By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. agency that manages disasters plans to require nearly all employees, including full-time headquarters and regional staff, to be deployed to emergency zones, according to a draft memo to agency employees seen by Reuters.
This spring, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will assign all full-time employees roles in leading, managing and supporting disaster response and recovery, according to the draft memo dated “April xx, 2025,” from acting head Cam Hamilton to all employees.
“This memo redefines the emergency management categories, outlining how every employee within FEMA has a role in emergency management,” the memo says.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has said it will move FEMA’s disaster preparedness work to state and local governments. He has floated shuttering the agency altogether.
Experts have warned that shrinking or reorganizing FEMA could leave local and state governments more vulnerable to natural disasters, such as this year’s wildfires in California and severe flooding in West Virginia.
The notion that FEMA office staff could be called on to support disaster response is not new, but mandatory deployment minimums will likely create anxiety for them, said Michael Coen, former FEMA chief of staff under the Obama and Biden administrations.
FEMA staff are already under pressure after about 2,000 employees accepted incentives to leave or were terminated since the start of the Trump administration, Coen said.
“It’s just one more lever being pulled that’s making it unpleasant to work there,” Coen said.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment.
About 5,000, or 22%, of the staff are permanent full-time employees, according to a 2023 U.S. Government Accountability Office report. They are usually not deployed to disaster zones.
Most other staff are on-call reservists or members of the agency’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees, who are hired for limited periods for disaster work.
Under the draft plan, full-time employees can expect to be deployed for at least 45 to 90 days a year depending on their roles, the memo says.
A “limited set of employees” would be assigned non-deployment roles to “maintain minimum viable agency operations” and fulfill statutorily required functions, the memo says.
The memo did not detail whether the changes would result in staff cuts.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Richard Chang)
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