Montana’s congressional delegation has sent letters calling on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to not cut 10,000 frontline care providers, saying such a move would hurt health care and mental care services to veterans in Montana.
They said the VA had said earlier that such positions would be protected from job cuts.
CNN reported June 10 the VA has eliminated the frontline jobs even though agency leaders had said otherwise. Psychologists, clinical social workers and other positions have been cut, and some job offers have been rescinded recently as the agency seeks to address a budgetary shortfall and shave its workforce by 10,000 positions.
VA officials did not immediately offer comment Monday.
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester wrote in a letter dated June 17 to VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal that such a decision to reduce staffing “will hit hardest in rural areas like Montana and call on you and the Department to reverse them.”
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He said it could have “dire consequences on Montana veterans’ access to health care and benefits. VA needs to focus on hiring more mental health care providers in rural America – not less.”
Tester, chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said his letter comes on the heels of VA Montana indicating that mental health employees are among the positions proposed to be cut — “despite prior assurances from VA leaders to Congress affirming mental health hiring would be exempt from their new staffing strategy.”
He said more than 10% of the positions proposed “to be cut just at VA Montana were providers or support staff directly related to mental health care” and called the decision “unjustifiable and unacceptable.”
Republican Sen. Steve Daines and GOP Reps. Matt Rosendale and Ryan Zinke said in a letter to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis R. McDonough dated June 14, but received by this newspaper June 17, that these 10,000 jobs include workers who have a direct impact on the care veterans receive at VA facilities nationwide.
They said it is “the latest in a long list of failures and your department that illustrate a VA in disarray and woefully unprepared or unwilling to adequately serve those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedoms.”
“Nothing depicts the mismanagement of the VA under this Administration more than the fact that at the same time your agency is cutting front line jobs due to some ‘budgetary shortfall,’ it is also discovered that you improperly awarded nearly $11 million in bonuses to career executives who weren’t eligible to receive them,” they wrote. “As this example and the numerous others from the last three and a half years demonstrate, the Biden VA’s priorities are clearly misplaced and the result has been poor care for veterans.”
They include 11 questions in their letter that they seek answers for. They ask if it is true that positions are being cut and what is the strategic goal of such a move.
Read the Daines, Rosendale and Zinke letter at 2024.06.14-VA-Job-Cuts.pdf (senate.gov).
Read the Tester letter at 7D5A3F52-D14A-4D5F-A750-78A2CBB0A451 (senate.gov)
Assistant editor Phil Drake can be reached at 406-231-9021.
