VA VR&E Under Fire: Counselor Resigns Over Hiring Freeze, Caseload Overwhelm

A Veterans Readiness & Employment (VR&E) counselor has resigned in dramatic fashion, sending a blunt email blast to every veteran on his caseload. In it, he accused VA leadership of running the program like a “numbers system,” forcing counselors to absorb blame for failures, and ignoring the crushing caseloads that are driving staff out the door.

The counselor — a disabled veteran and graduate of VR&E himself — warned that the program is “collapsing under the weight” of hiring freezes, cancelled union protections, and workloads nearly double VA’s own policy standard.

We obtained a copy of the email, sent from the Phoenix VA Regional Office, which oversees claims in Arizona and parts of California. For purposes of publication, I’ll refer to the counselor as John Smith and have redacted identifying information, but otherwise the message is presented in full below.

A Hiring Freeze and No Relief in Sight

The VRC described a system with no reinforcements coming:

“These offices are severely understaffed, the union’s contract was cancelled, there is a hiring freeze in place, and there is no help coming any time soon.”

For veterans waiting on tuition payments, equipment orders, or approvals, this admission signals what many already experience — the backlog is growing, not shrinking.

For veterans, this is not just a staffing issue — it translates into direct, tangible harm:

• Delayed tuition payments mean veterans risk being dropped from classes or forced to pay out of pocket while VA sorts its paperwork.
• Equipment orders for laptops, adaptive technology, or medical devices are slowed, leaving disabled veterans without the tools they need to succeed.
• Approval bottlenecks for new training or education programs mean veterans may lose months — or entire semesters — waiting for authorization.

From the counselor’s perspective, this “no help coming” message confirms what many of us already see in practice: the backlog is not shrinking, it is compounding. When one counselor carries over 200 active cases, every delay cascades into another veteran’s life — late invoices to schools, hold-ups with vocational evaluations, and slower responses to appeals or denials.

The cancellation of the union contract further weakens protections for counselors, removing one of the few mechanisms that could push back against unsustainable caseloads or unsafe working conditions. With a hiring freeze in place, veterans should expect longer wait times, fewer individualized services, and more reliance on “numbers” to measure progress rather than real outcomes.

In short, what Thomas describes is not a temporary problem but a system set up to fail both veterans and counselors unless Congress intervenes with staffing, funding, and oversight.

Caseloads Far Beyond Policy

VA policy sets a counselor caseload standard at 125:1. The VRC says the reality is far worse:

“These counselors are currently dealing with inhumane conditions with caseloads of over 240 cases, new cases almost every week and it’s worse in other states.”

If true, counselors are being asked to manage workloads nearly double the official limit, making timely and individualized vocational planning almost impossible.

The hiring freeze makes this problem worse. With no new counselors coming in, every retirement, resignation, or extended leave shifts more veterans onto the remaining staff. Each week brings new cases, but no relief, creating a system where caseloads can only climb higher. The result is predictable: overwhelmed counselors, longer delays, and veterans left waiting months for services that are supposed to be timely and individualized.

The hiring freeze directly fuels this crisis:

• If counselors resign or retire → their cases are redistributed to the remaining staff.
• If new veterans apply → the caseload grows, but no new counselors can be hired.
• If caseloads climb unchecked → individualized vocational planning becomes impossible, replaced by rushed paperwork and long delays.

In short, every month of the hiring freeze pushes counselors further beyond capacity — and pushes veterans further back in line for the benefits they earned.

“Robot” Leadership That “Looks Good for the Director”

The VRC did not mince words about VR&E management.

“Management in charge are nothing more than yes men/women robots that are ONLY concerned with the numbers, and looking good for the director.”

In other words, leadership is chasing performance statistics to secure promotions rather than ensuring veterans get the education and training they were promised.

For frontline counselors, this leadership style is demoralizing.

Instead of being trusted to exercise the professional autonomy they were trained for, many counselors are micromanaged.

Decisions that should be made at the counselor level often require a supervisor’s approval — and sometimes even the VR&E Officer’s sign-off. Each extra layer slows evaluations, delays adjudications, and makes it harder for counselors to serve veterans directly.

