FARGO — The Trump administration’s move to cut tens of thousands of jobs from the Veterans Health Administration nationwide will take away care and services from veterans and have “debilitating consequences,” according to local veterans advocates.
Union representatives for the Fargo Veterans Affairs system and other supporters of area veterans met with The Forum Editorial Board on Thursday, May 15, to explain how President Donald Trump’s actions are harming veterans and why top VA leaders don’t feel they can speak out.
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The plan to cut about 80,000 jobs from the VA’s service delivery system nationwide is part of Trump's wide-ranging plan to reduce federal spending.
John Evanson, president of the local American Federation of Government Employees 3884, said that would put staffing back to 2019 levels, before the VA opened new categories and services for veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and burn pits.
“We’re going to lose services. There's no way around it,” Evanson said. “Top management has got gag orders on and they've been told, 'You don't discuss this.'”
Currently, the Fargo VA Health Care System employs around 1,400 people across its footprint, Evanson said, including the VA Medical Center in north Fargo and outpatient facilities in other parts of North Dakota and northwest Minnesota.
About 30% of those employees are themselves veterans, he said.
Going back to 2019 staff levels would mean eliminating 350 staff from that system, he said, to around 1,050 employees.
When cuts were announced in February, 14 local staff were let go through RIF or “reductions in force.” They were told there was “failure to perform,” when in fact, they had outstanding reviews, Evanson said.
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The Forum sought comment from the Fargo VA at the time
Lawsuits filed across the country stopped the RIF actions, for now.
“It's been like a game of whack-a-mole since this new administration came in,” Evanson said.
Twelve of the 14 RIF-ed employees have returned, while others have declined here and in other parts of the country, saying they did not want to return to that kind of environment.
“It's hostile, it's abusive. There's no psychological safety,” Evanson said.
Skye Carpenter is a former VA employee who now works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is president of AFGE 3748.
As a veteran herself, she said even the threat of losing services is traumatizing.
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“It has permanent, debilitating consequences to these veterans that can't just be undone,” Carpenter said.
Concerns are unheard
Rick Olek, a retired U.S. postal worker, sought care at the Fargo VA when he returned from service in Vietnam in 1972.
“It was not a very nice place to go,” Olek said, adding that he finally returned in the early 1990s after services had begun to improve.
Like many Vietnam veterans, Olek was exposed to Agent Orange, a chemical the U.S. government used to defoliate forests that can cause cancer, skin and neurological ailments, and other conditions.
Agent Orange disability was denied for years before the government acknowledged it.
The PACT Act of 2022, which expanded VA health care and benefits to veterans exposed to Agent Orange, burn pits and other toxic substances, prompted many more veterans to enroll for care.
Olek worries that with Trump’s staff cuts, it will be impossible for those new services and benefits to fully continue.
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He said the Fargo VA has become a great facility that’s properly staffed.
“I see what's happening at the top level, and it's going backwards,” he said.
Carpenter, 32, broke both hips while serving stateside with the Army National Guard as a 19-year-old. She said she went almost a year without care as she tried to transition from active duty to the Fargo VA.
Wait times improved greatly after passage of the PACT Act, she said.
“People didn't have to go through that anymore. And I was very happy about that, because the damage that should have been easily fixable for me was permanent,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter and others in the group have met with representatives from the North Dakota and Minnesota congressional delegations and said their concerns have mostly “fallen on deaf ears.”
“If they're doing anything, it would be behind the scenes, and we haven't seen the results,” Carpenter said.
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“You're familiar with the old Southern expression, ‘Y'all come back now.’ What it really means is, ‘Don't ever come here again,’” Evanson said of the perceived response at the meetings with some congressional staff employees.
Andrew Bushaw, North Dakota AFL-CIO field director, said while it does not appear Congress will scrap the PACT Act, keeping it fully funded will be the problem.
“They’re just going to defund it and basically hollow it out until we lose trust in it,” he said.
'Veterans are scared'
There are 66,000 registered veterans in North Dakota, approximately 15,000 of them in Cass County, according to Chris Deery, director of Cass County Veterans Services.
He said while veterans saw great improvements under the PACT Act, longer wait times and benefit delays are starting to come back.
“Right now, the majority of the calls we're getting are pretty negative and veterans are scared,” Deery said.
As a veteran of the Iraq War, Deery can relate. Seeking a particular type of care at the VA recently, he said they’re scheduled out until August because they just don't have staff.
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A push to remove the federal government’s role through cuts and to privatize medical care for veterans doesn’t sit well with them.
Carpenter said veterans’ issues are unique, especially with the high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Veterans want to know they can see the doctors they trust and know and not get bounced around to different people at different times.
Her own mental health is at an all-time low, she said, because of all the uncertainty.
“We can't sit in the unknown. That’s a dangerous place,” Carpenter said.
Living in the U.S. under a democracy and constitutional law, it's not right that VA leaders have to stay quiet because they feel threatened, the advocates said.
“There's a fundamental flaw when people are afraid to speak up that they may lose their job,” said Mark Froemke, president of the West Area Labor Council AFL-CIO.
The circumstances explain the silence on behalf of leaders at the Fargo VA, Carpenter said.
“It’s because they can't speak, so it's very important that we do,” she said.
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