Southern Arizona VA Health Care System in Tucson.
92 employees from the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System have applied for deferred resignation or early retirement in response to an offer made by the Trump Administration as part of its DOGE initiative to cut the Veterans Affairs workforce by 15%.
In Tucson, 79 employees have requested to resign and opt for full pay and benefits through September 30th through the DRP 2.0 program according to a public records request.
Public records requested by AZPM also show that 13 employees have applied for early retirement through the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority referred to as VERA.
The Tucson VA did not confirm the number of employees who have been approved so far, but provided a statement:
“While all VA employees may apply for these programs, employees who provide direct or indirect care to Veterans will only be approved in very limited circumstances. Approval for staff in these positions requires multiple high-level reviews, and VA anticipates very few of these applications to be approved.”
Mass layoffs were slated to start this month agency-wide, to reach the reduction in force goal of up to 80,000 positions however, cuts throughout the federal workforce have been paused due to a court order issued by a district court in California, that was recently upheld by the Ninth Circuit in AFGE v. Trump.
On May 22, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction that said the president could only restructure agencies with Congressional authorization.
The original complaint presented by unions, non-profits, and local governments challenged EO 14210, which sought to terminate federal workers in a “critical transformation of the Federal Bureaucracy”.
According to the VA’s Workforce Optimization Hub Reduction in Force webpage, official guidance states that the court order in AFGE, et. al, v. Trump, et al., “prohibits the federal agencies ‘from taking any actions to implement or enforce sections 3(c) and 3(e) of Executive Order 14210 or the February 26, 2025 OMB/OPM Memorandum…including but not limited to: execution of any existing RIF notices (including final separation of employees), issuance of any further RIF notices, placement of employees on administrative leave, and transfer of functions or programs between the agency defendants…’ among other things.”
AZPM asked the Tucson VA if they would be able to offer comment on the court order’s impact, a spokesperson said that they could not comment on the court order.
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