That climate erodes morale in two key ways:

• Counselors feel devalued as professionals. They are reduced to case managers whose judgment is second-guessed rather than respected.
• Counselors absorb constant pressure without support. When leadership prioritizes numbers over people, failures are pushed downhill. Counselors are told to “absorb the blame” with veterans, leaving them isolated and burned out.

The end result is predictable: evaluations drag on, backlogs grow, and veterans face longer waits for the benefits they were promised. As morale collapses, resignations increase, feeding the very staffing shortages that created the crisis.

Forced to Absorb the Blame

Perhaps most troubling, the VRC claimed counselors are told to deflect accountability away from the system itself:

“Counselors are being told to ‘absorb the blame’ in order to not put VR&E business out in the street, which is outrageously unfair.”

On its face, this might seem like a management tactic to protect the agency’s reputation. But in reality, it corrodes both quality and trust in a federal program. When employees are instructed to take the fall for systemic failures, the agency can avoid scrutiny while nothing improves. Veterans are left with empty apologies instead of real fixes.

The effect is similar to forcing someone to recite an untruth about their own experience — like being told to lie about abuse. The person knows the harm is real, but they are pressured into silence to protect the institution. For VR&E counselors, that means carrying the weight of veterans’ anger and frustration, even when the real cause is understaffing, micromanagement, or policy failures outside their control.

This culture of forced blame-shifting degrades the quality of service in predictable ways:

• Problems are hidden rather than solved. Delays and errors are treated as isolated counselor failings rather than evidence of structural breakdowns.
• Frontline professionals lose credibility. Veterans stop trusting their counselors, assuming dishonesty or incompetence when the real issue is the system.
• Institutional learning collapses. If flaws are never acknowledged, data never informs reform, and the agency stagnates.

In short, a federal program that asks its employees to “absorb the blame” is not just protecting itself from embarrassment — it is actively sabotaging quality, integrity, and accountability. That is why VR&E feels like it is “dying from the inside out.”

A Veteran’s Warning – Data Manipulation

The VRC, who himself used VR&E to earn a master’s degree, emphasized that he still values the program’s mission. But he warned that without reform, the system is nearing a breaking point:

“From the violent threats that VR&E offices receive across the country, we are not far away from something going very wrong. The numbers are being made in this VR&E system, so nothing is broken in the eyes of the powers that be.”

This is a damning admission. It suggests that VR&E is functioning on paper — hitting its metrics, making its quotas — while quietly failing in practice. By “making the numbers,” leadership can report success to Washington while concealing the growing backlog and counselor burnout underneath.

For veterans, the cost is enormous. Many already carry the weight of service-connected disabilities, compounded by a job market where middle-class careers are shrinking under automation and AI. VR&E is supposed to be their safety net. Instead, they find themselves trapped in a system that pretends to be working while actually stalling their futures.

Worse, counselors are reportedly instructed to mask these structural failures. Instead of explaining that delays are the result of hiring freezes, caseloads, and micromanagement, counselors are forced to offer apologies and vague reassurances. This culture of half-truths prevents veterans from understanding the real causes of their delays, undermines trust in the program, and leaves the most vulnerable veterans to assume the problem is with them rather than the system.

When a federal agency manipulates its own data and pressures staff to obscure systemic breakdowns, it creates a dangerous illusion: the illusion that nothing is wrong until something catastrophic happens. That is the warning the VRC left behind — that without transparency and accountability, VR&E will continue “dying from the inside out,” until the breaking point arrives.

Why This Matters

As an attorney who has represented veterans in VR&E disputes for over a decade, I can confirm that the issues this VRC described are consistent with what I encounter on a daily basis. Veterans are being denied benefits not because their cases lack merit, but because the system is starved of staff, leadership accountability, and proper funding.

This resignation letter should serve as a wake-up call to Congress and VA leadership. Veterans need more than lip service. They need a functioning program that delivers on its promise: education, training, and meaningful careers for those who sacrificed in service to this country.

If you have experienced delays, denials, or unexplained barriers in VR&E, share your story below. The more voices added to this discussion, the harder it becomes for VA and Congress to ignore.

VR&E Counselor Resignation Letter

From: eVA <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:49 PM
Subject: FINAL WORD

Greetings!!

