A top official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency defended the decision to terminate hundreds of employees critical to disaster-recovery-and-response operations.
FEMA’s acting administrator, Karen Evans, who took the role in December, said at a House Appropriations hearing Thursday on the Department of Homeland Security’s budget that she signed off on the terminations because other supervisors at the agency determined the work was not needed.
“I’m saying that their functions and their work were reviewed and there was a determination made by the supervisor or program office head that the work wasn’t needed,” Evans said when asked about the terminations by Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood. “And therefore the contract wasn’t renewed.”
Evans later added that she “approved the final nonrenewal” of those employees and that the decision was “based on function and whether the work is still there for them to do.”
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Underwood said in the hearing that more than 1,000 Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE, employees across the agency had been eliminated under the Trump administration.
The employees started receiving emails toward the end of last year saying their positions wouldn’t be “renewed.”
CORE employees, who at one point made up 40% of the agency’s workforce and often traveled across the country to handle disaster-recovery efforts, were the main targets of these cuts. These employees’ responsibilities include providing advice to FEMA leadership on approving funds and working on the technology states rely on after a disaster.
Ahead of January’s winter storms, FEMA staff were told that the terminations would be halted in preparation for the severe weather. The storms left more than 600,000 without power, and left some Southern lawmakers unsure whether they could dependably rely on the agency to provide additional assistance. There was also concern that fewer points of contact would be left on the ground for affected communities after a disaster.
News outlets reported in February that the reductions would resume following the winter storm.
At the hearing, Underwood brought up previous testimony that Evans and her attorney gave in a federal court case in which the Trump administration was sued over making cuts to CORE.
“Ms. Evans, you and the DOJ attorney in the case have offered contradictory stories to the court about who authorized the findings,” Underwood said. “Under questioning, he was unable to provide an explanation for the discrepancy that did not involve you committing perjury. Ms. Evans, did you perjure yourself?”
Evans responded by saying that she didn’t perjure herself at the testimony. Underwood called for additional clarity.
“We have to be very clear. If these are term employees, that should be really straight, straightforward for us to understand,” Underwood said. “And there seems to be some uncertainty, some lack of clarity in your testimony here and certainly in your disposition to the court. And obviously, we just want to know who made the decisions around the firings.”
The partial DHS shutdown has now hit 60 days, and funding for the department is still uncertain. However, thousands of federal employees started receiving backpay in March following a memorandum by President Donald Trump.
During the hearing, Evans said that the agency was requesting $38.5 billion from Congress for the coming fiscal year to help communities respond to and prepare for disasters.
Underwood said that the administration’s handling of the agency was unacceptable.
“President Trump was clear he wanted to destroy FEMA, so you gave him some made-up concepts of a plan on how to do it,” Underwood said. “That’s not trimming the fat. That’s a death blow. And so while disasters are becoming more frequent and more severe, you’re cutting staff at FEMA, creating confusion and operating without a plan. This will put lives and livelihoods at risk in the next emergency.”
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