This story has been updated with additional information.
Anger and confusion among Alaska’s federal workers were rampant on Friday as mass firings ordered by President Donald Trump hit multiple agencies, including the Federal Highway Administration office in Juneau and Tongass National Forest ranger districts, according to officials and published reports.
The number of Alaskans fired as of 8 p.m. Friday was unknown, with various reports related to the large-scale terminations that started Thursday coming from a multitude of sources throughout the day. One official figure came from U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who in a Facebook post at 5:36 p.m. stated “Dozens of Alaskans – potentially over 100 in total – are being fired as part of the Trump administration’s reduction-in-force order for the federal government.”
“Many of these abrupt terminations will do more harm than good, stunting opportunities in Alaska and leaving holes in our communities,” she wrote.
However, those numbers are far from complete. Murkowski noted she and her staff are “trying to get answers about the impact of these terminations…but the response so far has been evasive and inadequate.”
Numbers reported by some other sources varied and could not be independently verified.
KTUU on Friday, for instance, reported 100 or more Tongass employees were fired Thursday based on an interview with Executive Director Alaska Outdoor Alliance Lee Hart. The Anchorage Daily News reported Friday evening more than 20 Tongass employees and four of 17 employees at the FHA in Juneau are among the people in Southeast Alaska terminated so far.
Jillian Celia, who was fired from her job as a Chugach National Forest fish biologist, said in an interview Saturday she was told about 160 Forest Service employees in Alaska were terminated, but didn’t know if that was the actual number. She said she had worked for just over 11 months at her job and there has been an expectation since Trump’s return to office the firings might occur.
“I think myself and all of my probationary coworkers at that time pretty much were like we’re all pretty confident that it was going to happen,” she said. “But then it kind of seemed to wax and wane, and there were news reports that it wasn’t going to happen and then it was. So I think we all, most of us, started looking for jobs because we could see the writing on the wall.”
A Feb. 13 memorandum terminating Celia’s employment, similar to notices sent to other federal workers, cites the probationary policy that the employee has “the burden to demonstrate why it is in the public interest for the Government to finalize an appointment to the civil service for this particular individual.”
The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest,” the notice to Celia states. “For this reason, the Agency informs you that the Agency is removing you from your position of FISH BIOLGST [sic] with the Agency and the federal civil service effective immediately.”
The notice states she has 30 days to file an appeal with the government’s Merit Systems Protection Board.
Several other current and former federal workers contacted Friday by the Empire declined to comment on the record, with some stating they either did not want to endanger their jobs or exploration of legal options after being terminated from one.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed nationally by fired officials, labor organizations and other parties seeking to reverse Trump’s actions.
An early indicator of the widespread impacts the firings could have on Juneau and other communities arose during a Juneau Board of Education work session Saturday morning focusing on the school district’s budget for the coming year. Deedie Sorensen, the school board’s president, said a loss of a significant number of students due to firing federal workers leaving Juneau “could really throw a wrench into our projections.”
“I’m not seeing anything on the horizon there,” she said, referring to anticipated further firings. “We have this completely new issue that we haven’t experienced before that is potentially really dramatic.”
The district gets about $7,200 in funding for each student, according to Superintendent Frank Hauser.
Nearly 10,000 workers were fired nationwide on Friday, who may be among well over 200,000 employees targeted because they are probationary with less than two years on the job and thus not subject to civil service protections, according to Reuters. About 1,200 Alaskans are federal employees who have been at their current job for a year or less, according to a report by David Traver, chief steward for the union representing workers at the state Department of Veterans Affairs, presented to state lawmakers last week.
Traver said probationary employees in Alaska make up about 10% of the state’s federal workforce. That is the same estimated percentage of employees reportedly targeted for termination at agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service — where 3,400 are reportedly being fired — and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Other agencies have much higher targets, such as a 50% reduction in staff at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, while Trump officials have said they are trying to eliminate others altogether such as the U.S. Department of Education and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. ABC News reported Saturday about 15,000 Internal Revenue Service employees have been targeted for termination for possible termination as soon as next week.
Indian Country Today reported at least 2,600 U.S. Department of Interior employees are being targeted, many of whom work in “health, education, law enforcement, social services and other tribal programs.” More than 850 Indian Health Services employees at the U.S, Department of Health and Human Services are also being fired, according to a letter sent Friday to the department by U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona, protesting the cuts.
“These layoffs could remove physicians, nurses, dentists, and other health care professionals from their critical roles in underserved and rural areas,” he wrote.
Trump administration officials have said the firings are part of an effort to rid the federal government of “waste, fraud and abuse.”
Murkowski, in her Facebook post, stated “I share the administration’s goal of reducing the size of the federal government, but this approach is bringing confusion, anxiety, and now trauma to our civil servants — some of whom moved their families and packed up their whole lives to come here.”
”We can’t realize our potential for responsible energy and mineral development if we can’t permit projects,” she wrote. “We will be less prepared to manage summer wildfires if we can’t support those on the front lines. Our tourism economy will be damaged if we don’t maintain our world-class national parks and forests.”
Celia, originally from the Chicago area, said she started working for the Chugach National Forest district as an intern in 2012, getting a master’s degree at the University of Alaska and then working at a tribal conservation district before getting her biologist job last year. She said she’s interviewing for other jobs, but as a single mother hasn’t been in a position to save up money in recent weeks as a contingency fund to cover expenses after being fired.
She said she plans to discuss legal options with her union, which is among the entities filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, but “I think in the long term, based on everything that has happened in the last few weeks, I would not want to return to my position full-time.”
“It’s been so incredibly toxic and horrendous to work for the federal government in the last few weeks since Trump came into office,” Celia said. “It’s been a complete ‘180’ of what work was like before.”
Celia said one of the main duties at her job was assessing culverts needing replacement because they were, for instance, blocking salmon trying to get upstream to spawn, while another was addressing invasive species issues for marine wildlife. While Trump is seeking to eliminate programs at odds with its political agenda, including those dealing with climate change, Celia said the projects she was working on do not appear so far to be among those being targeted.
However, she questioned the ability of the projects she was working on to continue since her district’s office was already short-staffed before the firings.
“I think even just removing 10% is going to make a big difference because we are already so understaffed to begin with,” she said. “And it was across the board with fish and wildlife, recreation, and all the different aspects. I think fish and wildlife might not be necessarily felt or observed as directly, but will certainly still have impact. But recreation will be the areas that people are recreating in and camping and trying to get out in. So there’s not going to be enough people to do all the things that need to get done.”
A further concern is that more firings beyond the probationary workers are likely ahead, Celia said.
“As to who might be the next I really can’t speak to, but I think it seems like this is just the beginning,” she said.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
