FEMA slashed staff without considering the effects on future disaster response, watchdog reports
The Federal Emergency Management Agency cuts its workforce without assessing how that would impact disaster response and recovery, the Government Accountability Office determined in a report published Tuesday. Despite previous reports that staffing shortages have impeded past recovery efforts, FEMA in 2025 and 2026 pushed staffers to take voluntary separation incentives like the deferred resignation program and fired new and recently promoted employees who were still in their probationary periods. Ultimately, GAO found that about 17% of FEMA’s workforce, more than 4,300 employees, separated in fiscal 2025 and that, as of April, the agency employed nearly 21,000 staffers. … “We found no evidence that DHS and FEMA leadership assessed whether the nonrenewal of CORE employees’ contracts in January 2026 would affect FEMA’s ability to respond to disasters,” investigators wrote.
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