector general’s office found personnel at times requested unnecessary medical exams, which delayed processing and resulted in an estimated $1.4 million in unnecessary costs. The report also found nearly 900 potential processing errors that could affect veterans’ benefits. As the number of claims filed under the PACT Act continues to grow, Jeffrey is concerned about the VA’s capacity to manage the claims effectively.
“The dismissal of over 1,000 employees, including critical support staff, may exacerbate processing errors like those highlighted in the IG report,” he said. “The cuts to the Veteran Crisis Line and other support services suggest that veterans seeking assistance may encounter longer wait times and diminished service quality.”
Tim Jensen, a veteran advocate who was deployed in 2004 to Iraq, was involved in the creation of the PACT Act. He said he doesn’t have any reason to believe the personnel cuts could hurt efforts to process new claims.
“They’ve been very good about keeping that dashboard available and visible for all the veterans to see exactly how long wait times and processing times are happening for screenings, and this, that the other so I feel very, very good about, you know, where the PACT Act sits,” Jensen told the Washington Examiner.
Jensen, the co-owner of Texas-based patriotic apparel company Grunt Style, said as a business owner himself he welcomes cuts from billionaire Elon Musk and DOGE to attempt to eliminate the red tape and bureaucracy that has been a barrier to care for veterans.
“It’s all this obfuscation to really keep us from focusing on the real issue of how are we going to solve the bureaucracy of the largest medical program on the planet that is built to service the needs of the veterans that it’s built for,” Jensen said. “We are getting caught up in the bureaucracy, as you know, DOGE is talking about, it’s killing veterans in droves, just killing us.”
LAWMAKERS PURSUE LEGISLATION EMPHASIZING CONTINUITY OF CARE FOR VETERANS
Veterans speak out after losing jobs in purge
Tony Ruiz, a 47-year-old disabled Army veteran who worked as a veterans service representative in Los Angeles, said he was specifically hired to help process the PACT Act claims amid a surge in claims.
“A lot of the representatives were failing. They weren’t doing their job properly. There were a lot of people who were terminated within a few months because they couldn’t make it because it’s such a hard job,” Ruiz said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
In August, Ruiz was awarded the employee of the quarter and received a cash bonus, according to files from the Office of Personnel Management he provided to the Washington Examiner. During that time, Ruiz met Joshua Jacobs, the Under Secretary for Benefits at the VA, who congratulated him on his accomplishments.
“My boss told me at one point, he goes, ‘Man, god damn it, you’re doing more claims yourself than 20 people.’ He told me they were looking at my numbers and that’s why I got the award,” he said.
With about two weeks until the end of his probationary period on Feb. 13, Ruiz was informed on a Zoom call with a representative from Washington, D.C., that his employment was no longer needed based on job performance. Following the call, he said he contacted his union representative.
“I was informed very, very bluntly, your termination was not from a performance because we knew you were the best. It was definitely politically, politically motivated,” Ruiz said, who believes he was targeted because officials at the VA believed he was “a little bit too liberal for the VA.”
Ruiz, who served in Germany and was injured in a tank rollover accident, said he enjoyed helping to assist veterans and process their claims. Now, he’s trying to send a message to the Trump Administration.
“If you supposedly care for veterans so much, how can you allow for so many veterans to lose their jobs, lose their livelihoods and lose their careers over your politics,” Ruiz asked rhetorically.
Nearly 30 percent of the more than 2.2 million federal employees are veterans, compared to five percent of the total employed labor force, according to the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. About 25 percent of new federal hires in fiscal 2023 were veterans.
Andrew Lennox is another one of the more than 1,000 VA employees dismissed as a result of the job cuts. The 35-year-old Marine veteran was working as an administrative officer at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“I was handling all the administrative supporting efforts for our doctors and our nurses and the 3000 patients that we were serving in our department,” Lennox said, speaking to the Washington Examiner.
Lennox also received a letter on Feb. 13 informing him that he had been terminated after two months on the job “based on [his] performance” according to a copy of his termination paperwork, which he provided to the Washington Examiner.
“You need to evaluate the system before dismantling it, these outsiders were making decisions for people at the ground level without consulting anybody there. For example, my direct supervisor, the assistant chief of staff of primary care, he had no idea this was happening, neither did his supervisor,” Lennox explained.
“If there’s a reduction in force — call it a reduction in force. Don’t terminate us for cause due to poor performance when there is zero evidence, that’s the dishonest part,” Lennox said, explaining he hadn’t even been at the job long enough for a performance review.
The former staff staff sergeant worries the cuts could lead to a reduction in the quality of care for veterans.
“What I was doing was enabling those doctors, those nurses, those providers, to focus on the veterans,” he said. “Everyone at the VA, now that I’m gone and these other employees — the work is still there, it’s going to be spread amongst our colleagues and our teams.”
