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BUFFALO, N.Y. — A memo last week revealed plans for the Trump Administration to cut thousands of jobs at Veterans Affairs Offices across the country.
That memo from the VA's Chief of Staff outlined 83,000 job cuts as part of a plan to reorganize the agency in August. These job losses would be part of the cuts DOGE is making across government agencies. RELATED: Niagara County seeks applications for Purple Heart recognition "The VA never suffered from having waste in their budget.
The VA has chronically suffered from having too few resources, and too few staff, and too few specialists," U.S. Sen.
Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, said. Gillibrand says she's heard from several people worried about cuts, from veterans who rely on the VA for cancer and PTSD care, to civilians worried contracts with the VA could be on the chopping block. "The Buffalo VA has had significant problems, and a lot of VAs across the country, and across New York, have been understaffed chronically, so more cuts is not going to solve problems in these VAs.
Cuts to research, cuts to treatments, cuts to personnel, all of them are harmful," Gillibrand said. U.S.
Rep. Nick Langworthy says he's watching what happens with the VA closely. "We would not do something that would put patients at risk.
With the staffing levels that we have, look at the nonsense that we saw at the Buffalo VA last year with the highest staffing levels ever, an entire department just didn't do their job," said Langworthy, who represents New York's 23rd District. Nearly 25 percent of the VA's employees are veterans themselves, and according to the memo obtained by NBC News, the August cuts could include about 20,000 veterans. Langworthy on Thursday afternoon had this to say about the Secretary of Veterans Affairs: "He is a thoughtful leader, and he is going to modernize the workforce and make sure it's effectively delivering the mandate of the Department of Veterans Affairs in taking care of our vets.
" The VA last month dismissed 2,400 probationary employees..
