The following unions are affected: The American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE); National Association of Government Employees; National Federation of Federal Employees; National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United; and the Service Employees International Union, according to the VA.
A spokeswoman for the Dayton VA Medical Center could not immediately say how many local workers are impacted by this decision. Earlier this year, there were about 2,355 full-time employees at the Dayton VA Medical Center.
What’s happening in Southwest Ohio?
• AFMC: The commander of Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base will likely continue to be a three-star general, at least for the time being. But that will not represent a diminishment of either AFMC or the base, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner said. Turner, with both of Ohio’s senators and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, has urged Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to keep a four-star general in the billet atop AFMC, which is headquartered at Wright-Patterson.
• CPB shutdown: After its defunding by Congress, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — a nonprofit that has funneled federal funding to Dayton-area NPR and PBS stations for decades — will shut down in the coming months. Local public media outlets like WYSO and ThinkTV say the end to CPB itself won’t impact their ability to stay on the air, but the shutdown of the nonprofit raises questions about future funding opportunities and music licensing.
• Federal funding: Proposed changes in the Small Business Innovation Research program are worrying at least one Dayton-area defense contractor who has found repeated success with the program. SBIR funding is set to expire this fall. One of the proposed changes in new legislation: SBIR awards would be capped at $75 million for total competitive awards per recipient, as a lifetime limit on SBIR funding. Also proposed is a $40 million cap for the most recent fiscal year or calendar year, and a step further — a limit on how many SBIR proposals companies may submit.
• School lunches: Nearly 766,000 children across Ohio qualified for a free lunch last school year based either on their Medicaid or SNAP status. Another 61,862 students qualified for a reduced price school lunch. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that recently passed Congress and was signed into law by Trump includes nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, including cuts to children, which means families who qualified for free or reduced-price school lunch could lose automatic access to it.
Other federal updates:
• Vaccines: The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced this week that 22 projects totaling $500 million to develop vaccines using mRNA technology will be halted. Kennedy’s decision to terminate the projects is the latest in a string of decisions that have put the longtime vaccine critic’s doubts about shots into full effect at the nation’s health department.
• Disaster funds: A federal judge this week blocked the Trump administration from reallocating $4 billion meant to help communities protect against natural disasters. The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program has provided grants for a range of disaster management projects, including strengthening electrical grids, constructing levees for flood protection and relocating vulnerable water treatment facilities. Many of the projects are in rural communities. Federal officials have argued that the funds can be used both for disaster recovery and disaster prevention and that FEMA should have discretion to use the money how it sees fit.
• Veterans Affairs spending: The Senate adopted a $455 billion spending bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs that invests in recruiting clinicians at hospitals, provides a large increase to the toxic exposures fund and sets minimum funding levels for rural health care and other critical medical programs, Stars and Stripes reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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