“They are going to be overworked, they are going to be burned out, they’re going to be spread thin — the people that are going to have to suffer, it’s going to be the employees but it’s also going to be the veterans,” Lennox said.
Despite the bad taste in his mouth after his “haphazard” termination, Lennox said he’d return to the job tomorrow if he could.
“I’d go in tomorrow if they’d let me. It doesn’t matter whose picture is down there in our chain of command or what the administration is because the veterans are going to be there and the veterans are always going to have needs,” Lennox said. “I care about the institution, not the people who are running it.”
The VA scrambled to rehire a number of employees who worked as support staff at the Veterans Crisis Line, including a veteran who was set to begin her paid maternity leave in less than 10 weeks, according to an employee familiar with the situation and posts on social media.
Officials at the VA said no Veterans Crisis Line responders had been laid off, but did not specify whether any had been fired and rehired. However, there’s growing fears from those who work there about how the cuts at the agency and the return to work orders could impact staff retention and recruitment.
“It’s really hard to find people for positions at a crisis line with veterans because you really have to have a specialty in mental health, social work, counseling, first responder, but also, you know, be willing and open to either know or learn more about veteran culture,” said an employee who has worked there for over a decade, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“How are we going to continue to get talent, if this is what’s happening, you know, to federal workers like no one’s going to want to come here, and how are we going to be able to keep up with the demand of how many veterans are calling in,” the person said.
The employee explained many of the calls they already receive from distressed veterans have to do with roadblocks regarding receiving their benefits.
“A lot of these calls — they are calling because of their claims not going through, their claim getting denied. They just got bumped down from 50% to 10% or being worried about their SNAP benefits being cut or reduced,” the person explained.
“It goes hand in hand, like when those things fail and when those systems aren’t working the way that they’re supposed to, it has a direct effect to us, you know, because they have nowhere else to turn.”
VA says dismissals will save more than $98 million per year
Officials at the VA continue to stress that “veterans care, benefits and beneficiaries will not be affected by VA’s personnel moves.”
They say the dismissals will save it more than $98 million per year, and it will spend that money on providing healthcare, benefits, and other services for beneficiaries, according to a news release announcing the cuts.
Lots of Whoppers flying around DC about @DeptVetAffairs. Don’t believe the fake news! pic.twitter.com/zgIL5bSGGA
— VA Secretary Doug Collins (@SecVetAffairs) February 20, 2025
“At VA, we are focused on saving money so it can be better spent on Veteran care. We thank these employees for their service to VA,” recently confirmed VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “This was a tough decision, but ultimately it’s the right call to better support the Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors the department exists to serve.”
They point out there are more than 43,000 probationary employees across the department and the majority are exempt from termination since they serve in “mission-critical positions.”
“VA leaders can request that employees be exempted from probationary removal,” VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz told the Washington Examiner, mentioning that the VA also created a process for department leaders to request additional exceptions to hiring freezes.
Paul Lawrence, President Trump’s nominee to serve as deputy VA secretary, vowed to take a closer look at the VA’s firing of probationary employees during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
Lawrence stressed that the VA’s firing of 1,000 probationary employees out of 43,000 total working at the department “appeared to be a very thoughtful approach to determining who would be laid off, in the sense that it was not mission-critical.”
“These were described as non-mission critical folks who would not affect the provision of healthcare and benefit,” he testified.
‘A middle finger to our heroes’
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the Veterans Affairs Committee ranking member and 35 other Senate Democrats are calling on the VA to rehire all 1,000 of its recently terminated probationary employees. The lawmakers sent a letter to Collins on Wednesday.
“Not only will this latest action put veterans’ care and benefits at risk, but it further confuses, demoralizes, and threatens a VA workforce we need to fulfill our nation’s sacred promise to our veterans and their families who have already sacrificed so much,” they wrote.
Blumenthal is specifically raising concerns about slashing the workforce and said it will endanger the agency’s ability to deliver timely claims decisions.
“These probationary employees who have been laid off are critical to processing certain benefits like the PACT Act, they are also the future of the agency, because they are younger employees, at least a third of them are veterans, who have come to help and serve our nation’s heroes,” Blumenthal said, speaking to the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
“An agency can’t simply let go 1,000 people without a really disastrous effect. They’re not leaving voluntarily or under normal rates of attrition. They are being fired and that makes a big dent in the agency’s quality and timeliness of service.”
Blumenthal pointed to the OIG report from December, stressing that “the way to deal with errors is not to eliminate a workforce.”
“It’s to focus on eliminating errors and provide the personnel and resources that are needed to do the job, which is exactly the opposite of the approach.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), an Iraq War veteran who served in combat as a helicopter pilot, told reporters her office is receiving hundreds of calls from recently terminated employees who worked at the VA.
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“Let’s call this what it is — it is a middle finger to our heroes and their lives of service,” Duckworth said Wednesday at a news conference in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Staff for Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said they would look into the cuts at the VA, but did not provide any further comment.