Fired federal workers in Kansas City raise alarm: ‘Chaos costs the American taxpayer’

One person worked at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Another had just started at the Internal Revenue Service. Someone else was at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A fourth had been with the Department of Transportation.

All from the Kansas City area. All fired in recent weeks.

Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat representing Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District, convened a roundtable of terminated federal workers on Friday. The event, opened to news media, underscored the local effects of President Donald Trump’s lightning-fast push to cut the federal workforce.

Roughly 100 IRS workers in Kansas City have been fired. Other federal employees across the metro have also been terminated, but no reliable statistics exist as to how many. Some 30,000 people work for the federal government in the Kansas City area, and many fear the cuts will eventually come for them.

At a union hall in Kansas City, Kansas, a small sliver of former federal employees shared their stories. They hailed from different agencies and work backgrounds, but all cast the firings as a short-sighted and haphazard effort that will place public services at risk. The roundtable also included a current Social Security Administration employee, who spoke about concerns within the agency over looming job cuts.

Selina Zapata Bur worked as a transportation specialist in the Department of Transportation’s Office of the Secretary. In the remote position, she helped facilitate infrastructure projects and direct federal dollars.

At 6:45 p.m. on Feb. 14, Zapata Bur received an email saying she was fired. She was told her email access would be cut off 15 minutes later. DOT also sent her a termination letter but tried to recall the message because of typos and missing links before sending a new version an hour later.

“So that tells you the attention to detail they’re giving,” Zapata Bur said.

Scott Curtis was chief of staff in FEMA’s Region 7, an area headquartered in Kansas City that includes Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa. He had spent 32 years in the Navy, retiring as a captain before taking a job with FEMA.

Stressed for Years… Until I Found This"

Then he – and every federal employee – got the “Fork in the Road” email. The billionaire Elon Musk, who Trump has said leads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, initiative, promoted the deferred resignation program. Federal workers who took the offer would stop working but be paid through Sept. 30.

“Debated it, kind of thought about it. Had the same reaction everybody else had – this can’t be real. We would have heard more about this, our bosses knew nothing about it,” Curtis said. “But ultimately, the writing on the wall was there.”

Curtis took the offer.

But on President’s Day, Curtis’s supervisor called and informed him he was being fired because he was a probationary employee. He asked about the “Fork in the Road” and was told “they decided they’re not going to give that to you, sorry.”

He soon went on a podcast of The Bulwark, an anti-Trump publication, and soon after got a call from FEMA telling him the agency had made a “horrible mistake.” His termination was being rescinded, he was told, and he would go back on the deferred resignation program. Curtis still isn’t being paid, however.

“So I don’t know where that’s at. I’m trying to be patient with them,” Curtis said.

‘Money…thrown away’

During the 45-minute roundtable discussion, Davids at times interjected or asked questions. For the most part, though, she stayed quiet, taking notes as the fired workers spoke.

Davids, a fourth-term congresswoman whose district spans southern Wyandotte County, all of Johnson County and stretches into rural areas southwest of the Kansas City metro, consistently emphasizes her willingness to work with Republicans and kicked off the event by noting that the federal government can be made more efficient. But she has grown increasingly vocal in criticizing the Trump administration over the DOGE effort.

“I can tell you the idea of vilifying and demeaning our federal civil service is reprehensible to me,” Davids said. “Because just right here we’ve got folks who make sure, like with Social Security, make sure that people are getting the benefits that they’re entitled to because folks have been paying into this system for a long time.”

Kansas and Missouri Republicans have largely supported Trump and Musk’s efficiency efforts.

At a contentious town hall last weekend in western Kansas, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall called the annual federal deficit, currently about $1.8 trillion, “unsustainable.” He also referenced hundreds of billions in improper payments issued by the federal government.

“Programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Pentagon – the bigger numbers that they’re writing, the more opportunity for fraud, waste and abuse,” Marshall said.

A rare example of daylight with the Trump administration came this week when Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, criticized the Department of Veterans Affairs’ plan to cut 80,000 workers nationwide.

Moran, who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement that “current efforts to downsize the department and increase efficiency must be done in a more responsible manner.” At the same time, he said the department needs reform.

On Friday, the fired federal workers at the Davids’ event said the clumsy termination effort will actually cost money.

Jasper Hudgins-Bradley, who was fired by the IRS in February after less than a month on the job, said hiring and onboarding new workers alone takes thousands of dollars. When the agency dismissed dozens of new hires, he contends it effectively wasted those funds.

“You’ve got a good amount of money that’s basically thrown away,” he said.

Donny Newsom, who spent more than 20 years in the Navy and retired as a commander, took a job at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration. He helped work with contractors before he was terminated with roughly two hours to prepare for the end.

When he left, Newsom had to turn over the projects he was working on – some of them valued at millions of dollars. He’s since gotten calls and emails as NOAA and contractors attempt to continue coordinating.

“Chaos costs the American taxpayer and this is a good example,” Newsom said. “If we don’t pay our bills on time, if I don’t pay those contractors on time, we as Americans pay interest every day that invoice is pay delayed.”

Looming cuts feared

The one current employee in the group, Garth Stocking of the Social Security Administration, previewed the harms he and his co-workers fear are coming if the agency moves forward with a plan to eliminate 7,000 jobs nationally.

Hundreds of people work for SSA in Kansas City but it’s unclear how many may lose their jobs locally. The agency is attempting to cut most of the positions through resignations and buyouts. Stocking, secretary at the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1336, which represents SSA employees in Kansas City, told The Star earlier this week that workers fear timely delivery of benefits, which retired residents depend on, are under threat.

SSA currently operates 68 field offices across the four-state Kansas City region that employ 943 workers, in addition to nearly 1,000 at a service center based in Kansas City. The agency plans to consolidate the Kansas City region into a new Mid-West/West region.

What that means for what kind of presence SSA will have in Kansas City – and Kansas and Missouri more broadly – is unknown.

“It’s not too hard to connect the dots from closing a field office to lack of services,” Stocking said Friday.