The United States is currently undergoing severe funding and job cuts across the country at the hands of the Trump administration. These cuts are leading to thousands of federal employees in Oregon and across the nation being fired or subject to the “fork in the road” Deferred Resignation Proposal (DRP) offer, sent by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The DRP offer was sent out to federal workers in February of 2025, offering them paid leave for several months before their official resignation or retirement.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established Jan. 20, 2025, with the intention to commence “a transformation in federal spending on contracts, grants, and loans to ensure government spending is transparent and government employees are accountable to the American public.” According to Reuters, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — under which DOGE operates — stated that as of Feb. 12, about 75,000 federal employees had accepted the DRP offer.
According to OPM, Oregon is home to 17,252 federal workers. The U.S. Postal Service, Department of Veteran Affairs, and Department of Agriculture employ the greatest percentage of federal workers in Oregon. This shift directly affects Oregon’s ability to continue to provide healthcare, transportation, education, and conservation of natural resources.
Federal dollars support conservation efforts through the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), a government agency that protects and maintains forests and wildlife across the country. Oregon is home to a great amount of wildlife and forests, all of which are protected by the USFS. The USFS manages 193 million acres of land in the country, according to the USFS website, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages another 245 million acres, according to the BLM website. In total, the federal government owns approximately 53% of Oregon’s land, according to the Statesman Journal.
The USFS is undergoing massive funding cuts, along with employee cuts. The USFS receives their funding from grants, cooperative agreements, partnership agreements, and contracts. This funding is primarily passed through appropriation bills in Congress, and then the money is spread to state, private, and tribal forestry agencies throughout the U.S. Due to blocked funding, the USFS is unable to provide this money to smaller agencies across the country, including in Oregon, reducing the amount of government aid states receive to manage their forests.
Recently, the USFS headed toward a Reduction In Force (RIF), where many of those employees that were fired. Some , were then re-hired and may once again be fired. The RIF may also include the firing of long-term employees if their job is not considered “essential.” This is detrimental to the USFS, and in the future, is limiting their ability to do their job, according to Tom Walker, a U.S. Forest Service District Fisheries biologist and former USFS employee from Bend, who retired after 31 years in the agency. He believes, “Without adequate funding, there will not be enough folks on the ground to oversee all that is occurring within a forest. … There will be less resources to properly thin forest stands and reduce hazardous fuels that spread wildfires, oversee wilderness areas, protect archaeological resources, and maintain roads.”
Funding cuts to the USFS affect public outreach and educational programs in national forests. An anonymous Oregon USFS employee of 25 years says, “Some of the employees who delivered these programs were fired, and those who are left are struggling to operate sites, so outreach will fall by the wayside.” Fewer employees will specifically mean a decreased ability to support the wildland firefighting efforts.
Oregon already struggles with wildfires throughout the dry season, and without a proper amount of firefighters, the struggle may worsen. Walker agrees that the biggest challenge the USFS is facing today is budget cuts, saying that the USFS is “in the middle of the chaos with the firing of thousands of employees and now the subsequent hiring back of those employees due to the unlawfulness of those actions.”
In order to raise awareness about the importance of federal funding, the anonymous source suggests a twofold effort. They explain, “First, awareness through social media and community networks of the upcoming situation will be the primary vehicle for communicating this information. The public will need to be aware that some sites will be closed, some will be short-staffed, and there will be impacts to the public.” They continue, saying, “The second piece of this is for the public to know that the people in the field are doing the best they can with the limited resources they have, so please have some patience and acknowledge the dedicated employees out there.” They say that though there may not be an immediate noticeable change, in the years to come it will become more clear how important the USFS is.
In addition to the USFS, the BLM regulates land across the U.S., specifically 16.1 million acres in the Pacific Northwest, including Oregon. The BLM employs roughly 1,300 permanent employees, across both Oregon and Washington. About 300, or 23% of those employees work at the state office in Portland.
Oregonians visit many sites managed by the BLM, including Lake Creek Falls, the Meadowlark Prairie Trail, and the Old Growth Ridge National Recreation Trail. Wildwood Recreation Site, near Welches, is a popular BLM location closer to Portland. Without proper staff to maintain these trails and land, tourists and locals won’t be able to use and enjoy these public resources.
