Mann-Grandstaff loses more VA workers as part of Trump administration’s downsizing plans

Directives from Washington, D.C., are adding to an already confused employment situation for the federal workers at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane.

After 18 workers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital earlier agreed to take a buyout, another 12 workers were laid off Monday as part of the ongoing effort to reduce the federal workforce from the Trump administration.

According to interviews and records obtained by The Spokesman-Review, the dozen employees at Mann-Grandstaff were terminated via email on Monday. They were probationary employees, meaning that they had spent less than one or two years in their current roles, depending on their position.

A day later, on Tuesday, managers received another email asking them to rank the positions in order of need and to give a written justification for any of those workers fired on Monday that they wanted to rehire, according to an interview with a VA administrator who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“They were told that they were fired for their performance, which was not true in the eyes of their supervisors or their co-workers,” said the official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

The firings were announced in an email sent Monday by Andrea Smith, the chief human resources officer for the northwest region of the VA, known as Veterans Integrated Service Network 20. It includes Alaska, Washington, Oregon, most of Idaho, and one county each in Montana and California.

In the memo, Smith noted that a total of 84 employees would be laid off, including 12 from Spokane, six from Walla Walla, 13 from Boise and 14 from Puget Sound.

According to the VA administrator, the employees who received termination emails were promptly locked out of their computer accounts. That action prompted several other employees to pre-emptively print out their entire employment records to show that they had good performance reviews.

Most of the employees terminated in this latest round of firings held administrative jobs, which means they often interacted directly with patients to schedule appointments, handle medical records and triage messages. Those administrative tasks will now fall on clinicians, pulling them away from patients, the source said.

That additional burden on clinicians could result in longer waits for veterans at VA facilities or force clinicians to send more of them outside the VA, where there isn’t adequate capacity and waits are often longer than in the federal medical clinics.

“Ultimately, the patients will suffer. They will have longer waits, and the services will suffer,” the source said.

Bret Bowers, spokesman for Mann-Grandstaff, did not immediately return a call Friday seeking comment. An email seeking comment from the VA Central Office likewise was not returned.

Complicating the confusion even further is how a recent federal judge’s ruling may affect those Monday layoffs.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup on Thursday ruled the firings were probably illegal and temporarily ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind the directives terminating government probationary workers, according to the Washington Post.

“The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency,” wrote Alsup, who was appointed a U.S. District Court judge in the Northern District of California by President Bill Clinton .

The layoffs this past week in Spokane followed an earlier purge when 18 Spokane-based VA employee agreed to take the “deferred resignation” from the hospital while receiving pay through September.

Three probationary employees in Spokane were fired in an earlier round of terminations, but two of them were later rehired, according to internal emails obtained by The Spokesman-Review.

Overall, Mann-Grandstaff and its affiliated clinics throughout the Inland Northwest employ the equivalent about 1,462 full-time employees – two people working half-time schedules count as one full-time worker, for instance – Bowers, the hospital spokesman, said last week.

Washington Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat, ripped the chaotic process of firings across multiple federal agencies, including 1,400 from the VA.

“Elon Musk and Donald Trump are proving every single day they don’t know what they are doing, they don’t know what our federal workers do, and they don’t care if their firing spree ends up burning down something important,” Murray said in a news release. “These mass layoffs have nothing to do with government efficiency.

“In fact, they will do the exact opposite. Trump and Musk’s reckless firing spree means veterans waiting longer to get their disability claims approved, slower review of new drugs and medical devices, slower response to natural disasters, fewer people who help keep our skies safe for the flying public, and the list goes on.”