Veterans of Foreign Wars executive director talks VA communication

Welcome back to Defense News Weekly, where we're talking with Veterans of Foreign Wards Executive Director Ryan Gallucci

Ryan, we talked a little bit before the break about some of the stuff facing Congress and the new administration here

The big story has been the concerns over cutting the staffing at VA

I know VFW has been involved in this. Initially, we thought there may be as many as 80,000 folks who got cut from the VA payrolls

We've heard in recent weeks that now it looks like they're going to settle around that 30,000 number

I know VFW came out and applauded some of the work so far, at least some of the transparency

But where do things stand and what are you hearing from veterans about the concerns with just what is happening with the VA workforce

So when the first round of cuts happened back in February, I believe it was, our national commander was pretty outspoken about what was happening

There were VFW members who came forward who were working some frontline positions and they were erroneously let go

So what our commander, Al Lippart, said at the time is recommended using a scalpel instead of a chainsaw

Shortly after, VA brought many of those employees back. They're still working today

And then that's when about the 80,000 figures started to circulate around Washington, D.C

And a lot of people were 80,000. They're going to cut 80,000 jobs. There was chatter

But frankly, we didn't really latch on to the speculation. We were pretty clear with our members

Like, hey, don't get if you see something, please say something. But don't get caught up in speculation

That's a target. That's a goal. And the secretary said the same thing when he testified before both the House and the Senate, that this was a goal

Look, the president was elected on a platform of he's going to come in and shrink the size of the federal government, shrink the size of the federal workforce

What our responsibility was, was to give them, first of all, the time and space to develop a plan

but also to make sure that the secretary lived up to his commitment

that it wouldn't affect direct services to veterans family members caregivers and that care and benefits would still be accessible Look we all know that there are places where bureaucracy can be fixed And frankly every president that come in

since I've been in Washington, D.C., has sought to do that, even at VA. When the Obama administration came in

it was the same thing, that his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, convened the VSOs to try to do the same thing

and scale back Department of Veterans Affairs. Our goal was to make sure that any administration

will do it responsibly. And so when they announced that their workforce reduction was going to be closer to 30,000 and that it would be accomplished through normal attrition, the buyouts to the fork in the road and other mechanisms like that without a large scale rift, that was something that we applauded

Our national commander, again, Al Lippart, put out a statement applauding the secretary for approaching that directive from the president deliberately

Again, it was something the president campaigned on, but something that we had the responsibility to make sure was done correctly

and that veterans received what they had earned. So let me ask you, because we've been doing this long enough

that I know how behind the scenes works a lot of the time. You'll hear from the administration

There'll be some communication between the veterans groups and the administration. It doesn't mean the administration is asking your permission

but there is usually a value in what the veterans groups have to say

and the impact this is going to have on the communities, the fears, the concerns, the challenges, and all of that

What's the status of communication right now with the veterans groups and this new administration

Because I've heard very mixed bag so far. Well, I think from the VFW perspective

we've had really good communication over the last couple of months. As more of the team has come into place

and as more of the Secretary's vision is moving forward, we've had a lot more collaborative communication

and then support as well. So we're looking forward to the Secretary

joining us for a national convention, but it not just that the secretary will be there We once again supporting a VA benefit claims clinic with the help of the VA regional office We host a health fair every year where veterans can explore the programs and services that VA makes available to them

They're supporting that as well. We have regular communication with VA on a variety of topics

They solicit our feedback. We provide them unsolicited feedback, as we've always done since 1899 or since the Veterans Bureau was commissioned

And that's, look, I think the communication is going in the right direction

And there are things where we see the secretary executing on things that we've wanted to see done for a long time

We applauded the secretary and the deputy secretary for speeding up the deployment of the electronic health record

But also there are other places where we think that there will be alignment moving forward

You know, they're working aggressively to address the VA claims workload, make sure the benefits are delivered in a more timely manner, deploy better technology

Those are things that we've asked for for years. I mean, there are some technology programs that we use as advocates that have been in sustainment since 2012

It's time to fix those. I know you guys aren't shy about talking to members of Congress, too, about things that you want to hear

You've guys been advocating for the Richard Starr Act and several other pieces of legislation

Talk to me about where you feel Congress stands right now. I know there's some bipartisan impetus towards these things, bipartisan agreement on a lot of veterans issues, but there's also a ton of gridlock

And I don't know what your level of optimism or pessimism is right now in terms of actually getting some significant veterans legislation done in the next few months if they're caught up on a potential shutdown

They're caught up on the budget. They're caught up on reconciliation fallout. I mean can veterans issues be a place where there really is some bipartisan breakthrough Well thankfully we just had some It may be small but just a couple of weeks ago H 1815 the VA Home Loan Program Reform Act

passed the House and the Senate through unanimous consent and was hotlined through the Senate. So

no partisan objection to that whatsoever. So I think that there are places where there can be

consensus. That bill in particular was introduced by a VFW member and chairman of the Economic

Opportunity Subcommittee, Derek Van Orden. And it was to really address some of the concerns that

the Republicans had about the VASP program. Now, Secretary Collins chose to sunset it

It was only a place for about a year. And even that was a stopgap to address the sunset of the

foreclosure. These things build on each other. Almost ridiculously, it's layered. There was still a fair amount of fighting over this, though, and whether or not that program

was ended too early. And even though the final issue was compromised. So I guess, I guess

do you see that as a positive breakthrough because we did come from a fair amount of

partisan fighting to a solution? Or is this, is this how things are going to go? There's going to

be a lot of fighting before we get to any, any result. I don't know. So, I mean, you've seen the

the hearings, especially on the House side, they can, they can become contentious with some of the

the commentary from the dais back and forth from the members of the committee. But I think

that the Home Loan Program Reform Act gave me a lot of hope that there is, that compromise is

achievable and that we can move forward in the best interest of veterans. There are a couple of

other bills that cleared the House markup just last week. Many of them were Republican-led

but a couple of the Democratic initiatives made it through as well and we'll go now to the full

House for consideration. So we still see some, we still see bipartisanship, which is reassuring

and we see collaboration to make sure that they can get things done