By Sherry Robinson
All She Wrote

In the who-what-when that’s the architecture of news stories, it’s usually the who that’s most important and the how that’s least important. But in recent federal firings, I find the how equally compelling.

Consider the slash and burn of Elon Musk and his DOGE groupies at the National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency of the Department of Energy.

NPR pieced together an account from interviews with fired employees. They were shut out of their email accounts before learning they were fired. Some were not notified they were fired. Some received a letter late at night that said, “DOE finds that your further employment would not be in the public interest.”

Their bosses got a few hours to explain – in 200 characters – why several hundred probationary employees were needed. They were fired anyway. Managers also made lists of essential workers. It didn’t matter.

After two days of chaos and a tardy realization that NNSA oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, the administration declared a “pause” on firings at NNSA.

Oops.

I’ve covered layoffs in the past but never one this sloppy and irresponsible. Business people, from time to time, have to shrink the workforce, but they’re always clear on which operations must be preserved and who’s indispensable. They observe laws governing cause and notification. And they often provide a severance package.

In the current wave of firings, Musk’s flunkies know nothing of government, its agencies, or their functions. They claim to be rooting out fraud and waste, but they’re not trained auditors or forensic accountants – they’re undisciplined coders, and they want all your personal information. Any claims of savings are dubious. Meanwhile, inspectors general, who do know how to spot fraud and waste, were fired.

Now let’s look at the who.

Journalist Andrew Egger, at The Bulwark, spoke to employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Among the NNSA casualties were the emergency preparedness manager, the radiation protection manager, the security manager, the fire protection engineer, and two facility representatives, who keep an eye on site manufacturing facilities.

More widely reported were cuts at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, where workers reassemble warheads. It’s one of NNSA’s most sensitive activities. Pantex took a 30% hit. Altogether DOGE’s purged about 2,000 employees.

An Albuquerque Journal team looked at federal firings and found: 14 rangers at Carlsbad National Park, which will force closures as tourist season is getting under way; 20% of staff at Soutwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque – some of them while instructors were teaching class – which cost the school all its tutors; and 25% of staff at Carson National Forest and 40% at Gila National Forest, which thins the ranks going into fire season and tourist season.

And the Muskovites fired the state’s only qualified contaminant biologist who monitors and responds to hazardous material spills.

In another oops moment, DOGE fired 950 Indian Health Services employees and had to rescind the action.

Now freshman Sen. Jay Block, R- Rio Rancho, has introduced a bill to create a DOGE-like Government Accountability to Taxpayer Office in state government.

Block is new, so maybe he doesn’t know that the state, unlike the federal government, cannot run a deficit. It’s one reason state government typically runs lean. He also doesn’t know that former Gov. Susana Martinez ran off so many employees that some agencies posted 25% vacancies for years.

Yes, there’s waste and fraud, but we have effective watchdogs.

Musk and the far right have proven one thing. They assumed they could swing their fists in any direction and find useless bureaucracy and snoozing federal employees. They have now demonstrated that agencies have real missions and employees do real work.

Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.