The Federal Emergency Management Agency moved this week to address staffing issues that had triggered concern inside the agency’s workforce, including bringing back a group of employees who had publicly opposed agency policies. Fourteen FEMA employees who signed a letter of dissent last August were told by email Wednesday that an investigation into the matter was closed and that they would return to work Thursday after eight months on paid administrative leave, according to two FEMA staff members.
The reinstatement came as FEMA prepares for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season and the FIFA World Cup, both scheduled to begin in June. Abby McIlraith, an emergency management specialist who was among the suspended workers, said she felt “pretty vindicated, and like we did the right thing,” and NBC News first reported the reinstatement.
FEMA leadership also told some employees this week that it would extend certain term-limited contracts for workers whose terms were set to expire soon, The Associated Press reported based on documents it viewed. The reported contract extensions come amid uncertainty about the future of those positions and a related lawsuit challenging broader nonrenewals of FEMA’s disaster workers.
In a statement to The Associated Press, a FEMA spokesperson said the agency does not comment on specific personnel actions but described the broader approach. The spokesperson said in an interview that FEMA is taking “targeted steps to stabilize our workforce and strengthen readiness,” and added that the agency is addressing outstanding personnel actions to ensure workforce stability and a “strong, deployable surge force” for upcoming national events and potential disasters.
The 14 reinstated employees were among more than 190 current and former FEMA employees who signed the “Katrina Declaration” letter released last August. The statement warned of what the signatories said were risks to the agency’s disaster response capacity, and it specifically named multiple policies they said could lead to catastrophe like the one after Hurricane Katrina. The letter criticized, among other steps, a DHS policy tied to approval of expenditures, the reassignment of some FEMA employees to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the failure to appoint a qualified FEMA administrator as required by law, and cuts affecting grants, training and the FEMA workforce.
One day after the Aug. 25 release of the letter, the 14 staffers were put on indefinite paid administrative leave, according to the report. McIlraith later described the period as leaving her “slightly tentative” that reinstatement would be permanent, after the employees had been reinstated in early December only to be placed on leave again after one day. She said she was back at work at a FEMA office in Maryland on Thursday and was waiting to regain access to her work devices, calling the time away “a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Alongside the reinstatements, FEMA employees told some term-limited disaster workers that contracts would be extended, according to documents seen by The Associated Press. The email described the agency’s CORE workforce—Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees—who work on two- to four-year assignments that have traditionally been routinely renewed to allow FEMA to build up and taper down its capacity. FEMA stopped renewing some CORE contracts at the start of 2026 as they expired and instead extended others only for 90 days, the report said.
The email sent to some staff said CORE employees whose contracts were scheduled to end between January and May—previously extended for 90 days—“may be reappointed for up to one year,” and that the agency would handle contracts ending after May differently. It also said “eligible” FEMA reservists would be renewed for two years, with the report noting that 7,000 reservists in the surge workforce have contracts expiring May 2.
FEMA has not confirmed whether it will bring back CORE workers who were already dismissed, the report said. An unnamed FEMA employee told The Associated Press that at least one CORE worker had been called back, but said the employee was not authorized to speak to the media.
The reported staffing changes are the latest indication that Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Security secretary, is moving away from the more severe approach toward FEMA attributed to his predecessor Kristi Noem before she was fired as DHS leader, the report said. Soon after assuming the post, Mullin reversed a Noem policy requiring Mullin’s office to approve DHS expenditures above $100,000 and released more than $1 billion in backlogged FEMA grants and reimbursements to states, tribes and territories since being sworn in last month, according to the report.
The Associated Press also reported that Trump signed on Thursday a bill that funds all aspects of DHS besides immigration enforcement and that the bill will replenish FEMA’s disaster fund with more than $26 billion. The report said Trump has repeatedly criticized FEMA and threatened to abolish it, and it noted that next week a Trump-appointed FEMA Review Council is expected to release its overdue recommendation report proposing changes to the agency.