‘The Impact Is Going to be Huge’: FEMA’s Latest Staff Cuts Could Leave States Vulnerable in Disaster Recovery

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is drastically scaling back the number of employees who help with disaster recovery efforts.

The agency’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE employees, are often dispatched across the country and remain in communities years after a disaster. As the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, makes the cuts, there’s concern that places hit by tragedy could be left with fewer on-the-ground points of contact.

“The impact is going to be huge,” one current CORE employee told NOTUS about the layoffs. “I think of things like the LA wildfires and the Kerrville floods from last year that are really still in more of an active phase of recovery. There are recovery offices and FEMA staff performing essential recovery roles across the country for disasters going back five, six, seven years.”

The agency is making the cuts, which will affect thousands of employees if they continue at the same pace in the coming months, by not renewing contracts.

“Even if a CORE [employee] is recommended for renewal … even if they’ve won an administrator’s award for their performance, they are currently being nonrenewed, despite their supervisor’s requests to renew them,” the CORE employee who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “And to my understanding, that’s happening because of DHS, not because of FEMA.”

A former CORE employee expressed concern about the layoffs affecting the security of the websites that states use to request disaster aid.

“If you don’t have the security personnel to handle any security threats, then the systems are gonna be wide open,” the former employee said. “If any of those systems that relay funds to the public is compromised, then that’s going to have a huge, huge impact if we do have a disaster. Because if those systems are compromised and not functioning, they’re not getting any funding. Especially if they need it immediately.”

After publication of this story, a FEMA spokesperson responded to an inquiry from NOTUS with a statement that said CORE employees “are hired to work for a specific, limited period,” and that the “term-limited positions” are structured “to fluctuate based on disaster activity, operational need, and available funding.”

“CORE appointments have always been subject to end-of-term decisions consistent with that structure, and there has been no change to policy,” the spokesperson said.

CORE employees make up around 40% of FEMA’s workforce, and also provide guidance to FEMA leadership on approving disaster funding for states. They also work on the technology that states rely on following a disaster.

One of the states most likely to feel the effects first is North Carolina, which is still recovering from Hurricane Helene more than a year after it ripped through the region. Local officials in the state criticized how funding from the agency was slow-walked after the storm.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Wednesday $116 million in additional funding to help North Carolina recover from Helene. Prior to the announcement, North Carolina Democratic state Rep. Eric Ager said that even with additional funds, the termination of CORE employees could provide additional hurdles.

“The real challenge is that, no matter how much money you allocate to get out to disaster-hit areas, it still takes people to actually do the nuts and bolts of getting all the paperwork done and getting it all out,” Ager told NOTUS. “And fewer employees just means that less money will get to the places that it needs to.”

The North Carolina Division of Emergency Management is closely monitoring the FEMA cuts.

“FEMA CORE employees play a critical role in that initial response and recovery effort,” said Justin Graney, a spokesperson for the state’s emergency agency. “We’re also working with our FEMA counterparts to better understand what does that mean, and how will it impact future disaster responses as we continue to plan for whatever’s to come our way in 2026?”

Meanwhile, Texas is still recovering from July’s deadly floods in Kerr County, Texas. Noem was criticized by FEMA employees for the agency’s delayed response.

Asked for comment about the cuts to CORE staff, Rudy Nieves Santiago, spokesperson for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told NOTUS in a statement that TDEM has a “strong and collaborative working relationship” with regional FEMA employees. He added that the agency “has consistently supported our needs when federal resources have been requested.”

In August, current and former FEMA employees sent a letter warning members of Congress that the agency’s current leadership could lead to a similar disaster response to Hurricane Katrina, which was so criticized that it led to an overhaul of FEMA. Last month, FEMA employees who publicly criticized the agency’s leadership in that letter were allowed to return to work, only to be promptly placed back on leave.

Workers have also expressed concern about dysfunctional work processes at the agency. This includes Noem’s rule to approve all expenses over $100,000, which has created a backlog at the agency.

Rafael Lemaitre, who served as FEMA director of public affairs under the Obama administration, told NOTUS that CORE employees also help with educating communities on precautions they can take before a disaster hits.

“What seems to be happening now in these firings, and the latest indication of this is that the administration is essentially hitting rewind and eroding and hollowing out FEMA to where it was before Katrina,” said Lemaitre, who is a member of the disaster preparedness advocacy group Sabotaging Our Safety and a Texas resident. “And all it takes is just one major disaster to make those failures come to the forefront again. And I’m afraid that’s the path that we’re on.”

Another former employee at the agency said he thinks there’s a better way to approach reductions at the agency.

“There doesn’t seem to be any sort of concerted strategy, like we’re only going to not renew COREs who started on this date or from this area,” Jeremy Edwards, the former FEMA press secretary in the Biden administration, told NOTUS. “You could hypothetically see a world where there was a thoughtful way to achieve that level of reduction that you would do in a way where it’s like, ‘We’re going to try to do it so every office is impacted equally.’”

“You could get into situations where an entire field office is basically gone overnight,” Edwards added.

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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with comment from FEMA.