VA Secretary Doug Collins: We Saved ‘Roughly $900 Million After Reviewing Just 2% of Contracts

The Department of Veterans Affairs has saved roughly $900 million after reviewing just two percent of its contracts, VA Secretary Doug Collins announced.
In a video posted to his official X account, Collins addressed those complaining about changes being made at Veterans Affairs and explained that no matter what, no changes will result in cuts to health care or benefits to veterans and VA beneficiaries.
“VA will always fulfill its duty to provide veterans, families, caregivers and survivors the health care and benefits they have earned. That’s a promise, and while we conduct our review, VA will continue to hire for more than 300,000 mission critical positions to ensure health care and benefits for VA beneficiaries are not impacted,” he said, discussing the department’s goal of reducing the number of VA employees.
“There are many people complaining about the changes we’re making at the VA, but what we most of them are really saying is, let’s just keep doing the same thing the VA has always done. No. Not gonna happen. The days of kicking the can down the road and measuring VA’s progress by how much money it spends and how many people it employs, rather than how many veterans it helps, are over,” he said, providing one example of what they are doing differently.
“Here’s just one example. We’re conducting a comprehensive review of the VA’s 90,000 contracts, which are worth more than $67 billion,” she said, revealing that after reviewing just two percent of these Veterans Affairs contracts, they were able to cancel “nearly 600 non-mission critical or duplicative agreements that will save the department roughly $900 million.”
“Just imagine how much more we’ll be able to save after we review the rest of [the] VA contracts. The money we’re saving by eliminating non duplicative contracts is money we’re going to redirect to veteran facing healthcare, benefits and services, resulting in massive improvements in customer service and convenience,” he said, noting that improving services for veterans is precisely why the agency exists.
“We regret anyone who loses their job. It’s extraordinarily difficult for me, especially as a VA leader and your secretary, to make these types of decisions. But the federal government does not exist to employ people,” he said. “It exists to serve people at the VA, we are focused on serving veterans better than ever before, and doing so requires changing and improving the organization.”
He identified bureaucracy as the number one issue getting in the way of Veterans Affairs discharging its duties.
“As I have said before, we owe American veterans and hundreds of thousands of amazing employees solutions. And mark my words, that is what we will deliver” he promised.

 
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/03/10/va-secretary-doug-collins-we-saved-roughly-900-million-after-reviewing-just-2-of-contracts/