Tammy Baldwin urges VA secretary to protect Veteran Crisis Line jobs after 15 were fired

Posted by author February 28, 2025 Jobs

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Fifteen employees of the Veterans Crisis Line were fired, despite the VA’s assurance that “mission-critical employees” would be exempt from dismissals.
Senator Tammy Baldwin expressed concern over the firings and urged VA Secretary Doug Collins to protect remaining responders.
The Veterans Crisis Line has experienced a significant increase in calls, texts, and chats since the launch of 988.

As President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk acted to slash the size of the federal workforce this week, 15 employees who helped operate the Veterans Crisis Line were also fired from their posts.

Those firings contradict a statement the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released Tuesday that “mission-critical employees” would be exempt from widespread dismissals. The VA specifically named Veterans Crisis Line responders as mission-critical in its statement.

VA Secretary Doug Collins attempted to assure the public that the spate of firings would not hurt VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries. “In fact,” Collins wrote, “Veterans are going to notice a change for the better. In the coming weeks and months, VA will be announcing plans to put these resources to work helping the department fulfill its core mission: providing the best possible care and benefits to Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors.”

But U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who spearheaded the creation of the three-digit crisis line 9-8-8, of which Veterans Crisis Line is a part, has expressed concern over the decisions that led to the removal of Veterans Crisis Life responders.

In a letter delivered to Collins and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Acting Director Charles Ezell Friday afternoon, Baldwin urged the VA secretary to protect remaining Veterans Crisis Line responders from future terminations and to potentially reverse the decision to let go of those 15 responders. She also wants to see Collins and Ezell put safeguards around these positions to protect against Trump’s directives to terminate remote work arrangements, many of whom were hired and trained as remote workers.

“Now is the time for you to seek an exemption for VCL responders and to communicate this intent clearly to the workforce to prevent further uncertainty and avoid any disruptions to the crisis line’s services,” Baldwin wrote. Later in the letter, after describing efforts to improve connection in especially rural and hard-to-reach locales, Baldwin said, “Disrupting the professionally trained response workforce would not support the success of these ongoing improvement efforts.”

The Veterans Crisis Line supports veterans and their loved ones who have experienced a recent crisis, whether that means housing instability, the end of a relationship or the loss of a job. It’s estimated that, in the two years since the launch of 988, the Veterans Crisis Line has answered more than 2 million calls, texts and chats from veterans and their loved ones, nearly a 23% increase. It also connects veterans to ongoing supports after the conversation ends.

In 2022, the most recent comprehensive report, 136 Wisconsin veterans died by suicide, outpacing both the national and the Midwestern suicide death rates.

“Due to the dedicated professional response workforce, the VCL reports an average wait time of 9 seconds,” Baldwin wrote. “We cannot risk failing our nation’s veterans by jeopardizing the continued function of this crisis support line.”

Cybele Mayes-Osterman and Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy from USA TODAY contributed to this report.