INDIVIDUAL STORIES
At the USDA National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment in Ames, Iowa, the Iowa State Daily reported the lab’s 2022 student employee of the year was fired. Logan Conner had worked at the lab for more than two-and-a-half years and was a research technician at the facility before being released on Friday.
“It was completely out of the blue,” Conner told the school newspaper. “No one at the building had any say or jurisdiction over who got fired (or) when — it was all just probationary employees.”
In Illinois, A.J. Ruggieri, an Army veteran who served two-and-a-half years in Africa, described himself as a Republican who voted for Trump, but also someone who started a new job in early December doing communications for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). He noted he got the job partially because of his veteran status. He had thought he accepted an offer for a deferred resignation but was instead told on Friday he was being terminated under the probationary period status instead. He noted his wife is also ill with influenza.
“The first thing I did was call my wife. How were we going to pay for the prescriptions she needed? How were we going to pay for the emergency-room visit we had planned because her condition had worsened overnight?” Ruggieri wrote in the Champaign News-Gazette. “As I stood there, I was no longer a federal employee. Was my federal health insurance gone? What about dental insurance? We still have one child with braces. No clarification was given. There was no indication that the premiums were being paid from my paycheck, no severance discussed, nothing.”
Ruggieri added, “Everything comes at a cost. The only thing constant is change, but my question is not whether we can make America great again, but how do we do so? There is no civility in this, no courage, no honor, no consideration for the citizen employee. Just the bottom line cloaked in a technicality of a federal regulation.”
In Kansas City, Missouri, Alana Henry found out Friday night her group’s three-year, $165,000 farmers market grant had been taken away from USDA because it falls under the category of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Henry’s organization, the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council, had a signed contract with USDA last fall. It was among $33.5 million in grants to 113 groups across 43 states expand local and regional food systems, especially in underserved urban and rural communities.
“We had already started working on it and had received our first disbursement,” Henry told DTN. “You know, I had kind of been on pins and needles, so I’m not entirely surprised, but of course there is a level of shock and anger.”
Henry, who also operates an urban farm, said the grant was meant to help expand a neighborhood farmers’ market and also further help provide fruits and vegetables to young mothers on the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, as well as seniors in the area who buy food at the farmers market.
“We were very excited about creating a space for them to purchase from vendors who were authorized to accept those benefit programs and do it in a way that preserves their dignity,” Henry said.
Henry is unsure how to proceed after being told the grant “no longer effectuates agency priorities regarding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and activities,” based on the letter she received.
“Not only is it unfair, but clearly they didn’t understand the sort of impact of the work we are doing and have been doing, but it’s also potentially illegal,” Henry said, noting USDA’s breach of contract.
Henry was not aware Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins spent Tuesday just a few miles away speaking to a conference of farmers in downtown Kansas City.
“I wish I had known that because I would have shown up,” Henry said.
USDA, WHITE HOUSE ON CUTS
In response to questions from DTN, a spokesperson responded Tuesday afternoon, “Secretary Rollins fully supports President Trump’s directive to optimize government operations, eliminate inefficiencies, and strengthen USDA’s ability to better serve American farmers, ranchers, and the agriculture community. We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar is being spent as effectively as possible to serve the people, not the bureaucracy.”
The spokesperson added, “As part of this effort, USDA has released individuals in their probationary period of employment. Secretary Rollins understands the array of mission-critical positions and programs at the Department, and she will ensure that those areas have the resources and personnel they need to continue serving the American people.”
USDA has not released details about the full number of people terminated across the department or the grants that have been rescinded.
Speaking Tuesday on RFD-TV, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “The United States Department of Agriculture is filled with incredible, hard-working people. But there’s also some realignment that needs to happen. Only 6% of our workforce actually goes into the office. There’s 106,000 employees and 29 different departments. Are we doing everything to the best of our ability with the best people to serve our farmers and our ranchers?”
An anonymous USDA employee on Wednesday called out DTN for quoting Rollins above and not fact-checking that statement. A report by the White House Office of Personnel Management in 2024 showed USDA had 112,659 employees in fiscal year 2023 with 26,449 eligible for “telework” that year. The percentage of employees who worked remotely and did not work in the office was 23% of the workforce, meaning 77% of USDA employees actually worked in their offices nationwide that year. A link to the report is below.
See, OPM telework report, 2024 https://www.opm.gov/… .
The White House Office of Communications also on Tuesday issued a statement from the president calling for “Radical Transparency About Wasteful Spending.” The statement said the government spends too much on programs, contracts and grants that do not promote the interests of the American people.
“For too long, taxpayers have subsidized ideological projects overseas and domestic organizations engaged in actions that undermine the national interest,” according to the president’s statement. “The American people have seen their tax dollars used to fund the passion projects of unelected bureaucrats rather than to advance the national interest. The American people have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.”
The president called for department agencies “to take all appropriate actions to make public, to the maximum extent permitted by law and as the heads of agencies deem appropriate to promote the policies of my Administration, the complete details of every terminated program, cancelled contract, terminated grant, or any other discontinued obligation of Federal funds. Agencies shall ensure that such publication occurs in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the underlying contract, grant, or other award.”
For more, see “Forest Service, NRCS Among Agencies Hit by Mass Firings as USDA Cuts Jobs” here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….
Also see A.J. Ruggieri’s column, “My Turn: Is America Great Again?,” here: https://www.news-gazette.com/….
Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com
Follow him on social platform X @ChrisClaytonDTN
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