FEMA pauses job cuts with winter storm bearing down on half the country: report

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is backing off plans to terminate disaster relief workers as a major winter storm bears down on much of the country.

Bloomberg News reviewed an internal email sent this week to some FEMA officials instructing them to “cease offboarding” some of FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees (CORE) and promised updated guidance would follow, but the message did not explain the reasoning for the revised order.

"The pause comes as a winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow, ice and extreme cold across a wide swath of the U.S.," the outlet reported. "FEMA lost more than 3,700 employees — or about 14 percent of the agency — between January and November last year, according to newly released federal workforce data."

The Trump administration has cut into the federal workforce by culling temporary and probationary workers and encouraging veteran employees to leave with incentive packages.

The House passed a Homeland Security appropriations bill last week that urged FEMA to maintain sufficient staffing, including reservists and CORE workers, and Senate Democrats sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asking her to pause the terminations while the full Senate considers the measure.

FEMA said in a statement that officials were following standard protocol and activating its national response center and dismissed reports of staffing cuts as “manufactured drama.”