A public affairs specialist from BLM summarizes, “Our goal, or mission, remains the same: to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The more funding we have, the more work we can do.” The BLM’s budget is determined through an administrative process involving the president’s budget request, congressional review, and the passage of appropriations bills. The specialist finishes by emphasizing the importance of BLM employees: “Our people are our greatest strength. Our employees serve in vital roles that benefit the American public and lands.”
Layoffs and cuts are also striking public schools across the state and country. Oregon’s rural districts are uniquely challenged by a limited tax base. A state with a limited tax base has fewer taxpayers than it needs to collect enough revenue to function.
Although larger school districts are also struggling to receive a sufficient amount of federal funding, they don’t have all the same needs as a smaller school district, such as Grant School District in John Day, OR. The Grant School District is currently in jeopardy due to layoffs in the Department of Energy (DOE). They rely on money from the DOE to help support their school district. The money is spent on decreasing energy costs, as well as improving air quality and learning environments. Yet as a federal grant program, the Grant School District spends the money before they receive it, expecting to be reimbursed.
Sherman County is also being affected by funding cuts. Sherman County has an unusually high percentage of federal workers, nearly 15%, compared to Portland’s roughly 2.5%, according to Oregon Live. This may impact their economy, as a far higher percentage of Sherman County citizens will be losing their jobs compared to areas of Oregon with a lower rate of federal workers.
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has been experiencing a tremendous amount of cuts following Trump’s return to office. Though the BPA is managed by the DOE, it is a self-funded agency that is mostly financed by its own revenue from the sales of electricity and transmission services. Nonetheless, DOE-directed cuts have led to a significant reduction in BPA staffing. The BPA is now attempting to rehire some of the staff that it fired in February.
The firings and then rehires at the BPA reflect a somewhat chaotic approach to federal staffing that has played out at many federal agencies since Trump returned to office. Many fired employees around the country have challenged their unemployment in court, claiming it was unlawful. A significant amount of the layoffs across the country have been directed at probationary employees, who are in the first year of their employment. Rulings in California and Maryland ruled that the government needs to stop firing probationary federal employees and rehire or give back pay to already fired employees. Though this court ruling has returned some workers’ jobs, it is not guaranteed to prevent more mass firings in the future by the Trump administration.
A media representative from the BPA shares that their continued aim is to “remain in conversation with Department of Energy leadership to ensure we can develop and implement workforce solutions to continue meeting our missions of providing reliable services to millions of Americans without interruption.” The BPA operates one of the nation’s largest high-voltage transmission systems.
The dams that the BPA markets energy to are managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which is a military engineering branch of the U.S. Army. The USACE’s purpose is “restoring degraded ecosystems, constructing sustainable facilities, regulating waterways, managing natural resources, and cleaning up contaminated sites from past military activities,” according to the USACE website. The USACE holds a very important role in maintaining land along with restoring and building facilities to benefit our country.
The USACE Portland District employs over a thousand people. But still, they are yet another government agency experiencing cuts. A media representative at USACE states, “As of [March 14], we granted requests from 28 Portland District employees who accepted the [DRP]. We are individually out-processing each employee and ensuring their duties are assigned to others.” They continue, “The total number across all USACE who accepted the DRP is 1068, which is roughly 3% of our civilian workforce, worldwide.”
Many federal buildings in Portland are soon to be going on sale due to the Trump administration. There will be 10 buildings in Oregon, and three in Portland alone. This includes the 911 Federal Building, the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, and the BPA building. The 911 Federal Building is an office building occupied by employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other federal agencies. The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building serves as office space for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), USFS, and BLM, along with other smaller tenants. DOGE also says that it intends to cancel leases affecting Food and Drug Administration offices in three Oregon cities, including Portland, as well as the U.S. Forest Service office in Klamath Falls and the Federal Railroad Administration in Bend, according to OPB.
Federal employees are taking action in court against the firing and treatment from the government, as well as through protests. On Feb. 14, federal employees and supporters gathered outside the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington. “I personally took part in a public rally here in Bend about the unlawful firing of federal employees,” says Walker, who highlights that the public can support federal workers in many ways. He also recommends reaching out to congresspeople, though he notes, “Members of Congress are supposed to have influence in the funding of federal programs, although that is strained right now with the current administration.” All in all, the future is unclear in terms of federal workers and continued government agencies; however, as it stands, thousands of Oregon employees have been left jobless.
