Trump's layoffs hit firefighter safety programs
Among the federal workers let go were the ones who maintain the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer — which was signed into law by Trump in 2018.
WASHINGTON — Until Saturday, Patrick Montague investigated firefighter deaths for the federal government.
Montague, 46, a Kentucky native, has a rare combination of skills and expertise — academic training, technical know-how and 26 years fighting fires — that made him a good fit for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's small Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program. In nearly two years on the job, he said, supervisors had commended him repeatedly for his work.
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But that's not what the Trump administration said when it abruptly fired him — along with thousands of other Department of Health and Human Services employees — on Saturday night. In a form letter, Montague was told both that he was vulnerable to termination because he had not yet completed a two-year probationary stint and because "your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment."
Three of the five people in his program, which Congress created to decrease the risk of firefighters’ dying in the line of duty, were let go in a similar manner, he said.
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