Probationary employees, or people who have recently started their jobs, are now among the Coloradans stunned and disappointed to lose their jobs in public service.
There were more 2 million civilians working for the United States government before Trump took office, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel and Management. More than 75,000 federal employees have since taken resignation packages, but that's not counting the thousands of probationary workers who were let go. This comes as nonprofit contractors lose federal funding.
For the most part, the Trump administration has signaled that the federal downsizing is to address wasteful spending, but the firings have been criticized as rushed and careless.
Most of the job slashing has been overseen by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency and its appointed head, Elon Musk, the X and Tesla CEO. On Saturday, February 22, Musk sent a mass email to federal employees demanding they justify why they should keep their jobs by the end of today, February 24.
More than 40,000 federal employees live and work in Colorado, according to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
However, some of them have already lost their job or contracts with the federal government due to the dismantling of
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Last week, 3,400 employees in the U.S. Forest Service and 1,000 in the National Park Service were abruptly fired, including hundreds in Colorado.
However, some of them have already lost their job or contracts with the federal government due to the dismantling of
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Last week, 3,400 employees in the U.S. Forest Service and 1,000 in the National Park Service were abruptly fired, including hundreds in Colorado.
Immigration support groups in Colorado have also been dealt blows because of Trump's political agenda. The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocate Network (RMIAN) had to stop offering immigrants free legal services at courts and detention centers because of a Trump executive order, but RMIAN restarted its work representing undocumented children, the group announced on Friday, February 21, after the Trump administration rescinded a stop work order.
On February 13, probationary federal employees started finding out they were among the latest to be fired after Trump signed an executive order on February 11 directing DOGE to begin the "workforce optimization initiative." According to the OPM, about 220,000 federal employees had less than a year on the job as of March 2024.
Colorado Employees Cut Without Severance
In her role, Moeinian mediated for VA employees, including at hospitals and clinics, during workplace conflicts or Equal Employment Opportunity complaints that result from suspected discrimination against an employee. She also provided training on topics like conflict management or workplace civility "just to give folks tools to improve their working environment," she says.
"The work that we did, even though it wasn't direct patient care, it was still important," Moeinian says. "We helped support a positive work environment."
"The work that we did, even though it wasn't direct patient care, it was still important," Moeinian says. "We helped support a positive work environment."
Moeinian started her job in September. Because she still hadn't completed a year by the time of DOGE's cuts, she was considered a probationary employee. On February 13, she was fired via email along with another probationary employee on her team, which only had a handful of people, she says. The email told her "it wasn't in the interest of the public" to keep her based on her performance.
Even her supervisor didn't know she was fired until she told him, she says.
"It was so shocking and blindsiding," Moeinian says. "The last three performance reviews I've had at the VA — even though this position, I was very new in it — but the previous reviews I had were the top rating. They were outstanding."
Moeinian and her team served VA employees in Louisiana, Texas, Wyoming and Colorado, where the VA has a major facility and workforce in Aurora. Cutting employees in her role will result in "longer wait times" for VA employees trying to get their workplace concerns settled, "which is critical," she warns.
"If you're dealing with a situation where people are having a breakdown of communication, that's going to bleed into their work with the veterans," she says. "Because they're not communicating effectively, they're misunderstanding each other, and they're not able to address it. It's going to lead to all kinds of issues."
The VA has more than 400,000 employees nationwide across four districts. In Aurora, the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center "dismissed a small number of probationary staff," according to a statement from the VA Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, which says that those firings will "have no negative effect on veteran health care, benefits or other services and will allow VA to focus more effectively on its core mission of serving veterans, families, caregivers and survivors."
Matthew O'Malley went through a similar experience to Moeinian when he was fired on February 13 from his job as an agricultural engineer for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The NRCS is an agency under the U.S. Department of Agriculture that was created during the Dust Bowl in 1935 to help farmers, ranchers and forest landowners conserve natural resources; O'Malley worked at the agency's field office in Brighton
In his role, O'Malley taught farmers in Adams and Arapahoe counties how to sustainably use water via practices like grass waterways, pivot irrigation and terrace systems. Around three-and-a-half months after starting his job, the NRCS national HR department emailed him on the night of February 13 to tell him he was fired effective immediately "for the public interest."
He was fired alongside one of the three engineers on his small team in Brighton. According to O'Malley, one engineer serving Jefferson County was fired just two weeks shy of the end of her probationary period.
O'Malley says the email informing him of his termination said that "based on your performance, you have not demonstrated that your further employment at [NRCS] would be in the public interest." Moeinian, let go on the same day, says her email was worded similarly.
"I found it difficult, because I had not received a formal performance review up until the point I was terminated," O'Malley says. "My supervisor did not have a lot of negative input and told me I was doing a great job."
O'Malley says the loss of people in his role "is going to really impact the NRCS's ability to provide services to landowners" and that most of the probationary workers "were those that staffed the field offices." According to O'Malley, his field office was understaffed before the cuts happened.
Both O'Malley and Moeinian said they were fired from their dream jobs. Neither received severance packages when they were let go.
O'Malley says he hopes to return to his job and will look for a new job in the public sector. Moeinian would like an opportunity to challenge her firing, which she says was "illegal," in court, and imagines former federal employees like her will find a way to fight back.
"There's thousands of people in the exact situation that I am, hoping to get their day in court or hoping their case is going to be heard or considered," she says. "It astounds me that the government would opt to kick people out of employment just because they feel like it."
