FEMA Staff Cuts Strains Ability to Help Communities, Says Former Administrator
January 23, 2026
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7:03Now PlayingFEMA Staff Cuts Strains Ability to Help Communities, Says Former Administrator
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as posted by the channelFormer FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said the agency is facing the coming winter storm short of staff, and that will make it harder to keep up with the requests for help from state and local officials.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has halted planned terminations of some temporary disaster relief workers just as a major winter storm moves across the country, according to people familiar with the decision.
An internal email sent to some officials this week instructed FEMA leaders to “cease offboarding” certain employees effective immediately, according to a copy reviewed by Bloomberg News. The message said updated guidance would follow but did not explain the reason for the change.
The affected workers are part of FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees, or CORE — a temporary workforce hired on one- or multi-year contracts. The Trump administration has broadly targeted temporary and probationary workers as part of its effort to shrink the federal workforce, as well as encouraged veteran staffers to leave with incentive packages.
The pause comes as a winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow, ice and extreme cold across a wide swath of the US. FEMA lost more than 3,700 employees — or about 14% of the agency — between January and November last year, according to newly released federal workforce data.
FEMA said in a statement that it was following standard protocol and activating its national response center and said news of the staffing cuts being rescinded was “manufactured drama.”
The loss of thousands of agency employees last year “creates a strain on the existing personnel,” said Deanne Criswell, former President Joe Biden’s FEMA chief, in a Friday interview with Bloomberg Television. If more CORE employees are ultimately terminated, “it’s really going to impact FEMA’s ability to support communities before, during and after disasters,” she warned.
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