Collins said in a video statement that, as the VA conducts its "department-wide review of its organization, operations and structure" — in accordance with President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) workforce optimization Initiative — it is taking "a pragmatic and disciplined approach to eliminating waste and bureaucracy."
"Our goal is to reduce VA employment levels to 2019 in strength numbers, roughly 398,000 employees, from our current level of approximately 470,000 employees," Collins said in the video. "Now that's in a 15 percent decrease. We're going to accomplish this without making cuts to health care or benefits to veterans and VA beneficiaries."
Collins's statement comes after The Associated Press reported on an internal memo describing plans to cut 80,000 jobs as part of an "aggressive" reorganization of the agency this summer.
The memo, sent by VA chief of staff Christopher Syrek, said the agency-wide reorganization would take place this August and instructed top-level officials to prepare to "resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure."
Syrek's memo reflected Collins's statement that the agency plans to cut enough employees to return to 2019 levels of staffing. Doing so would require cutting tens of thousands of jobs at the VA that were created under the Biden administration, including through the 2022 PACT Act, which expanded coverage to veterans affected by burn pits.
The department has already undergone waves of workforce cuts under Trump, including 1,400 employees axed last Monday and 1,000 cut earlier in February.
Collins defended the firings in his video statement on Wednesday, saying, "There are many people complaining about the changes we're making at the VA, but what most of them are really saying is, 'Let's just keep doing the same thing that the VA has always done.' No, not gonna happen."
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest VA employee union, issued a statement slamming the layoffs and saying the VA will no longer be able to fulfill the will of Congress if it returns to 2019 level of staffing.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
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