With significant proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs by the administration of President Donald Trump, it's not yet clear what that will mean for veterans in Hawaii and across the Pacific.
The agency has confirmed to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that it has terminated a "small number" of probationary employees in Hawaii, and additional cuts to personnel and contracts are expected at the VA -- but details remain slim as leadership in Washington promises sweeping changes.
Hawaii is home to an estimated 100, 000 veterans on Oahu and 30,000 veterans on the neighbor islands. All are served by the Oahu-based VA Pacific Islands Healthcare System, which is also responsible for providing care to veterans across the U.S. Pacific island territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
That gives the VAPIHS an area of responsibility of approximately 2.6 million square miles, making it unique within the VA's national network as it works to serve veterans across remote, far-flung islands. In recent years, the VA has sought to expand operations in Hawaii's rural areas, neighbor islands and U.S. Pacific territories to serve veterans who live in those areas in their communities and cut down on long journeys to VAPIHS headquarters at Tripler Army Medical Center.
Late on the night of Feb. 13, the VA fired more than 1,000 employees in what was meant to be a first step in a large series of cuts. An internal memo obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press showed plans to remove more than 80,000 staffers, instructing senior staff to prepare for an agencywide reorganization in August to "resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure."
A VA spokesman based in California told the Star-Advertiser in an email that the VAPIHS "has dismissed a small number of probationary staff. This decision will have no negative effect on Veteran health care, benefits or other services and will allow VA to focus more effectively on its core mission of serving Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors. We cannot discuss specific personnel matters due to privacy concerns."
But a government official in Hawaii, who requested to not be named, told the Star-Advertiser that impacts from personnel and funding cuts to the VA are "just beginning" in Hawaii, with initial cuts affecting neighbor island support and clinical staff. More are expected, but the extent -- and where the cuts will be made -- remains unclear.
The cuts are part of a larger push to fire large swaths of the federal workforce being overseen by the Department of Government Efficiency, a newly formed White House office created by billionaire Elon Musk -- the world's richest person -- and staffed mainly by junior programmers and engineers who previously worked at Musk's various technology companies.
In February after the initial firings, U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii, joined fellow lawmakers in sending a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Collins told lawmakers, "I want to strengthen VA so it works better for America's heroes, and I will embrace your oversight and seek your counsel as we work together to do just that."
In their letter, Case and fellow co-authors accused Collins of contradicting his testimony, writing that "rather than seeking the counsel of Congress, you took unilateral action to abruptly dismiss service-disabled veterans, military spouses, medical researchers, and countless others without any apparent justification--undermining the very mission of VA. There is nothing strengthening about gutting the workforce with the sacred mission to serve veterans, caregivers, and survivors."
The letter noted that when congressional staff requested justifications from the VA's Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs, a VA staffer claimed no one in that office had knowledge of the firings until the news release announcing them was issued Friday night. The lawmakers wrote that "this admission underscores the reckless, ill-planned nature of these firings, as well as a complete lack of transparency in how they were executed."
"This Administration may believe it can run government agencies the way Elon Musk gutted Twitter -- by arbitrarily slashing staff and expecting operations to somehow function seamlessly -- but VA is not a tech startup, and veterans are not an experiment. We will not allow reckless political games to undermine the care and benefits our veterans have earned."
The letter called for Collins to brief Congress on the cuts by Feb. 26. To date, the lawmakers have received no formal response.
Staffers with the Hawaii's congressional offices also told the Star-Advertiser that a separate scheduled meeting between VA officials and congressional staffers from Hawaii, Guam, CNMI and American Samoa to get updates on the operations of the VAPIHS was abruptly canceled last month and that since then there has been little information coming out of the agency.
Case said he's concerned about the silence, and what staff and contracts could be on the chopping block here in the islands.
"These concerns are especially high throughout Hawaii and the Pacific as the VA already struggles to service veterans in our isolated areas," Case said. "The VA has not responded in any detail to our letter or any other from Congress, and we have not been able to obtain detailed information on specific Hawaii /Pacific impacts."
Collins has defended the cuts in public. In an op-ed published at The Hill on Thursday, he declared that "we owe America's veterans -- and hundreds of thousands of excellent VA employees -- solutions."
"Our goal is to reduce VA employment levels to 2019 numbers of roughly 398, 000 employees from our current level of approximately 470, 000 employees--a nearly 15 percent decrease," Collins wrote. "We will accomplish this without making cuts to health care or benefits to veterans and VA beneficiaries."
But according to reporting by The New York Times, at a door session of Trump's Cabinet leadership on Thursday, Collins expressed concerns about how cuts have been handled, suggesting the administration should avoid treating cuts as a "blunt instrument" and that a more strategic approach was needed going forward.
Residents of the Pacific islands served in the military in particularly high numbers during the post-9 /11 wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. A study of 2003 recruiting data by the conservative Heritage Foundation found Pacific Islanders, including Native Hawaiians, joined the Army at a rate 249% higher than that of other ethnic groups.
But the places they call home have long been underserved. Hawaii veterans routinely travel long distances to get services, sometimes traveling inter island for appointments, and have contended with long wait times. Veterans in Guam, CNMI and American Samoa have even more hurdles to accessing care and benefits.
The Pacific islands system has few dedicated facilities of its own, with some of its operations at Tripler Army Medical Center. It largely relies on partnerships and contracts with other hospitals and clinics across the Pacific's far-flung islands to provide for patients. As it stands, island health care for the general public has already been strained as hospitals and clinics struggle with low staffing, high turnover and the logistical challenges of operating in remote island chains.
Recently, the VA managed to secure funding from Congress to build the long-planned Daniel K. Akaka VA Clinic in Kalaeloa and opened April 8, aimed at serving Leeward Oahu veterans. The VA has also sought to bolster its island staff. On Friday, the VAPIHS announced it is opening a new urgent care clinic at the facility this month. But with the VA's planned cuts, the future of the new facilities and their staffs is uncertain.
Case said that to get answers on what veterans can expect from the VA, "it appears the only effective response will be a fully bipartisan demand from Congress, which requires my majority Republican colleagues throughout the country to stand up to the administration."
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