VA says eliminated jobs were ‘unneeded’; Warner and Kaine cite watchdog’s shortage data in pressing for answers

By Philippa Langstrom

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs says the roughly 26,000 unfilled jobs it eliminated nationwide were positions it did not need. Virginia’s two senators say a federal watchdog’s latest staffing report makes that harder to square with what facilities in the commonwealth are reporting.

In an Oct. 21 letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins, Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Virginia Democrats, renewed questions they first raised in May about the elimination of more than 1,700 vacant positions at VA facilities in Virginia and asked for a staff briefing on workforce conditions across the state.

VA’s case

The department has defended the cuts as a cleanup of its books. In an Aug. 26 response quoted in the senators’ letter, VA said the approximately 26,000 unfilled positions were eliminated because they were “unneeded” and had “made it difficult for VA to properly identify and prioritize staffing needs across its facilities.” VA said the decision “was made in coordination with facilities across the country.”

VA has also disputed how the inspector general’s annual shortage report is read. The department has argued that the report captures officials’ perceptions of hiring difficulty rather than vacancies and has pointed to its own physician and nurse vacancy rates, which it says are in line with historical averages, Military.com reported.

What the senators cite

The May letter flagged more than 700 eliminated vacancies at the Hampton VA Medical Center, 300 at Richmond’s and 200 at Salem’s, plus several hundred at community clinics and other sites, according to Kaine’s office.

The new letter leans on the VA Office of Inspector General’s fiscal 2026 report on severe occupational staffing shortages, released Sept. 11. Nationwide, facility officials reported 4,712 severe shortages across 389 occupations, up from 4,434 the year before and 2,959 in fiscal 2024, according to Military.com’s review of the report. Medical officer shortages were reported at 97% of facilities and nurse shortages at 86%.

For Virginia’s three VA health systems, the senators’ letter cites these figures from the report:

The OIG itself cautions that the survey is a descriptive review of what facility officials submitted, that it does not independently verify the answers, and that a “severe shortage” designation means an occupation is hard to fill, not that positions are vacant, Military.com reported. The acting under secretary for health concurred with the findings, and the OIG made no recommendations.

Warner and Kaine wrote that their review of vacancy data VA had given them shows “some degree of overlap” between eliminated vacant positions in Virginia and occupations those same facilities flagged as severe shortages. “It is less clear today than when we first wrote you, that your Department has a clear handle on facility staffing needs across the country,” they wrote.

The letter also points to media reports of retention problems at the VA Health Care Center in Fredericksburg, which opened in spring 2025, including a veteran who described cycling through four primary care providers in about 18 months.

What they want

The senators asked VA to explain the criteria facility leaders used to identify unneeded positions, whether facilities were given quotas or targets and whether facility leaders objected to or concurred with the cuts. They also asked which Virginia facilities meet VA’s own minimum staffing models, how VA has used recruitment and retention incentives Congress authorized, how many employees have left Virginia facilities, including the new Fredericksburg and Chesapeake clinics, since January 2025, and whether any facility has asked to hire above its cap.

They also asked what Virginia facilities with funding for vacancies cut in fiscal 2026 spent that money on instead.

Virginia is home to more than 629,000 veterans, one of the largest veteran populations in the country, according to Kaine’s office.

The Washington Inquisitor has asked VA, the VA Office of Inspector General, the White House, Warner’s and Kaine’s offices and the Veterans of Foreign Wars for comment and will update this story with any response.