Trump Plans To Cut FEMA Workforce In Half, Court Filing Alleges

The Trump administration is advancing plans to cut down the workforce at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), unions and public interest groups alleged in court.

In filing on Tuesday night, the organizations said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees FEMA, could eliminate more than 10,000 positions in the months ahead.

The court filing said that FEMA management was directed to plan for a 50 percent staffing cut and that a spreadsheet attached to the email called for a 15 percent cut for “Permanent Fulltime” staff, a 41 percent for “Disaster Fulltime” staff and an 85 percent cut in“Surge Workforce.”

CNN previously reported on the spreadsheet. At that time, a spokesperson for the DHS said the target numbers were included in error and that “numerical assumptions reflected in that draft were not approved, were not adopted, and do not represent FEMA policy or leadership direction.” The Hill has reached out to DHS and FEMA for comment.

The court filing, meanwhile, alleges that staffing reductions are already underway at FEMA. It said that on New Year’s Eve, some employees who are part of FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees (CORE) received notices that their positions would not be renewed.

While just 65 people received these notices, between 900 and 1,000 employees have renewal dates in January.

It said that nonrenewals of these employees are not routine.

The groups ask the court to block DHS from imposing the 50 percent reduction target and prevent it from taking away FEMA’s authority not to renew the workforce.

“Gutting the staff responsible for disaster preparedness and response does not make the country safer; it leaves families, local governments, and first responders without the support they rely on when emergencies strike. The law does not permit the executive branch to dismantle FEMA in this way, and this lawsuit seeks to ensure the agency can do the job Congress created it to do,” said a statement from Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing some of the plaintiffs.

The Trump administration has repeatedly said it wants to either dismantle or reform FEMA. It was supposed to hold a meeting to outline its plans to do so last month, but it was abruptly canceled, leaving the public in the dark about what the agency is planning, if anything.

The filing is part of a broader case related to the status of federal employees as the Trump administration has sought to shrink the size of the federal workforce. 

A stopgap funding bill prevented the administration from laying off employees. That bill is set to lapse soon.