A federal judge in Baltimore has instructed the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate probationary employees at several agencies who had been terminated during President Donald Trump's efforts to pare down the federal government workforce.
Ruling on a lawsuit filed by a group of state attorneys general, the judge said late last week that probationary employees in all federal departments must be reinstated by Monday.
The judge took issue with the way the mass terminations were executed, and said employees should be brought back onto the job, at least temporarily.
The order occurred soon after another federal judge, this time in San Francisco, found that terminations across six agencies were overseen by Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, who lacked the authority to issue the firings, according to the Associated Press.
That particular order instructs the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy, Agriculture, Treasury and the Interior to reinstate jobs for employees who were terminated in mid-February.
The Trump administration appealed the ruling, but it was upheld Monday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to The Hill.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT
More than 24,000 probationary employees have been terminated since Trump took office, the Maryland lawsuit alleges. The government has not confirmed that number. The Maryland lawsuit listed 16 agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS lost about 5,200 probationary employees during the first round of firings in February, according to an audio recording of a National Institutes of Health department meeting reported by the AP. The job cuts came one day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in to oversee HHS.
Probationary workers are being let go as part of efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, task force headed by billionaire Elon Musk, to shrink government spending.
Politico reported that more firings could be expected soon – at the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Administration for Children and Families, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Politico said the ONC could see its department cut from 180 to 30 people and folded into the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
THE LARGER TREND
Around the time of the mass terminations, in mid-February, CMS announced that funds for the Affordable Care Act Navigator Program would be slashed from $98 million in 2024 to $10 million. This means that the pay for people performing the function of helping consumers choose an ACA plan is being cut, as is likely their navigator jobs. Funding for the navigator program was also slashed under the first Trump administration.
Earlier that month, a federal judge ordered HHS, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration to restore access to their web pages after removing information to comply with a Trump executive order.
Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.