How many federal employees have been cut in Kentucky? The feds refuse to say
As Elon Musk continues his crusade to slash the federal workforce, it’s not known how many federal employees in Kentucky have already been terminated.
Musk, the unelected adviser to President Trump charged with downsizing the US government, and his Department of Government Efficiency created havoc this past weekend by sending an email to an estimated 2.3 million federal employees.
The demand: Outline their accomplishments or risk termination.
Many terminations of probationary employees, those who have served less than two years in many cases, started Feb. 14 and continued last week across federal agencies, according to multiple news reports.
Kentucky has a total of 23,118 federal civilian workers as of Dec. 20, 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service.
That figure does not include federal contractors or uniformed military personnel, including those who work at Fort Knox or Fort Campbell.
The Department of Government Efficiency website does not list how many federal employees in Kentucky and others states that have been axed or voluntarily resigned. The website claims to have saved taxpayers $55 billion dollars, but that figure has been questioned.
Many federal agencies the Herald-Leader contacted declined to say how many employees have been terminated.
It appears that information also has not been shared with Kentucky elected leaders.
Representatives in U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office said they did not have information on the number of terminated federal employees. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, Kentucky’s lone Democrat in Congress, said he has heard from constituents who have been fired.
“Our office has received hundreds of calls from Kentuckians who are deeply concerned about Elon Musk taking a sledgehammer to critical federal agencies like the Social Security Administration,” McGarvey said.
“I heard from a constituent who was laid off from her job at a federal agency. She is a single mom and is now very worried about health care coverage for herself and her child. She and countless other public servants were fired, not because their roles are not critical, but simply because she was hired within the last two years.”
McGarvey and other Democrats have called for more transparency in the way Musk and the Trump administration have administered the cuts.
“There has been an utter lack of transparency around DOGE. Elon Musk is operating in the shadows, unaccountable for the lives he’s impacting. By all means, let’s eliminate waste or fraud, but do it in the open. Kentuckians deserve answers about who DOGE is firing and why,” McGarvey said.
Many Republicans have countered the cuts to the federal government and its workforce have long been needed as the federal deficit has continued to balloon to a payroll of $840 billion. Many federal agencies have added programs and staff with little or no accountability, many have said.
Paul told a Breitbart News radio show on Friday that many federal employees, specifically those cut from the IRS, were not competent.
“Really, what you have to do is get rid of the dead wood and get some people who actually could run the place. I mean, the software’s 40 years old,” Paul said. “They’re incompetent.”
Forest Service, National Parks remain mum on cuts
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Veterans Administration confirmed no staff had been cut from Lexington’s two VA campuses, the Franklin R. Sousley Campus on Leestown Road and the Troy Bowling Campus on Veterans Drive.
There also have been no reported cuts at the U.S. Bureau of Federal Prisons, according to multiple reports. But several senior staff at the agency have said they plan to retire, according to the Washington Post.
Kentucky has five federal prisons including Blackburn Correctional Complex in Lexington.
The two agencies responsible for staffing two of Kentucky’s biggest tourist draws — Mammoth Cave and the Daniel Boone National Forest, which includes Red River Gorge and Cave Run Lake —either failed to respond or did not say how many staff had been laid off.
Up to nine of 11 recreation U.S. Forest Service staff at the Cumberland District, which includes Red River and Cave Run, are probationary employees, the Herald-Leader reported earlier this month.
It’s still not clear how many of those employees were terminated since Feb. 14.
A spokesperson U.S. Department of Agriculture, which includes the Forest Service, said they did not have any information on local Forest Service terminations but said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins supports the cuts.
“Secretary Rollins fully supports the President’s directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people,” the prepared statement said.
“We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy. As part of this effort, USDA has made the difficult decision to release about 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees from the Forest Service.”
A spokeswoman for Mammoth Cave, which spans Edmonson, Hart and Barren counties, referred questions about possible cuts to the National Parks Service in Washington D.C.
Other National Park Service Kentucky sites include Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace in Hodgenville, Camp Nelson in Nicholasville and the Big South Fork, a National River and Recreation Area in the southern part of Kentucky.
The National Parks Service did not return emails and phone calls asking for comment.
Unions representing federal employees also did not return emails and phone calls.
After many National Parks service probationary employees were terminated Feb. 14, causing an uproar, President Donald Trump’s administration reinstated some of those employees and pledged to hire up to 3,000 additional seasonal employees, according to the Associated Press.
Not knowing if Mammoth Cave is going to be fully staffed or if it will have seasonal employees to help with the glut of visitors particularly this spring and summer has left tourism officials around the cave in a quandary.
Many in the area have heard that dozens of seasonal employees may not be hired this spring. However, with no official word from the National Park Service, it’s difficult for tourist officials to plan.
Mammoth Cave’s tourism impact in the area is about $89.6 million, according to a 2023 study. It had 663,000 visitors in 2022, according to the park service.
“Mammoth Cave National Park is a bustling economic anchor for the gateway communities that share the park, so any disruption that minimizes operations, especially during peak season, is concerning for everyone,” said Vanessa Ulm, who serves as President of the Caveland Marketing Association, a three-county effort to market the area around Mammoth Cave.
She also serves as the executive director of the Edmonson County Tourism and Convention Commission.
“Less seasonal staff translates to a possible reduction in guided cave tour offerings, potential limited visitor center hours and the park in general just being short-staffed, which will affect daily operations,” Ulm said. “With a potential for less visitors traveling to the park for vacations, this directly affects the surrounding communities that rely on the tourism impacts from the parks visitors.”
Regardless, the group will continue to find ways to help market Mammoth Cave and try to mitigate staff cuts if they come to fruition, Ulm said.
Powell County Judge Executive Eddie Barnes said his office also has not received official notice that staff have been laid off from the Cumberland District of the U.S. Forest Service, which covers Red River Gorge. Part of Red River Gorge is in Powell County.
Barnes and others have heard there have been cuts, but they said they do not know how many people. Barnes said the U.S. Forest Service has cut staff at Red River Gorge over several years or has moved staff to the Cave Run region.
“We’ve seen a lot of decreases in Forest Service staff over the years,” Barnes said. “We used to have four law enforcement officers and now we just have two.”
Forest Service officials have said the cuts do not affect law enforcement or firefighting positions.
This story was originally published February 24, 2025 at 11:47 AM.
