AUGUSTA, Maine — From the congressional delegation to union officials, nobody knows how many of Maine’s federal workers have lost jobs in President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s lightning round of cuts to government agencies.
A few workers and nonprofit groups have shared anecdotes after Trump terminated more than 10,000 federal employees across the government, including eight full-time Acadia National Park staff who received layoff notices last Friday. But what is clear is Maine’s four members of Congress have no clarity on just how many of Maine’s 12,000 federal workers were affected.
It illustrates how Trump and Musk, his “government efficiency” czar, are looking neither for approval nor informing many in Congress while slashing agencies at a frenetic pace. Several courts have blocked a few Trump orders while others have let his moves stand as the president seeks to give himself greater power over independent regulatory agencies.
Neither U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the lone Republican in the delegation, nor the three Democratic-leaning members had received good estimates on layoffs as of Wednesday from the Republican president’s administration, according to their offices. They also reported communication-related hurdles that are greater than those they typically face.
“There’s just never been this block on information,” U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a progressive from Maine’s 1st District, said Wednesday in an interview.
Pingree, the top Democrat on the House budget subcommittee overseeing public lands and the environment, said a committee clerk told her “connections at the agencies have told us they’re not allowed to give us that information, or they just won’t take our calls.”
Pingree said she also asked U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who chairs her subcommittee, for more information but he did not have updates, nor did House Agriculture Committee chair Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pennsylvania, amid Department of Agriculture staff losing jobs.
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat in the pro-Trump 2nd District, said in a statement his office is “facing roadblocks getting the kind of up-to-date information about the impact on Maine that we would normally expect from the executive branch, but we are tracking it down.”
“I do know this: Most Americans and Mainers support rooting out wasteful spending, but also expect the government to be accessible, reliable and responsive,” Golden said.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which is the largest federal employee union, does not have more information on the number of employees in Maine who have lost their jobs or taken Trump’s buyout offers, a spokesperson said earlier this week.
Emails informing probationary employees who have been in their roles for shorter periods of time of their layoffs have reportedly used boilerplate language stating they “failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment.”
Crystal Arbour, who is from the town of Sidney in central Maine, helped manage child care grants for Maine while working for the federal Administration for Children and Families. Arbour, who started her job last May and said she got an “exemplary” review last month, said in an interview she is “not a political person” but that the sudden moves were disappointing.
“It does bring concerns, really just for our nation as a whole, about the impact it’s going to do to the economy and people’s livelihoods,” the mother of three said.
Along with defying a court order to not freeze federal grants and issuing a flurry of executive actions after his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump ordered a federal civilian employee hiring freeze for all agencies and departments. His administration has granted exemptions, including for Defense Department positions. Collins said Wednesday that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told her the freeze will not affect seasonal hiring for Acadia National Park.
Last week, a judge also allowed Trump’s buyout plan to proceed, with the White House saying about 75,000 federal workers have accepted offers to leave their positions. Another judge allowed Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to continue accessing government data systems while laying off workers.
Harrison Fields, a special assistant to the president, told national outlets that Trump “returned to Washington with a mandate from the American people to bring about unprecedented change in our federal government to uproot waste, fraud, and abuse.”
“This isn’t easy to do in a broken system entrenched in bureaucracy and bloat, but it’s a task long overdue,” Fields said.
But Pingree said “this is no way to run the government.” U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and chairs a national parks subcommittee, also called the Trump administration’s decision to lay off eight Acadia workers “shortsighted” as the park already faced staffing challenges while it is perennially one of the top 10 most visited parks in the country.
King noted the eight employees collected fees at entrances or maintained trails and said they are the “very people who bring in the money that goes straight to operations and maintenance and are the first smile that visitors see.”
“This isn’t ‘measure twice, cut once,’” King said. “This is closer to burning the house down to save money on a paint job.”
