Just hours after Brooke Rollins was sworn in as secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., Thursday, in Vermont, Richard Amore received a 7:30 p.m. email from his human resources office saying he was terminated effective immediately. Amore had served as the head of economic development for USDA’s Rural Development team for just four months.
“We’re a staff of about 30. We’ve lost 5 — all probationary employees,” Amore said, speaking about the Rural Development office, adding that some had been very recently hired. “It breaks my heart what happened yesterday. I’m committed to the rural communities and you’re taking away the resources, the funding,” he added.
Amore’s team is not alone. Several thousand so-called probationary employees at USDA regional offices across the country also were suddenly laid off, including within the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the National Forest Service.
The recent move to fire probationary employees across the federal government is just the latest of several actions that President Donald Trump has taken since starting his second term that have roiled parts of Vermont’s workforce. Last week’s temporary freeze on federal funding has been resolved for some of those affected, while others continue to await payment. And the end to all activity by the U.S. Agency for International Development, also called USAID, has left local contractors and volunteers reeling.
Probationary employees at federal agencies are generally those who have been employed for less than a year and do not have the same protections as longer-serving staff. There are about 220,000 probationary workers in the federal government, according to March 2024 U.S. Office of Personnel Management data, the latest available numbers. It is unclear how many are employed in Vermont.
At one affected federal agency in northern New England, a current federal employee who saw colleagues leave was struggling with the impact Friday. VTDigger is not naming the employee due to fear that their employment would be impacted after speaking out.
“It’s just really, really tough. Really tough,” they said. People have been let go “for no other reason” than they were “hired recently,” they said. The agency has lost “really good talent.”
“I don’t see how they expect the programs to be serviced in the capacity that’s required,” they said.
But layoffs are not limited to USDA offices, other organizations are also facing cuts.
TetraTech has furloughed 61 employees of its 200-250 Tetra Tech/ARD team, a consulting and engineering firm focused on water, environmental sustainability, infrastructure, renewable energy and international development. This news was shared through internal communication from the president of the company to all employees, who all work either in the Burlington area, Washington, D.C., or remotely.
Jen Peterson, a food security specialist at the Burlington area office, was furloughed last week along with her husband, who also is employed by TetraTech. She is sure they’ll be laid off later.
“They said they can only furlough people in our company for up to five weeks. We’re furloughed, I guess, six weeks. It’s through the end of March,” Peterson said. “I think eventually, by the end of March, we’ll be terminated, the 61, and then the rest of the people will also be furloughed. That would be my assumption.”
Peterson was working on food security programs and providing technical assistance and management support to projects that are helping rural communities in different parts of the world improve their agricultural production.
One of the last countries she worked with was the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the top 10 countries most impacted by the USAID cuts, according to the Center for Global Development.
To better understand who and what was being affected by the federal funding freeze, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt, organized a roundtable discussion with Vermont businesses on Jan. 31. Many voiced their frustrations.
One of those who spoke up was Andy Barter, the chief operating officer of Little Rivers Health Care, a nonprofit and federally qualified health center with locations in Bradford, Newbury, East Corinth and Wells River.
At the roundtable, he recounted logging into the Health and Human Services payment management system to access a portion of his health center’s federal grant. However, a system disruption blocked access to the funds. By midday, the portal was completely offline, and even when it returned, payment processing remained stalled, Barter said.
“That was the start of a really rough time to figure out what we were going to do,” Barter said in an interview Wednesday. As of this week, the center has regained access to the system. It is also awaiting a $1.5 million tax return — equivalent to a month’s operating costs.
But there are others who have seen no progress on getting the funds they are entitled to.
Jennifer Colby, the executive director of the Northeast Pasture Consortium based in Vermont, a nonprofit that connects farmers, researchers and policy makers to improve decision-making on farms, relies on USDA funding.
The organization operates on a reimbursement-claim basis, meaning they must complete the work, spend the money, and then request repayment. She filed a $20,000 reimbursement claim through USDA’s web portal on Dec. 24, expecting a response by Jan. 24 — the maximum turnaround reimbursement time. When Colby tried to access the portal on Jan. 24, it was unavailable, and follow-ups with USDA officials — including the grant manager — revealed they were still waiting for instructions on how to manage her request.
“I have not gotten any notice from him that it has been approved, and there’s no money,” Colby said in an interview Wednesday. “The cash flow that I have will take me to the first week of March.”
The agriculture sector is not only being affected in Vermont, but internationally too. Vermonter and retired professor of agriculture, Jim Corven, is a volunteer for Farmer-to-Farmer, a USAID-funded program that connects skilled volunteers with farmers in developing countries to share expertise, improve agricultural practices and support sustainable farming.
Corven fears what might happen to the farmers he’s been assisting and others who were being helped by his fellow volunteer at Farmer-to-Farmer, Bill Zimmerman.
“The stop-work executive order meant that I, while in Guinea, was told to immediately cease technical assistance upon notification, then to leave the country as soon as feasible,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman said the funding freeze and the USAID stop work order impact extends beyond farmers losing long-term support, noting that some countries have already seen deaths from lack of medical equipment.
On Tuesday, Welch sent a letter to Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, urging him to immediately reverse the funding freeze and restore access to payment portals. In the letter, Welch also highlighted several Vermont businesses affected by the freeze, which were discussed at his roundtable event.
“Vought is a hopeless ideologue so I’m not confident anything will change his mind. He’s on the mission of destruction, regrettably, but I think that we Vermonters and others have to speak out and to alert folks of how bad it is,” Welch said in an interview on Wednesday.
He also emphasized the critical role of public outcry in reversing political decisions.
“This is where citizens play a big role, and Trump has reversed decisions where there’s been a public outcry and that’s really what needs to be mobilized,” Welch said.
Emma Cotton contributed reporting.
Clarification: This story has been updated to more accurately describe the international impact of USAID cuts.
