The Trump administration has eliminated thousands of federal positions in the U.S. Department of Agriculture this month. The firings targeted employees who were in just their first year on the job.
One of them is Becca Sheetz, a Concord resident and employee at the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). She spoke with NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley about her experience and how she believes the job cuts could affect New Hampshire farmers and the agriculture community.
Transcript
You started this job at the USDA in December. How did you hear that you were being fired?
I got an email at 10:30 p.m. on a Thursday night, and my mom and my sister had called me earlier that evening because U.S. Forest Service employees had gotten notifications of layoffs earlier in the evening. And they were like, "Do you still have a job?" And I checked my email at like 8 pm. I'm like, “As far as I know, I do."
And right before I went to bed, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to check again just to make sure. And I had gotten the email from the Office of Personnel Management saying that I was being terminated and that is how I found out.
Did the notice say why?
I think the exact phrase, or close to the exact phrase that was given was based off of your performance, it has been determined that your employment is no longer in the interest of the public.
When you went into the office the next day, presumably to turn in your work material, did you talk with your supervisor? Did they explain to you what they knew what was going on?
So the next morning, my supervisor actually texted me saying, "Hey, I heard some notifications went out last night. Did you get one?" And I told her, "Yes, I did." She explained that she hadn't been notified. The state conservationist, who's the head of the NRCS in New Hampshire, hadn't been notified, and they were putting together a meeting for all of the NRCS employees in New Hampshire who had been laid off to try to talk about what just happened.
No one knew anything. A lot of people had questions. No one had any answers. We didn't have any information on health insurance and continuing coverage. All of this HR type stuff is handled by the Office of Personnel Management, which is like a big office that I'm sure you've heard about at this point. Getting in touch with someone there has been extremely difficult. So all of the usual things that you think would happen when you get laid off from a job, all those interactions that you would have with HR, just really haven't happened. And it's been a lot to try to navigate.
(Editor’s note: NHPR reached out to the Office of Personnel Management. The agency declined to comment.)
Are you concerned about how this is going to affect future employment for you?
Yes. That was one of the first things that came to my mind because in my termination letter, it cited my performance. And my first thought was okay, if I go ahead and try to apply for another job and they ask me why I was let go, and if they look at the official letter, it's going to say termination.
I asked if I could get a letter of recommendation from my supervisor. They were told that they have been advised at this time that they cannot give a letter of recommendation – not just my supervisor. All employees within New Hampshire NRCS have been advised that they cannot give letters of recommendation at this time.
Fortunately, this has been in the news a lot so if I do apply to another job, a lot of folks have heard about what's going on and know that there's more context than just the letter. But that was an immediate concern of mine.
Have you been looking?
I have, yes. I had a quick phone interview the other day, and the person who was talking to me was like, "Oh, I saw that you worked at the USDA. I assume that you're part of the layoffs." And I said, "Yep." And that was it.
So I'm also concerned that because of the layoffs and how widespread they are, that there's going to be more competition. I think I read somewhere that 11 people got laid off at the White Mountain National Forest. So that's more competition there. All of my fellow NRCS employees that got laid off. That is a concern of mine.
What do you think these job terminations could mean for the agricultural community here in the state? I'm wondering about some of the services that could be affected.
How the NRCS works is the official motto is “helping people help the land." So we offer financial and technical assistance for private landowners in New Hampshire. That's a lot of small scale agriculture as well as NIPF — nonindustrial private forest lands.
So this is just based off of my personal experience and a lot of other factors could come into play — but at the very least, everything that we do at the NRCS is going to be slower and take longer. So we accept applications for financial assistance to implement conservation minded agricultural and forestry practices. Everything is going to be slower because there's fewer personnel in addition to the layoffs.
A lot of partners, which are like contractors, have been furloughed. So right now the Concord office is working at less than 50% capacity. So if a producer like a forest owner or a farm owner has completed a practice and they submit it to be inspected, it's going to take a lot longer for us to get out there and inspect it and get that payment going through. If someone sends in an application, it's going to take the NRCS a lot longer to process that application. That's kind of in the short term.
In the long term, this could mean fewer applications being received, fewer applications being processed, which could in the long term affect the agricultural community. There could be lower productivity, less food being produced. It could mean more harm to the environment. We do a lot of contracting with [the] dairy industry, and in [the] dairy industry, waste management is a really big thing to ensure that groundwater isn't contaminated with waste and whatnot. And so in the long term, it could be more damag[ing] to the ecosystems that our agriculture and forested lands exist within.
Becca, throughout this conversation, you've referred to "us" and "we." You're no longer there.
Yes, I also realized that. I'm still processing it, but also this job was really what I wanted to do. As soon as I started there, I realized I really liked all elements and also working in public service was something that just kind of clicked. So even if I'm not employed, I'm still a citizen of the United States, and I've got at least a little bit of skin in the game when it comes to this. I think it's also just going to take me a bit more time to fully process.
(Editor’s note: NHPR reached out to the USDA and the New Hampshire NRCS for this story. A full statement from a USDA spokesperson is available below:
“[USDA] Secretary [Brooke] Rollins fully supports President Trump’s directive to optimize government operations, eliminate inefficiencies, and strengthen USDA’s ability to better serve American farmers, ranchers, and the agriculture community.
We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar is being spent as effectively as possible to serve the people, not the bureaucracy.
As part of this effort, USDA has released individuals in their probationary period of employment. Secretary Rollins understands the array of mission critical positions and programs at the department, and she will ensure that those areas have the resources and personnel they need to continue serving the American people.”)
