During her 28 years of work for the federal government, Shea Giagnario provided daycares with American soldiers, training for employees and supervision of safety net programs.
The public service took him from Germany to Alaska to Kansas CityMo., where she moved last year for a promotion for a long time.
But when she notified herself to a federal city center building to work one day last month, her access card did not work. After a colleague let her enter the building, she checked her email: all her office had been released in the last mass dismissal commanded by the President Donald Trump administration.
The 46-year-old single mother has canceled her apartment lease, sells her new furniture and may have to remove her daughter from the university. She wonders what will happen to populations at risk that her team has helped to serve the administration for children and families, part of the American department of health and social services.
“Not only me, but all the lives of these peoples are upset,” said Giagnario.
The impact of cuts by people appointed by Trump and the Ministry of Elon Musk’s government efficiency is everywhere in the metropolitan region of Kansas City, which has long been a major hub for federal agencies at around 1000 miles of Washington, DC money formerly promised to the region for public health, the environment, diversity, food and a range of other programs, and thousands of other programs local jobs are in Jeoptardy.
With nearly 30,000 workers, the federal government is the largest employer in the region. A long -standing economic researcher from Kansas City said he thought that the region could lose 6,000 well -paid federal jobs, who in turn would eliminate thousands of others from service industries.
An IRS worker said thousands of his colleagues feared losing their jobs, even if they were making tax reimbursements for overtime in a building so crowded that they find it difficult to find offices. Under pressure, hundreds of others agreed last week to retire early or take off.
“It is a kick in the stomach for people who do everything they can to respond to what is required of them,” said Shannon Ellis, long -standing representative of the IRS customer service and president of the union representing local workers.
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Thursday, at least 238 Kansas City workers had taken the buyout offers and were to leave the agency in the coming weeks. Ellis noted that many of these same workers had been informed that they were essential and had to have overtime during the tax season, around seven days a week.
A revocation of the subsidy of the American Department of Agriculture disrupted the plan of a historically black district to extend its fresh growing program in a food desert. A nearby pantry has reduced its monthly attribution of the grocery store for those who need it after the federal cuts that left digital disadvantage banks.
Urban farmer Rosie Warren increased 2,500 pounds of fruits and vegetables last year in community gardens to help feed the Ivanhoe district, where many black families were concentrated under the segregation of housing for a large part of the 20th century.
Warren harvested green vegetables, potatoes and watermelons as part of an effort to solve food insecurity and health problems in a district called into question by burn, crime and poverty. It was delighted last fall when the USDA granted the neighborhood council a subsidy of $ 130,000 of three years to extend the gardens and farmers market to the region.
In February, the Council received an opinion ending the subsidy. The USDA had determined that the prize “no longer accepts the agency’s priorities concerning diversity, equity and inclusion programs and activities”.
“What do you do if you don’t support food access to people who don’t have it?” Wouldn’t that facilitate your work? ” She said.
“I think it’s absurd. It makes no sense. “
The withdrawal of federal funding for new laboratory equipment and vaccines means that the city can be less prepared for the next pandemic.
The Kansas City health department laboratory seriously needs an upgrade, with equipment dating from the opening of the building in the 1990s.
A basement space is damaged by water and rarely used. Another has such an inadequate equipment that the city must send samples to a state laboratory 150 miles away, causing ineffectiveness, agonizing expectations and delayed response times.
But the financing of laboratory upgrades was suddenly eliminated last month as part of the cancellation of $ 11.4 billion from the Trump administration of federal subsidies to public health states.
An HHS spokesman said that the agency’s workforce reduction, including the reduction of jobs and the consolidation of divisions, would save money and make organization more effective. As for the $ 11.4 billion in grant discounts, the spokesman said: “HHS will no longer waste billions of dollars from taxpayers responding to a non-existent pandemic that the Americans moved years ago.”
The IRS has offered a similar justification for its reduction in staff, saying that it brings process improvements that will ultimately serve the public more effectively.
Musk said last year that Trump’s budget cuts would lead to a “temporary difficulty” which would soon put the economy on a stronger basis.
A local economic researcher declared that we were not clear how deep these difficulties will be in Kansas City, especially if it would only slow down growth or lead to population losses.
“It is a big burden that is placed on a narrow group of people,” said Frank Lenk, director of the Economic Development Office of the Regional Council of America in America, a non -profit organization for municipal governments and counties in the Kansas City region.
“It will certainly take part of the vapor of the local economy.”
Trump has credited Doge to have helped to put an end to “the blatant waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” saving billions to help improve the country’s finances.
The White House did not answer questions about Kansas City. But Trump recently said that he would invite Kansas City chiefs to the White House to compensate for a celebration of the Super Bowl victory in 2020 which was canceled during the pandemic.
–The files of the Associated Press’ Heather Hollingsworth
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press