During a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) spoke about his request to the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a list of 585 contracts that were cancelled.
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00:00Chairman, Mr. Secretary, on February 24th, you announced, I think there was a video of the cancellation of hundreds of contracts, 875 non-mission critical, you characterized them as, and then there was a lot of reaction to that.
00:20So in 24 hours, the department made an internal announcement that you were reconsidering that guidance and offered a pause on the cancellations.
00:30Then on March 3rd, another announcement, 585 contracts would be canceled.
00:35You said they were non-mission critical or duplicative.
00:38On March 6th, I wrote you a letter asking to have a list of those 585 contracts.
00:45You mentioned earlier today it's not weeks or months.
00:47Well, in my case, it was two months.
00:49I got a response on Friday that was a non-response.
00:52It didn't give me the list of the contracts.
00:54Why won't you tell us what those contracts are?
00:57We will be, as those are finished, as you well know, and as I said earlier, to the contracts, and we're doing a negotiation.
01:05Part of those contracts may be re-scoping of contracts.
01:08They're not completely taking out one contract.
01:10I understand that, but just give us a list.
01:11When we get to the final, we will be giving those to you.
01:13Well, I don't understand why you can't give them to us now.
01:15I just want a list of the contracts.
01:17It's been two months, 585 contracts.
01:20I want to know what they are.
01:22I mean, I'm an optimistic kind of guy, and I'm not suspicious.
01:25But the fact that you won't tell us what the contracts are that are being re-negotiated makes me wonder if there are things in those contracts that maybe you don't want us to know about.
01:35Well, I will say that from my perspective.
01:37That is not it, and we'll work to get you the information you need.
01:39When?
01:40We're working through it now.
01:42We sent the last.
01:42How about by next Friday?
01:44I'll get with our folks and see what we can provide you at that time, and we'll see what we can get to you.
01:48Well, that's really not a very satisfactory answer.
01:50It seems to me this couldn't be simpler, just a list of 585 contracts.
01:55Somebody has that list.
01:56I don't know why you can't supply it to this committee.
01:58When you were confirmed, Senator Blumenthal said,
02:02will you commit to respond promptly to any inquiry from members of this committee to request information and be fully transparent with this committee?
02:09You said, that is my intention.
02:11For this committee, I will make that you have every information that you need.
02:16Well, this is the antithesis of transparency.
02:18Again, this is just, I can't imagine anything more simple than to just give us somewhere there exists this list.
02:26Anyway, let me go on to another question.
02:28There's been a lot of discussion today about the firings, and you've talked about a goal.
02:32What bothers me is the goal.
02:36If you're talking about restructuring the VA, shouldn't you be talking about where you need restructuring and not start with an arbitrary number?
02:42How did you choose 2019 as the number, as the target for your staff size?
02:49What's magic about that year?
02:51Well, I think that was where you go back to the actual executive order, which we were following to go through the, to downsizing our government, making it more efficient, and looking at it.
02:59And that was the determination from looking at a sort of a 15% as we look at the targets of the government.
03:05My problem with that is if you have an arbitrary number, whether it's 15% or 2019, that presupposes the result that there are that many unnecessary jobs.
03:17It seems to me you ought to do an analysis of where is the duplication.
03:22By the way, I'm not one that is advocating in any way, shape, or form that the VA was perfect on January 20th, 2025.
03:29I certainly agree that the staffing should be examined, the policies, particularly the red tape that Senator Tuberville was talking about.
03:38I think those are all very good things that should be examined, but it should be done in a thoughtful and transparent way.
03:45And I just don't understand why the magic.
03:492019, by the way, there have been seven significant veterans-related bills passed since that year, including the PACT Act, one of the most significant expansions of VA benefits in recent American history.
04:02And yet, the goal is going back to that particular year.
04:07It should be, the goal should be efficiency, not a quota.
04:10Yeah, and that is what we're looking at, and that's what a goal is, is looking at it.
04:14But I also have to, one of the things, when you look at this, just last year, the previous administration, and through presentations that they made,
04:21and others actually advocated for a 28,000-person decrease in employees at the VA.
04:29So, I mean, it's not a new thing to look at.
04:31But we're doing, I want to agree with you here, Senator, that we are looking at this in a way that says, what is the best part?
04:37One of the things, also, there may be a new application, new legislation that's come forward, but there's also newer technologies, also newer ways and quicker ways that we can get stuff done.
04:46So, that's the efficiency issue we're talking about.
04:48Well, in the memo from your Chief of Staff on March 4th, it talks about this, it says, there's an information gathering report due March 10th, another report due April 10th, are those, and then there's a department-wide review will be completed by May 9th.
05:05That's three days from now.
05:07Will you share that data with this committee, whose responsibility is to oversee the implementation of the laws and regulations on behalf of veterans?
05:17Yeah, those are being worked on right now and are in the pre-decisional format, so there's not something to share with you on those at this point, especially the one coming up.
05:23In fact, we've actually had to have an extension because our department is so large, so we're not making quick decisions.
05:29We're not making moving forward on that at this point.
05:32Well, I'll go back to my question, and I'll end with this.
05:35The reaction to the contracts request, which seems to me is so straightforward, doesn't fill me with confidence that we're going to truly have a transparent relationship here.
05:44We're all on the same side.
05:46We want to, the whole goal of everybody stated here today is to protect our veterans and to be sure that they get the services they've earned and the benefits that they've earned.
05:56And so, to the extent you can work with us and allow us to understand what you're doing, that would be helpful to develop a more collaborative relationship.
06:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
06:07Senator Bozeman.