The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to reduce its work force by more than 80,000 people, according to a memo seen by The New York Times outlining part of President Trump’s escalating efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy.
The memo, first reported by the trade publication Government Executive, calls for the department’s work force to go from more than 482,000 workers as of late last year to 399,957. Some of those cuts could be made by offering early retirement or severance payments, but earlier efforts to entice employees to quit their jobs voluntarily fell far short of the Trump administration’s stated goal to drastically reduce the size of the federal work force. Administration officials then fired tens of thousands of workers across the federal government.
Doug Collins, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, released a video statement on Wednesday announcing the cuts, saying — as he has previously — that health care services and benefits would not be cut under the Trump administration and that 300,000 positions at the department had been labeled “mission critical” to ensure that services would not be interrupted.
If that “mission critical” designation remains, the cuts would have to come from a pool of about 182,000 workers — eliminating more than 40 percent of the noncritical work force at the department.
“There are many people complaining about the changes we’re making at the V.A.,” Mr. Collins said. “But what most of them are really saying is, ‘Let’s just keep doing the same thing that the V.A. has always done.’”
He later added, “We’ll be making major changes, so get used to it.”
The cuts would be a major escalation of the downsizing that has already occurred at the department, which provides health care for military veterans. The Trump administration had already fired more than 2,400 employees at the department — cuts that have led to political pushback from Democrats and even some Republicans.
Democrats denounced the move, noting that aggressive cuts at the department had already affected some services for veterans and that a law signed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had significantly expanded the veterans benefits system, requiring more staff.
“Slashing nearly 80,000 V.A. staff is a benefit cut by another name,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, adding that “It will mean longer wait times, fewer appointments, less health care service for our veterans.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, described the plan as a “shameful betrayal,” accusing the Trump administration of “starving” the V.A.’s ability to meet demand to justify privatizing the department.
House Republicans also voiced concerns about the cuts, though they did not directly criticize Mr. Trump or Mr. Collins.
“I have been in contact with Secretary Collins since this internal V.A. memo leaked,” said Representative Mike Bost, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. He added: “I have questions about the impact these reductions and discussions could have on the delivery of services, especially following the implementation of the PACT Act.”
Everett Kelley, the president of the union representing most workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, condemned the plan in a statement, saying that the department “has been severely understaffed for many years, resulting in longer wait times for veterans in need.” The firings, Mr. Kelley said, “can only make matters worse.”
In addition to its primary mission of providing veterans care and serving as the nation’s backup health care system, the department also oversees some medical research and manages veterans benefits programs — like pensions, banking, home loans, insurance, job training and funding for college degrees. The department also manages the nation’s hallowed military cemeteries and investigates fraud in the veterans benefits system.
Those programs, and the department’s sprawling health care system, employ administrators as well as physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, technicians, clerks, accountants, cemetery groundskeepers and case workers.
It is unclear where the cuts will come from and which programs would be most affected by the Trump administration order. The department has not yet started an agencywide analysis of the work force to determine whose job should be eliminated, according to the memo, and will have to submit a plan detailing when and where cuts should occur.