With U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins expected to announce a sweeping workforce reduction in his department today — it could terminate 83,000 jobs, according to a leaked memo — veterans advocates and state officials expressed feelings that ranged from anticipation to fear.
The hearing had been set for Wednesday but was bumped back to today.
Some say they're not worried a slimmer federal veterans agency will result in poorer access to VA health care. Others say the rumored job eliminations would be "disastrous" for thousands of veteran beneficiaries and employees: The agency says one-quarter of its more than 450,000 employees are former military.
"There's a lot of question marks out there, a lot of concern about, 'Will I have a job in two months or three months, or two weeks or three weeks?'" said Jack Lyden, an Air Force veteran who connects southwestern Pennsylvania veterans with companies looking to hire them. "So folks are preparing."
Lyden said his own company, Pittsburgh Hires Veterans, has seen a small uptick in veterans who have been laid off by the federal government — half a dozen or so as of early April — and they're reaching out for resume-writing and interview workshops.
But Christina Lonigro, of Hickory, Pa., said she was reassured when she saw Collins speak at a March conference of the National Association of State Directors of the Veterans Affairs. She follows developments at the agency because as part of her job at a company that helps veterans combine their military benefits with Medicare.
Collins "spoke about the value of having veterans be the focus [of the VA] and why it was important to him. He served for over 20 years," Lonigro said, "and he understands the mission when it comes to making sure that veterans are getting their benefits."
At Collins's U.S. Senate confirmation hearing in January, several Democrats asked him to pledge to not reduce the workforce at the VA. Specifically, they urged him to help with processing claims for PACT Act recipients — veterans who are entitled to benefits under a 2022 law intended to address health concerns stemming from exposure to the toxic chemicals released in military "burn pits." Collins avoided making any promises, but repeated several times that his mission will be focused on veterans — and that he understood their anxieties.
"It will be the mission to take care of our veterans and to make sure they get the benefits that they deserve," Collins told the committee earlier this year. "I'm an Iraq War veteran. I understand burn pits because I slept next to one for many months."
Philip Glover, who heads the American Federation of Government Employees in Pennsylvania and Delaware, said he doesn't believe the Trump administration is sincere about "putting veterans first," if it means to fire thousands of them from the VA.
The VA is the largest unionized agency in the country, Glover said, and he said changes sought by the Trump administration will take away their union job protections.
Trump, he suspects, "wants to fire as many employees as possible and bring loyalists into the government. That's his goal, that's what they're trying to do."
'A win for our veterans'
Pennsylvania Republicans, such as state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, have faith in Collins at the helm of the VA.
"The VA's progress should be measured by how many veterans it helps, not by how many people they employ," said Garrity, a former military police officer in the Army Reserve.
Garrity says the agency — the second-largest employer in the federal government after the Department of Defense — struggled to perform its mission even as staffing grew at record-setting levels under President Joe Biden.
A VA spokesperson said the agency's budget increased by $89 billion during the Biden presidency, but wait times also increased, in part due an expansion in the number of people eligible for help under the 2022 burn-pit law.
Garrity acknowledged that she has concerns about the wait times veterans have experienced. But she says she has confidence in Collins. And while VA spending on suicide prevention alone grew to more than half a billion dollars since 2022, Garrity said, the veteran suicide rate hasn't improved: Still more than 6,000 veterans take lives each year.
"That's an 11,000% increase" in suicide prevention funding since 2008, "and yet we have the same number basically dying every year from suicide," Garrity added.
Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin), an Army veteran who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness committee, said he believes the VA will become more streamlined as bureaucrats — not care providers — will be shown the door, and unnecessary contracts cancelled.
"Couple that with the millions, or possibly billions of dollars being saved, and I see a win for our veterans," Mastriano said in a statement to WESA. "Think of the improvements that could be made at VA hospitals or other facilities instead of that money going to a bunch of 'paper shufflers!'"
And Mastriano also anticipates that the state agency in charge of coordinating veteran care at the state level will deliver a positive report to his committee later this month "assessing the potential [Trump administration] cuts and the impact on Pennsylvania."
'Unacceptable and dangerous'
State Democrats who make key decisions on veteran-related legislation have a different take on the potential rollbacks.
"You can't just know how to break something, you need to know how to fix it, present a vision, and an alternative," said Jared Solomon, a state House Democrat from Philadelphia who chairs the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness committee. "If you are serious about identifying waste and corruption … you have to be serious in identifying what the solution is."
Solomon is a captain in the National Guard and an Army veteran. When Congress expanded coverage for veterans who were exposed to burn pits, Solomon said, the move was "praised up and down the political spectrum." But, he said, that expansion also "requires more people to process claims." The Biden administration responded by staffing up the agency, he said.
"We want veterans to get the benefits they deserve under that act, not in two years or four years, but in two months or less," Solomon added.
State Rep. Chris Pielli (D-Chester) an Army veteran who also sits on the House Veterans committee, said even small-scale VA layoffs have had worrying effects. The Trump administration axed some 2,400 positions in February, he noted, and since then he'd heard reports that medication requests were delayed by over a week.
"Let's put that in context — that's just 3% of the staff they plan to fire," Pielli said. "So you can imagine how devastating that would be."
He said that in Chester County, local officials say the wait for care can already stretch from six to nine months: County officials estimate that the wait will increase to between nine and 12 months if staffing cuts go through.
"That's just unacceptable and it's dangerous," Pielli said.
Pielli said that if care for veterans deteriorates at the federal level, state lawmakers will not be able to heal the damage.
"There's no way our state budget would be able to absorb these cuts and try to open up or run a [veteran-focused] hospital," Pielli said. "I mean we cannot do it without federal funds."
All he and others can do, he said, is pressure the state's Congressional delegation to intervene.
U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick is also a veteran, Pielli noted: "He should know better, and shame on him if he's okay with this."
McCormick and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman both voted to confirm Collins in February.
McCormick's office didn't respond to a request for comment, but in a tele-town hall last month, he endorsed many of the workforce cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency. McCormick said layoffs were necessary to reduce government debt, though he admitted DOGE had made mistakes.
Trump is "pretty much doing what he said he was going to do," McCormick said during the nearly hour-long call. "The American people elected him to carry out an agenda that he's largely doing."
And though Fetterman supported Collins in his confirmation vote, he said Tuesday in a statement to WESA, "Collins has a lot of questions to answer as to how the VA will be able to process claims, schedule appointments, and care for more veterans while he is arbitrarily cutting up to 80,000 positions from the department's workforce."
"These brave men and women put their lives on the line to serve our nation, and I'll be seeking assurances from Secretary Collins that they will receive the care they are owed," Fetterman's statement said.
