Title: At FEMA, Staff Reductions And Lack of Planning May Impact Readiness Description: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is tasked with helping Americans and communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. But recent reductions in staffing at FEMA may jeopardize these efforts. Here to tell us more is GAO's Chris Currie. Related work: GAO-26-108427, FEMA Workforce: Staff Reductions and lack of Planning May Impact Mission Readiness Released: August 2026 [ START ] { Music } [ Chris Currie: ] FEMA has cut its staff significantly over the last two years. And because of that, they're in a weaker position to respond to disasters moving forward. [ Holly Hobbs: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for fact-based, nonpartisan news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office--I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. FEMA is tasked with helping Americans and communities prepare for and respond to natural disasters like hurricanes. But recently, there's been changes at FEMA that could jeopardize these efforts. Here to tell us more is GAO's Chris Currie calling us from Atlanta. Chris, thanks for joining us. [ Chris Currie: ] Thank you for having me. [ Holly Hobbs: ] Chris, maybe we can start with what are some of the changes at FEMA? What's changed with the workforce over the last couple of years? [ Chris Currie: ] Over the last year and a half, FEMA has reduced its workforce by over 3,500 people. And this is out of a workforce in total of around 25,000 people. So it's about a 10% cut, not massive. But when you're talking about an agency that has struggled for years to meet its staffing targets, and we've been pointing this out for many years, that's a significant reduction. [ Holly Hobbs: ] So why are we worried about these cuts? [ Chris Currie: ] For many years we have been reporting about FEMA's workforce. Starting in 2017 is when we first pointed out major concerns with their workforce's ability to respond to major disasters. At that time, it was after hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria happened back-to-back-to-back. And what we found is they did not have enough people at the height of that hurricane season to respond to all three of those large catastrophic disasters. And it wasn't just numbers. It was also the qualifications of the people. So, as you can imagine, they deployed a lot of their most qualified people first and then worked down from there. By the time they got the Hurricane Maria, they were down to people that were trainees and not well qualified. The same thing happened in 2024 with Hurricane Helene. FEMA had almost 7,000 people deployed in and around the Southeast for Hurricane Helene. And they did not have enough people. And if something else large were to have happened at that time, they would have been down to really nobody else to deploy. So, this idea of having enough people when they need them has been a constant struggle and something that FEMA has been consistently not been able to meet. So last time we looked at it, a few years ago, they were about 30% below where they needed to be in terms of their staffing target. And remember, it's not just the numbers, it's also who is filling those positions. I mean, some of these are highly skilled positions like engineers, inspectors and things like that. So, you can't just go hire these people quickly. And it's hard to retain these folks. So, you know, managing the workforce at FEMA has been a constant challenge. And then on top of that, when you add these reductions, which have really hit them hard in terms of some of their most senior staff--because remember, a lot of these reductions were retirements--it's hurt FEMA's ability to respond to disasters. [ Holly Hobbs: ] So separate from the staffing issue, last year, FEMA rescinded its strategic plan. Do we know why? [ Chris Currie: ] Well, it's common for when new administrations come in, new presidents come in, that agencies will often pull back the prior strategic plan and reassess it and make sure it aligns with the priorities of the new administration. I think that's very normal. Typically though, we see them reissue those strategic plans fairly quickly to showcase what their priorities are going to be. In this case, FEMA has not yet done that and we're, you know, well, a year and a half past the new administration starting. And so, the problem with that is--particularly when you're talking about the workforce--is if you don't know your strategic priorities and your plan, you can't plan for the workforce needs to address those priorities. So, for example, if one area becomes more important than another, you might need a certain type of employee over another type of employee. So, without a strategic plan, FEMA has also not been able to do a workforce plan and a workforce structure to decide what workforce it actually needs to respond. And our biggest concern with the way this was done is that a lot of these cuts were just made wholesale across the agency without any concern or thought about the workforce they needed moving into the future. So basically, they didn't think it through before doing this. And we're starting to see some of the effects of this. For example, heading into hurricane season this year, FEMA actually loosened some of its hiring restrictions and started hiring again--hiring some of those positions of people that had left. So, you know, why cut the positions if you're just going to have to hire them back? [ Holly Hobbs: ] And what do we know about the impact so far? [ Chris Currie: ] Well, so far, we haven't had a catastrophic hurricane this season. Of course, we're just now getting into the peak of the strongest part of hurricane season, which is typically August and September, early October. So some of these concerns have been somewhat theoretical. However our biggest concern with the impact is having another year like 2024 where you have concurrent large hurricanes affecting the Southeast and potentially another unexpected disaster in another part of the country. And FEMA has to deploy massive amounts of people and resources to fill that need. They're going to do that with a lot less people, a lot less seasoned leadership than they had 2 years ago. And that's not a recipe for success in our view. [ Holly Hobbs: ] Do we know if FEMA is assessing the impact of any of these changes? [ Chris Currie: ] They've told us that they have done assessments of their current workforce and they're ready to respond if something happens. But, you know, that's a very general thing to say. Remember, we've been watching this for 10 to 15 years in their response to other disasters. And we've seen the numbers they've needed to handle large concurrent disasters. And based on that, they're going to struggle now. And remember, even if they are able to mount the numbers to respond to individual events, it still has an impact on their other mission. FEMA is responding and helping recoveries from right now over 600 prior disasters that have happened in the U.S. --some dating back 20 years. So, when they have to divert all those resources to response and they get overwhelmed, that means the recovery and the progress on those prior disasters stalls as well. So it's a cumulative impact. [ Holly Hobbs: ] Is there something we think FEMA should be doing? [ Chris Currie: ] Yes, they need to reinstate their workforce planning to figure out what their targets need to be both in terms of numbers and then where they specifically need to fill those critical positions to address the need that they that is likely to happen. So in the past, for example, they used to plan to--what they would call two to three large category one events. So those are large events like Hurricane Maria or the California wildfires or things like that. They would plan for those events happening concurrently and needing to staff those events effectively and still maintain their other mission. What they've done is kind of put a lot of that planning on ice. They've made these cuts and they've said, 'Well, we'll just make do with who we have left.' That's, that's not a good way to do it. So we recommended that they reinstate some of those workforce planning things, finalize their strategic plan so they can actually come up with a hiring strategy to address the need. [ Holly Hobbs: ] This is a big issue. Does Congress play a role? [ Chris Currie: ] Yes, absolutely. We actually have several matters for congressional consideration in this report that--in providing oversight, they should require FEMA annually to do this workforce assessment before hurricane season and then be required to report that to Congress every year. And I think our goal with that is there needs to be some sort of regular function and accountability and report to Congress to attest that they are ready for this. Otherwise, there's really no way to oversee and make sure that they're doing what they're required to do in law. [ Holly Hobbs: ] Chris, last question, What's the bottom line of your report? [ Chris Currie: ] The bottom line is that FEMA has cut its staff significantly over the last 2 years. And because of that, they're in a weaker position to respond to disasters moving forward. { Music } [ Holly Hobbs: ] Chris, thanks for your time. [ Chris Currie: ] Thanks so much for having me. [ Holly Hobbs: ] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. And make sure you leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov. [ END ]