VA Secretary Tells Congress Tech Efficiencies Will Help Offset Workforce Reductions

Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins told Congress that new efficiencies driven by technology upgrades will allow the department to right-size its workforce by slashing positions leadership deems superfluous.

President Trump’s budget request calls for an increase in Electronic Health Record funding. VA leadership has cited technology upgrades like automation and digitization to help modernize the department’s IT systems.

Collins said that efficiencies in technology can counterbalance agency cuts, as legislation like the PACT Act and MISSION Act dramatically reshape how the agency functions despite the drive to staff the agency at 2019 levels.

“There may be new applications new legislations that come forward but there’s also newer technologies, there’s also newer ways and quicker ways that we can get stuff done so that’s the efficiency issue,” Collins told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

Collins referred to workforce cuts as “the elephant in the room” during his testimony but insisted that “our goal is to increase productivity and efficiency, eliminate waste and bureaucracy, and improve the delivery of health care and benefits to veterans.”

Collins previously announced the firing of over 1,000 employees considered non-essential in February 2025, which he said would save the department more than $98 million per year. The department then dismissed an additional 1,400 employees that same month, which Collins said would save the department an additional $83 million per year that could be put to work delivering care to veterans.

“To be perfectly clear: these moves will not negatively impact VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries. In the coming weeks and months, VA will be announcing plans to put these resources to work helping veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors,” Collins said in a press release at the time.

Collins said that reports about reducing staff at the agency by 15% was a “goal” rather than a firm directive and said that current reductions have only been in unnecessary positions like “interior designers and DEI officers.”

“My only criteria that I have is looking forward in this is making sure that we’re taking care of the veterans first,” Collins said. “If that means we reshape the workforce, we do that. A goal is whatever a goal is but at the end of the day the metric is, are we taking care of veterans.”

Collins focused much of his testimony on highlighting the ways the agency has tried to re-center its focus on veteran-centered reform.

Sen. Jerry Moran, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, asked Collins about ongoing efforts to add mental health residential rehabilitation treatment programs to the MISSION Act.

Collins noted that the VA shares “the same challenges as the community does” with nurse and doctor shortages, but the agency was working toward a “total approach” through “leveraging partnerships with DOD but also looking at our nonprofits and our VSOs to see how they can help as well.”