At the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee workforce hearing on May 3 on how to improve hiring and retention at the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA officials cited a few statistics on the number of job vacancies, along with some new definitions to explain their new vacancy numbers, that have raised eyebrows. But despite the clever wordplay, it remains beyond dispute that the VA needs to improve hiring processes and hire thousands of new employees.
When asked about vacancies at the VA, Gina Grosso, Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security and Preparedness, said the VA has 59,000 vacancies but then clarified that the VA lacks sufficient funding to fill many of them.
“Vacancies doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t have a person in a position that we need,” she told lawmakers. “Vacancies can often reflect requirements that we need now and some of them we fill and some of them we fill when we get funding. 59,000 vacancies don’t all have funding against them. Some have funding and we’re actively recruiting for them and some do not. It’s like a position library. We don’t want to delete it because at some point we want to use it in the future.”
In response to Chairman Jon Tester’s question about how many positions are funded and unfunded, she said:
“55% are funded and 45% are not funded. And one of the things we’re working very hard on honestly is to have a more accurate picture in the future of what a vacancy is. We’re working very hard to have better understanding of what vacancies are, we need to hire them for and what vacancies we’re not hiring for and actively marking them funded and unfunded.”
Further adding to the confusion, Grosso later seemed to agree in response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn that VA’s current funding is only sufficient to fill a few thousand of the vacant positions.
More hiring is needed
As a union representing VA employees, AFGE is encouraging Congress to provide more oversight and more funding for the VA to support more hiring.
The VA critically needs more capable HR staff at the facility level to reduce vacancies and cut the time needed to fill positions. And, to the extent that the VA has identified tens of thousands of unfunded vacant positions needed to serve veterans, Congress should make funding a top priority in this year’s appropriations cycle.
AFGE local presidents across the country have reported concerns that VA hospitals have been short-staffed for years, which now may threaten some with closure. Interestingly, staffing shortages are one criterion that the yet to be constituted Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission may use to recommend facility closure. AFGE opposes the formation of the commission, which will inevitably promote more privatization of the VA, with worse health outcomes and higher costs for taxpayers.
At the VA’s own admission, turnover has gone up due to burnout and the VA’s uncompetitive pay. Despite having the authority to give out retention pay increases and bonuses, many VA hospitals have not used these authorities fully, causing even more brain drain, wasting time and taxpayer dollars in hiring replacements.
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