From the NYTimes: FEMA Staff Bracing for Dismissal of 1,000 Disaster Workers The job cuts expected this month are part of a plan by the Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, to remake the agency.

“Federal Emergency Management Agency supervisors are advising their staff to prepare for the elimination of 1,000 jobs this month as part of changes that Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is overseeing at the agency, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.

The dismissals would apply to contractual FEMA staff whose assignments, which typically last for two or four years, expire this month. The workers, known as FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees, or CORE, help facilitate disaster recovery and emergency preparedness in communities across the country and have historically made up nearly 40 percent of the agency’s work force.

Three FEMA employees, including senior officials and supervisors, all of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media, confirmed the dismissals.”