Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins said on Thursday that he will not cede control and resources to public sector unions and private contractors seeking to run his agency.
Collins explained his vision for removing what he sees as bureaucratic waste and clamping down on employee misconduct at the VA in an exclusive sit-down interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation. Among his top examples was a management contract that became one of many private sector deals the VA slashed to save millions of dollars, finding them unnecessary.
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“We had a department set up in the VA with employees, and yet we contracted another company to actually sort of run that department,” Collins said. “And it’s like, okay, either we need to contract this or we need the employees. We don’t need both. And so that’s the kind of stuff we’re seeing.”
Collins said the firm, which he did not name, had been contracted to provide “management capabilities” and “oversight” among other functions that he found to be redundant. “It was like, you know, why are employees here at this point?” the secretary said.
“For folks understanding where we’re at in government right now going into an administration, it’s like going back into your room that you had been gone from for, say, a year or two, and you come back and you say, ‘why is this here?’” Collins said.
Collins also told the DCNF that inquiries to the VA’s Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection have come in “a little bit higher” since he stepped into office. The office processes reports of misconduct by VA staff and may submit recommendations for disciplinary action.
“A lot of them have been dismissed because sometimes people use it as a venting tool,” Collins said of the inquiries that have rolled in during his tenure.
Reports declined under the Biden administration at the same time that it received increased tips from 2021 to 2024, official data show.
The secretary also addressed the large influence of public sector unions at the VA. He said the department’s workforce is roughly 80% unionized, adding that the agency will nonetheless “hold people accountable” for wrongdoing.
“We’re working through our union contracts, which the previous administration bound us with,” Collins said. “They never would sign the contracts under President Trump.”
“Look, we’ll work through those,” he said. “I mean, those are binding on us right now, but we’re also going to work to make sure that there’s no person who’s harming a veteran, or making sure our process is working … to say, ‘you don’t need to be here anymore.”
“We’re going to be encouraged by what the president said in his, executive order concerning accountability, and I’ve raised that standard from the moment I walked in,” Collins said.
The executive order Collins referenced directs the VA to review and “rectify” the Biden administration’s choice to rehire employees previously fired over alleged misconduct.
“It’s got to go all the way down the system because we had years of … lack of accountability, which produced what I call the muscle memory loss,” Collins said.
“You’re either going to do good work or you’re going to be gone,” he said.
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