Latest news with #DouglasCollins
Washington Post
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Sean Duffy and six others with multiple jobs in Trump's administration
When President Donald Trump's Cabinet convened for its first public meeting in late February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had two additional titles. So did Secretary of Veteran Affairs Douglas A. Collins. By the second such meeting in late April, Collins was down to one job, and Rubio had four. Trump's vow to shrink the federal government appears to rely, at least in part, on top officials doing multiples jobs simultaneously. Often, they are running offices or agencies targeted for dramatic reductions. 'We're cutting down government. We're cutting down the size of government. We have to,' Trump said during that first Cabinet meeting. 'We're bloated. We're sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren't doing their job.'
The Hill
07-07-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Veterans Affairs dramatically scales back layoffs to less than half of initial plan
The Department of Veterans Affairs has abandoned plans to cut more than 80,000 employees, scaling back that number to just under 30,000 after a massive outcry from veterans, advocate groups and lawmakers and an exodus of individuals from the agency. In a Monday news release, the VA said that it was on pace to reduce its total staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year due to 'the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition.' That reduction eliminates 'the need for a large-scale reduction-in-force,' up to 15 percent of employees, or some 83,000 individuals, according to the release. The announcement is a sharp turn for the Trump administration, which for months has sought to eliminate 83,000 roles – reducing the VA's workforce to its 2019 size of less than 400,000 staffers – as laid out in an internal memo sent to employees in March. VA Secretary Douglas Collins said at the time that the cuts were following President Trump's executive order, signed in February, directing all federal agencies to prepare for a reduction in force, meaning large-scale layoffs. He also insisted that the move was tough but necessary and insisted that the cuts would not affect health care or benefits to veterans and VA beneficiaries. The White House, meanwhile, said the VA had grown 'bloated' and claimed the slashed jobs would make the agency more efficient. But Democrat lawmakers were quick to push back on the plans, with Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee ranking member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) calling the development 'a gut punch' and 'breathtaking in its potential significance and its malevolence and cruelty' to former U.S. service members. His counterpart in the lower chamber, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs ranking member Mark Takano (D-Calif.), said the Trump's administration's goals were 'incomprehensible.' 'Any significant reduction in personnel could create devastating backlogs, delay critical care and ultimately fail our veterans at a time when they need our support the most,' Takano said in March. Veterans and their advocate groups also warned that the administration's aggressive approach to shrink the VA will have long-term and devastating effects for veterans, who can already face long wait times for VA care. In addition, former service members were likely to get swept up in the steep workforce reductions as more than 25 percent of VA employees are veterans. In its Monday statement, the VA said it had recorded roughly 484,000 employees in January, a number that was down to 467,000 by June – a loss of nearly 17,000 staffers. The agency projects that between July and Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, nearly 12,000 additional workers will exit through normal attrition, voluntary early retirement or the deferred resignation program. The VA claims that it has 'multiple safeguards in place to ensure these staff reductions do not impact Veteran care or benefits,' that all VA mission-critical positions are exempt from deferred resignations and voluntary early retirement, and more than 350,000 positions are exempt from the federal hiring freeze. But Blumenthal, in a statement released Monday, warned that even as the VA abandons 'its disastrous plan to fire 83,000 more employees,' its announcement makes clear it 'is bleeding employees across the board at an unsustainable rate because of the toxic work environment created by this Administration and DOGE's slash and trash policies.' He stressed that the staffers that have left 'is not 'natural' attrition, it is not strategic, and it will inevitably impact veterans' care and benefits—no matter what blanket assurances the VA Secretary hides behind.' The VA is one of the largest employers of federal workers, with the current 467,000 staffers delivering more than 127 million health care appointments across more than 9 million enrollees. The agency has already experienced cuts early in Trump's second term, losing 2,400 staffers to layoffs in February.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
VA bans gay pride flags in offices, staff cubicles, parking lots, storage areas and more
Feb. 13 (UPI) -- LGBTQ pride flags are banned at Veteran's Administration facilities, according to a Wednesday memo posted by VA Secretary Douglas Collins. The memo said, "This guidance rescinds the Secretary's Flying The Flag During Pride Month Memorandum, dated May 24, 2024 ..." The pride flag was the only flag singled out for banning found in the memo. The ban includes "public displays" or "depictions of flags by VA employees including but not limited to individual offices, cubicles, government vehicles, office buildings, recreational areas, medical centers, storage rooms, kitchens and restrooms. According to the memo, the pride flag ban includes "all spaces or items in public or plain view outside of a VA facility." According to the memo, "All veterans and VA beneficiaries will always be welcome at all VA facilities to receive the benefits and services they have earned under the law." However, the new rules don't address veterans seeking VA services while wearing gay-pride imagery. Republican members of Congress were unsuccessful in recent years at prohibiting LGBTQ pride flags at VA locations, but Trump's VA has now barred the flags. The memo does not ban pride flags at veteran's graves overseen by the National Cemetery Administration. The memo outlines the flags that have been deemed acceptable. They include U.S. state and territories flags, military service flags, VA flags, official branded flags if U.S. agencies are presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed flags, prisoner of war/missing in action flags, Senior Executive Service and Military Department-specific SES flags, ceremonial, command, unit, or branch flags and burial flags to honor a veteran or reservist.
