Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
GAO finds 4,321 employees left FEMA in fiscal 2025, a 55% jump, and that the agency cut staff without assessing whether it could still do its job
The Government Accountability Office report, published August 4, 2026, attributes the departures to the administration’s 2025 workforce directives.
What happened
In a report published August 4, 2026, the Government Accountability Office found that 4,321 employees separated from FEMA in fiscal year 2025. That is about 17% of the agency’s average workforce of 25,134 and a 55% increase over fiscal 2024. Another 2,545 left between October 1, 2025 and May 16, 2026.
GAO attributed the departures to voluntary separation programs, probationary firings and non-renewal of on-call contracts under the administration’s 2025 workforce directives. Fifty-eight senior executives left between January 20, 2025 and January 10, 2026, compared with just under 13 a year earlier. FEMA officials told GAO the losses had drained institutional knowledge.
GAO said FEMA made its 2025 and 2026 reduction decisions without any workforce analysis of whether it kept the staff to meet its mission and statutory duties. FEMA had rescinded its strategic plan in May 2025, leaving no basis for workforce planning. GAO had placed FEMA’s disaster workforce on its High Risk List in February 2025.
Who benefited
The White House and DHS leadership achieved a rapid reduction in FEMA’s headcount, consistent with Trump’s stated goal of shrinking or eliminating the agency and shifting disaster response to states. They did so without a documented analysis that could have slowed or challenged the cuts.
Who wanted something
Trump’s 2025 executive orders and OPM directives drove the separations. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem imposed tight controls on FEMA spending and staffing, and the FEMA Review Council Trump created recommended restructuring in a May 2026 report. Acting FEMA leadership carried out the reductions without the planning the agency’s own guidance calls for, per GAO.
Who lost out
Communities hit by hurricanes, floods and wildfires depend on a FEMA workforce GAO had judged insufficient before it lost about one in six employees. FEMA’s remaining staff carry heavier loads alongside less experienced colleagues. The agency now operates without a strategic plan or a workforce analysis.
Why it matters
The auditor’s record shows what the federal workforce purge did to one agency: a 55% rise in departures, a strategic plan rescinded, and cuts made without checking whether FEMA could still do its job. The finding comes from Congress’s own watchdog.
Sources U.S. Government Accountability Office (primary)Federal News NetworkGovernment Executive