• Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wisconsin has lost half of its supply chain management team due to firings and a hiring freeze.
• Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans are divided on the cuts to the VA workforce, with Democrats criticizing the move and Republicans largely supporting it.
• Union representatives argue that the cuts will negatively impact patient care and increase the workload on remaining staff.

“We need your help.”

That was the start of an email sent to staff at Zablocki VA Medical Center late Tuesday, detailing plans for coping with the loss of half the members of its supply team in recent weeks.

Under a contingency plan created by the VA, effective immediately, hospital staff were asked to retrieve medical instruments and supplies from the basement instead of relying on the well-stocked units within their wing usually managed by supply technicians.

It’s the latest squeeze of an already-depleted team of caregivers, employees say, and increases the risk of delayed patient care.

The loss of half the team that manages medical supplies and essential goods across the VA’s facilities is the result of the Deferred Resignation Program and mass firings of probationary employees coordinated by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and mega-billionaire Elon Musk, along with a hiring freeze ordered by President Donald Trump.

A spokesman for the VA said the cuts would not harm veterans’ care.

“The Zablocki VA Medical Center is meeting its supply chain requirements by delegating duties across the remaining staff,” VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz told the Journal Sentinel in an emailed statement. “There is no negative impact to clinical operations and Veteran care.”

The VA has a unique place within the federal entities targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency’s push to radically shrink the federal workforce. Republicans have attempted to underline their support for veterans while defending the cuts; Democrats have blasted the decisions.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican, dismissed the VA’s planned layoffs of as many as 83,000 workers in a Wednesday morning WisPolitics event near the U.S. Capitol as “just a report” and said the cuts haven’t yet happened. Instead, Johnson suggested bipartisan support for the VA and veterans is strong — to the point that it has bloated the workforce.

“Everybody — bipartisan basis — will vote for (funding for veterans) to the point where we overfund it,” Johnson said. He said the VA “is not a particularly efficient organization.”

“One thing you don’t have to worry about being underfunded is support for veterans,” Johnson said. “Doesn’t happen.” He said the VA receives substantial funding and insisted that is not going to change.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, said in a Tuesday press release the Trump administration’s assertion that cutting 83,000 VA employees will have no impact on veterans’ care and benefits is “blatantly dishonest.”

On Thursday, a California federal judge ordered six federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, to rehire thousands of workers with probationary status fired in February. Probationary workers typically have less than one year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees who have been promoted to new positions.

It’s not yet known how the judge’s order will affect Zablocki. Michele Malone, president of Local 3 AFGE representing Zablocki employees, said that in the 2021 transition from Trump to former president Joe Biden, wrongfully terminated VA workers were reinstated, offered backpay, or given lump sums for damages.

Veterans, employees push back against inefficiency claims

James Stancil, a 61-year-old veteran, was among the Zablocki employees laid off by the VA in February. He wasn’t surprised to hear about the need for a contingency plan, which would change the cleaning schedule of utility rooms, eliminate a majority of the “cough stations” that provide masks, tissues and hand sanitizer in across the facilities and force care providers to travel to the basement to pick up medical supplies.

“They basically cut an entire shift of workers,” Stancil said.

As a fully trained technician who only had a couple months left of his probationary period, he said the situation is like watching a house burn down across the street, knowing he could help if only he were allowed.

“It wasn’t the right place to make those cuts,” Stancil said. “I understand the need to cut waste, but what was the point of this?”

It’s unclear if Stancil’s job will be reinstated.

William Townsend, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 1732, which represents the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital and Clinics, said that mass cuts like this will have a domino effect on an already exhausted workforce where “every job at the VA has a purpose.”

In the meantime, the possibility of imminent cuts continues to have a seismic effect on the mental health of staff. Townsend is also feeling the weight of that unpredictability.

“We’re not getting rich working for the VA, but employment brings about a sense of service, a sense of pride in being able to help your fellow veterans. That’s really important,” Townsend said. “My service is helping one of my brothers or sisters. It’s more than just a job. It’s us continuing our service to our country.”

In the days since he was fired, Stancil has created a GoFundMe focused on getting necessities like food, shelter and clothing to military veterans like him following what he, advocates and now a federal judge have called illegal firings. “We are the throwaway service men and women who wanted nothing more than to continue serving our country and you,” Stancil wrote on his GoFundMe page.

Townsend said Sen. Johnson’s criticisms of the VA being inefficient are a lie. Townsend, a disabled veteran who served in Iraq, doesn’t like to think about his time overseas. But he knows that without the VA he was at risk of suicide and becoming homeless after his return from Iraq.

Townsend went from being a patient at the VA to an employee at the Madison VA through the Veterans Rehabilitation and Education Act. He was connected with a therapist, whom he still sees, and went through employment training to reintegrate after his service.

“I went to the VA at the lowest point in my life, and it was the VA that actually saved me,” Townsend said. “So these lies saying that the VA is inefficient and that the VA doesn’t care about veterans, that’s a bunch of bull.”

Lawrence Andrea from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.