VA signs $700K agreement with OPM for assistance with mass layoffs

Updated June 10 at 9:54 p.m.

The Veterans Affairs Department has signed an agreement with the federal government’s human resources office to help it conduct mass layoffs later this year, with VA saying it requires the assistance due to the unprecedented nature of the upcoming cuts. 

VA will pay OPM $726,000 for its layoff consultation services, according to the agreement, a copy of which was reviewed by Government Executive, which will “ensure legally compliant reductions in force (RIF) procedures.” The department previously announced it would cut more than 80,000 employees, though VA Secretary Doug Collins subsequently said that number was an initial target and the final total could be revised upward or downward. 

“VA [Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness] has never undertaken such a large restructuring, and does not have the capabilities, expertise or the internal resources to fulfill the requirement,” the department said in the memo. “Therefore, OPM, an outside resource, will be essential for this effort.”

OPM will provide “qualified, seasoned” HR specialists to help VA reach a level of cuts necessary to meet the demands laid out in President Trump’s executive order calling for workforce reductions and subsequent guidance from OPM and the Office of Management and Budget. VA, like most major agencies, is currently blocked by a federal court ruling from implementing any RIFs or otherwise carrying out its reorganization plans. The administration has requested an emergency stay on that injunction before the Supreme Court, however, which is expected to weigh in within a few days. 

“This Interagency Agreement (IAA) will indirectly support veterans by directly supporting VA's veteran workforce,” VA wrote in the memo. 

McLaurine Pinover, an OPM spokesperson, said the work would go through the agency’s Human Resources Solutions group that routinely provides strategic consulting advice to agencies employing restructurings and RIFs. 

“HRS exists to assist, advise, and consult with agencies to ensure best practices and full legal compliance throughout a personnel action, including a RIF,” Pinover said. “HRS’s work is done entirely pursuant to interagency agreements with other agencies who hire HRS to consult, advise, and help implement via HRS’s revolving fund authority.”

VA did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, criticized the agreement and said it demonstrated that VA is deploying a "total lack of strategy and planning" for its cuts. 

"If VA does not have the staff or processes to carry out this draconian, dramatic undertaking, it’s clearly not just the right-sizing VA Secretary Collins claims it is," Blumenthal said. "Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants to help fire tens of thousands of dedicated VA employees, including many veterans, is an egregious use of taxpayer dollars.”

One VA executive directly involved in the RIF planning told Government Executive that department leadership is creating challenges for the team overseeing the cuts because it refuses to put its goals in writing and will not spell out the rationale for its decision making. The verbal instruction, the executive said, is for layoff notices to go out in June. In official communications, however, the executive said leadership will not confirm RIFs are a foregone conclusion. 

The cuts are expected to focus overwhelmingly on headquarters staff in Washington and employees in regional offices, known as Veterans Integrated Service Networks. Still, the executive added there was not enough to cut there to spare individual health care facilities entirely if the 80,000 reduction target remained in effect. 

Because the goal remains a moving target, the executive added, planning has become difficult. On a Monday one appointee will approve a reduction target and by Tuesday another appointee will tell the group the figure is not significant enough. 

“You expect change,” the official said of a new administration, “but if they can’t even articulate the in-state expectation, you can’t execute on any sort of change.” 

That executive added that senior VA leaders entered the department with a predetermined idea and are not adjusting to the realities they have encountered. 

“There seems to be a genuine desire to just dismantle things that were working effectively,” the official said. “They came in with the mindset that everything was screwed up and everything needed to be retooled.” 

Former Department of Government Efficiency staffer Sahil Lavingia, who served as a liaison to VA, said the veterans agency mostly worked fine and was not as inefficient as he thought. Lavingia was fired the day after making those comments. 

Collins has maintained that only back-end roles will be impacted by cuts and patient-facing staff will be spared. Several employees questioned that proposition, however, noting that doctors and nurses rely on support personnel to do their jobs. While VA recently cleared more positions to resume onboarding, employees said that services remain hindered by the hiring freeze otherwise in place and such obstacles would be exacerbated by layoffs. 

“You can hire a surgeon but if no one is there to buy the supplies to do the surgery, what the hell’s the difference?” the VA executive said.

VA is currently developing its final workforce plan and has solicited feedback from executives throughout the department. In an unusual move, it has asked those employees to sign non-disclosure agreements related to the planning. VA supervisors have told employees that as a result, they cannot respond to questions to which they know the answers.

VA’s expected reductions have received some bipartisan pushback, with key Republicans saying the department should proceed with caution and without a set number of cuts in mind. Collins has criticized lawmakers for asking him about the plans, saying the matter was predecisional and scaring veterans. The cut target became public only after Government Executive reported on an internal memo discussing it.

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday evening voted against an amendment that would have blocked VA from carrying out large-scale RIFs after Republicans opposed it. 

“A goal is not a fact,” Collins said last month of the projected cuts. “You start with a goal. You start with what you look for, and then you use the data that you find from your organizations to make the best choices you can.” 

He added his adjustments could lead to even more significant reductions. 

“It could be less, could be more,” Collins said. “It is a goal that you have to look at. You have to start somewhere.”

This story has been updated with additional comment and information.