Brian Kemp’s Right-Sized CDC “in a State of Chaos”

Kemp: “I know they have some layoffs at the CDC and other things, but government can stand a little rightsizing”

Just one month after Gov. Brian Kemp lauded President Trump firing 10% of CDC workers as “right-sizing” government, CDC insiders say the agency is “in a state of chaos” as a result of new “potentially catastrophic” cuts, this time targeting 30% of workers. 

“Brian Kemp went out of his way to celebrate ‘rightsizing’ our neighbors, and now thousands more Georgians and their families are left wondering what comes next,” said DPG spokesman Dave Hoffman. “This president targeting the CDC as ‘wasteful’ is particularly alarming considering a million people were killed in a pandemic that started the last time he held this job, and Georgians need our so-called statewide leaders to say so.”

The CDC, still reeling from the impact of losing 1,300 probationary employees, now faces a new round of firings targeting 30% of employees. This new “Reduction in Force” will impact permanent employees and is seen as less vulnerable to legal challenges, as the nation continues to tackle increases in avian influenza, norovirus, and other serious public health issues.

Read the reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution here:

AJC: Brewing at the CDC: Five top resignations and ‘potentially catastrophic’ cuts
Ariel Hart and Morayo Ogunbayo; March 26, 2025

KEY POINTS FROM THE ARTICLE:

• A report Friday by CBS News said that up to 30% of CDC staff could be cut.
  
  
• The CDC is already dealing with hundreds of staff laid off in February, and restrictions on communication that make it difficult for some to accomplish their basic work.
  
  
• “CDC is in a state of chaos,” said Sonya Arundar, a former CDC employee who was cut in February along with hundreds of others. “The managers don’t know who’s not available, who’s been laid off. They are having a hard time making plans. They can’t assign projects if they don’t know if people are going to be here next week or next month.”
  
  
• “I have friends who say that just to send one email that used to take them five minutes, now they have to send it to up to three or four manager levels high and it takes hours,” she said. “It’s really difficult to work if you don’t know where your co-workers are.”
  
  
• On Tuesday, citing anonymous sources, news outlets reported five top managers had resigned. Among them: the head of the center that coordinates CDC funding, strategy and technical assistance to state and local health departments; and the head of the group that publishes CDC’s weekly science report. The stories gave no reason.
  
  
• Layoff rumors come and go at the CDC under the Trump administration. This one is being framed as “Reduction In Force.” That’s a type of firing that could be more durable than the earlier attempts at buyouts and laying off probationary employees, which have run into legal challenges.
  
  
• Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, heard about it Tuesday from inside the CDC. “What is being floated is potentially catastrophic in terms of numbers,” Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has worked with scores of CDC employees over her career and interacted with hundreds.
  
  
• Similar to the earlier firings, this one too appears to be taking shape without much consultation with people in the departments to see what they do and cut surgically, Nuzzo and others said.

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