I have decided to move on from this job. As disappointed as I am with the “VR&E system” from an employee standpoint, I had every intention to just walk away on my last day and say nothing, but I feel like I deserve to write this email, and you deserve to read it so excuse me while I vent a bit and NOT absorb the blame like we are told to do.

Being a disabled veteran myself, I am no longer in control of my peace; I went to war for this country and I refuse to not have control over my peace, therefore, I must regain what it feels to be human again, and unfortunately, I cannot do that while working this job and today I am resigning from my position as your VR&E counselor.

Being veterans, we have a certain way of doing things, and I thought that I would be able to do this job in a way that would truly help me, and the veterans that served like me.

The unfortunate part is, VR&E is a system that does not care about my bright ideas, the same way that the military was a system for us, but the difference is, I don’t feel like I am a part of this system the way I felt like my voice was heard in the ARMY, here, I’m just one small piece that tried to make it work, with no voice, and in my opinion, this job is very disrespectful with the unrealistic expectations of a human to keep up with these inhumane caseloads.

This is a numbers system, and in many ways, it has lost the human element of the program. The counselors, on the other end of your caseload, are human, trying their best to keep up with a robotic amount of work, in a system where only the numbers matter, and the counselors are being told to “absorb the blame” in order to not put VR&E business out in the street, which is outrageously unfair to the humans fighting for their livelihood while maintaining your case.

As a veteran, of course you have the right to put in your complaints, but one thing I will leave with you, is the next time you feel the need to complain, think about complaining about the system itself, and not the human on the other end, overwhelmed by the endless amount of phone calls, due by COB directives, emails, repetitive casework, and nonstop demands from veterans, schools, management, burnt out to the max, and functionally depressed, all to “serve veterans and their families” , which of course is what we are here to do, but we can not do that if we are also the ones that need help.

As stated, you have the right to your complaints, your congressional complaints, your white house complaints, but the complaints should be directed toward the powers that be who are responsible for the funding of this program, which needs to be a lot higher in order to serve veterans the way it should. These offices are severely understaffed, the union’s contract was cancelled, there is a hiring freeze in place, and there is no help coming any time soon. The complaints to the local management, the congressional and Whitehouse complaints need to be directed at this current system, and to the right people, the lack of funding to employ enough people, the repetitive casework, the large amount of jobs(paying invoices, entering your enrollments, ordering equipment, phone calls, emails, the list goes on) that a VR&E counselor is responsible for on a daily basis, only to be threatened with physical harm by veterans from waiting too long, this program has failed the veterans and the counselors, and because the numbers are still being made due to the large caseload numbers, nothing will be done about it, the same way the federal reserve normally doesn’t cut rates until AFTER the economy starts to break. Something has to go terribly wrong, and from the violent threats that VR&E offices receive across the country, we are not far away from something going very wrong. The numbers are being made in this VR&E system, so nothing is broken in the eyes of the powers that be. These counselors have to be one of the most disrespected groups of people in all of federal employment, from all angles.

A 125:1 caseload number is an enormous amount of work, and these caseloads are NEVER at that number. These counselors are currently dealing with inhumane conditions with caseloads of over 240 cases, new cases almost every week and it’s worse in other states. The management in charge are nothing more than yes men/women robots that are ONLY concerned with the numbers, and looking good for the director, so they can be promoted, and they can ONLY be promoted if the humans working these inhumane caseloads, literally kill their selves to make these numbers. Don’t let the title of “counselor” fool you, this is a case management job, not a counseling job.

If you really feel the need to complain, complain to Representative Derrick Van Orden, president of the board that governs VR&E, Rep Jay Obernolte of California, and Rep. Abe Hamadeh of Arizona, all on the board that governs VR&E. Complaining about the humans not being robotic enough to keep up with your everyday needs will not get anything fixed.

Being a graduate of the VR&E program with a master’s degree, I will be forever in debt to this program and wish the outcome would have been different. I gave this job my all, until it started to feel disrespectful. This was truly supposed to be my forever job, so for all its worth, I hope this email at least help change the relationship of the veterans in this program and the humans doing their best to manage your case.

John Smith

UNITED STATES ARMY, SSG

AIR DEFENSE ARTILLERY

*********OUT*************