Over 11,000 VA health care employees apply to leave, but ‘very few’ eligible for separation incentives

Over 11,000 Department of Veterans Affairs employees in health care-related positions have requested to quit their jobs through a variety of governmentwide separation incentives.

Of those, more than 1,300 VA nurses, nearly 800 medical support assistants and 200 VA physicians have applied for the agency’s deferred resignation program (DRP), accepted an early retirement offer or voluntarily retired from the agency.

That’s according to data Federal News Network obtained from an internal dashboard tracking DRP requests at the Veterans Health Administration.

Many VHA employees aren’t eligible for the deferred resignation program, which would put them on paid administrative leave through Sept. 30.

Some employees, however, may choose to retire or leave the agency, even if they don’t qualify for the separation incentives.

VA’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer provided a list of DRP-exempt positions in an April 4 memo. But the memo states employees in exempt positions can still apply if they “do not provide direct care or do not support the direct care of veterans,” or if they get approval from VA’s Central Office.

VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz told Federal News Network that, “while all VA employees may apply for these programs, employees who provide direct or indirect care to veterans will only be approved in very limited circumstances when their separation fulfills mission needs.”

“Approval for staff in these positions requires multiple high-level reviews, and VA anticipates very few of these applications to be approved,” Kasperowicz said.

Ann Marie Patterson-Powell, a National Nurses United member and an oncology unit staff nurse for the VA Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, said VA nurses are now taking on additional duties that recently terminated aides would do, such as bringing meal trays to patients.

“Every minute that the nurse spends away from the patient’s bedside puts that patient at risk,” Patterson-Powell said.  “I don’t think they’re looking at the whole picture. “They’re looking at, ‘Maybe we need to cut here, and cut there, and to say that we’re not going to cut nursing staff. But we will cut ancillary staff.’ That doesn’t help, because you’re still cutting my time away from my patients. Whatever time I don’t have at the bedside puts my patients at risk.”

Patterson-Powell said cuts to health care support positions are causing “fear” and “a lot of uncertainty” among VA nurses.

“We have supplies sitting in the warehouse that can’t get to us, because those people aren’t there anymore. There’s a lot of ancillary staff that’s missing,” she said.

“It’s very difficult sometimes to go into work, because you never know what you’re going find when you walk in the door — who’s going to be short- staffed, what supplies we’re not going to have, what, as nurses, we’re going to be asked to do that are non-nurse duties, that pulls us away from the patient and pulls us away from the bedside,” she added.

Irma Westmoreland, chairwoman for veterans affairs at NNU, said the Trump administration is “driving away nurses and making devastating cuts systemwide.”

“It is deeply distressing to see colleagues decide they can no longer work in the VA and support our mission to care for veterans, but we understand that under this administration conditions at the VA have become extremely difficult and workers feel personally attacked,” Westmoreland said.

According to the dashboard, the VHA workforce has approximately 63,000 more employees than it did in FY 2019.

An internal memo from March shows VA is planning to return to 2019 workforce levels, which would result in the department cutting about 83,000 positions.

VA Secretary Doug Collins told lawmakers on Tuesday that the goal is to cut VA’s workforce by about 15% — but said that figure is subject to change.

“It could be less, it could be more. It is a goal that you have to look at. You have to start somewhere,” he told the Senate VA Committee.

Collins said cutting nonessential VA employees will allow the department to spend more money on direct care to veterans, and that workforce cuts won’t impact health care or benefits for veterans.

“We’re going to maintain VA’s mission-essential jobs, like doctors, nurses, claims processors, while phasing out nonessential roles, like interior designers and other things — DEI,” he said.

The VA surged hiring in recent years to handle a growing workload under the PACT Act, a 2022 law that expands eligibility for VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to toxic substances during military service.

More than 1 million veterans and their survivors have received disability compensation benefits under the PACT Act, and nearly 740,000 veterans have enrolled in VA health care.

The dashboard shows VHA had more than 53,000 vacant positions, as of April 28, and was actively recruiting to fill more than half of those positions.

The VA recently fired 2,400 probationary employees, but rehired many of them, as part of a federal judge’s order. Collins said the VA, to date, has only cut about 0.5% of its “non-mission-critical” employees.

According to the dashboard, 1,656 probationary VHA employees were fired and rehired.

VA employees had until April 30 to apply for the deferred resignation offer, and must separate from the agency no later than Sept. 30. VHA’s workforce dashboard shows 3,387 DRP agreements have been signed so far.

The VA said employees eligible for DRP can go on administrative leave “no sooner than July 1, 2025, or seven days after signing this agreement if [an] employee is age 40 or over, whichever is later.”

Probationary VA employees are eligible to take the VA’s offer, but reemployed annuitants are not eligible.

If employees apply for deferred resignation, the department says they won’t be subject to return-to-office requirements or layoffs under the RIF.

The VA’s internal website also includes a “Return to Office Tracker” that allows users to search by a VA employee’s last name or employee ID number, or to review return-to-office data by region.

The VA rescinded telework and remote work agreements for about 20% of its 479,000 employees in February.

VA granted Veterans Crisis Line employees a full exemption to its return-to-office requirements in March, after struggling to find suitable office space for employees who had been working remotely.

A federal judge’s order last month temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing an executive order that would strip collective bargaining rights from much of the federal workforce.

But lawmakers on Wednesday reintroduced the VA Employees Fairness Act, a bill that would give full collective bargaining rights to VA’s health care workforce.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a member of the Senate VA Committee,  and House VA Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano (D-Calif.) are leading the bill.

VA employees have had collective bargaining rights since 1991, but its health care workforce,  classified as Title 38 employees under law, cannot collectively bargain on matters of professional conduct or competence, peer reviews or changes to employee compensation.

The VA Fairness Act passed the House in 2022. Patterson-Powell said the bill faces an “uphill” battle to make it through a Republican-controlled Congress, but said the bill would permanently restore collective bargaining rights for VA nurses.

“We don’t have a seat at the table to talk about patient care, to advocate for our veterans like we should. And we have seen where the administration, at this time, is trying to strip us of every bargaining right that we do have,” she said.

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