More than 10% of employees working with the Federal Drug Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were fired this month Government-wide cuts Recently hired federal workers ordered by Elon Musk's government efficiency ministry, or Dogework team.
Cuts are about 100 probation workers, several current and former federal health officials told CBS News and have affected multiple teams around the department, from the recently hired directors of the SAMHSA regional office to working on projects related to it Employees 988 Hotline For those facing a mental health crisis, the agency oversees.
Among the agency’s communications team, their work aims to raise awareness of the 988 hotline, Samhsa employees said a quarter of their team lost last month.
Employee Stacey Palosky posted on LinkedIn. ”
Palosky declined the interview request, mentioning comments to SAMHSA and the Department of Health and Human Services. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials predict that the impact of the cuts, like managing large amounts of grants and external contracts in many other health agencies, may not be immediately felt. Instead, they say cuts will translate into a long-term erosion of SAMHSA's ability to monitor, a slowdown in grant approvals and a dilemma on the latest news on guidance.
Much of the work in some areas of the agency consists of awarding taxpayers for drug addiction and mental health treatment programs and tracking taxpayers.
This includes funding for the call center that makes up the 988 hotline, mainly composed of state and local governments across the country and nonprofits that manage the operation of the center.
Federal health officials said they also feared that the agency’s cuts would herald a drop in morale to the first Trump administration, which was subsequently significantly reduced in size.
According to the public service partnership records, SAMHSA's workforce fell to a low of 376 employees in 2020, down from 553 in 2014.
Meanwhile, SAMHSA's survey score for employee satisfaction fell to 27 lows of 100, well below the federal agency average.
Employee satisfaction scores recovered from 2020 and reached a record 81.5 in 2023, above average. By 2023, the SAMHSA workforce will also increase to 633.
Most federal health agencies have also faced shooting in recent weeks letter The past weekend, HHSOR was awarded due to the contract being ruled.
Institutions that lose contractors and recently hired workers include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Administration of Strategic Readiness and Response, and Child Management and Family.
Some institutions were initially scheduled to make steep cuts later Get exemption For many people Health agency workersincluding Indian health services.
It is not clear how many workers were eventually cut from the HHS.
At SAMHSA, officials who remained at the agency said the firing was frustrating and, in some cases, the tough employees were removed to take on required positions.
A health official warned that the repetition of the “doomsday cycle” plagued the agency during the first Trump administration, where most of the highest performing workers fled Samhsa to work in private sector, thus reducing morale .
Some staff members are because they are committed to public services, the official said. But many others are because they are trapped in Samhsa’s job, either because of their personal circumstances or because they cannot be hired elsewhere.
“The last time they spent two or three years inducing the doomsday cycle. This time they did the job in less than a month,” the official said.
