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Interior secretary defends staff cuts and reorganization as effort to shift dollars from overhead to front‑line work
Summary
Secretary Doug Burgum told the Senate subcommittee the Interior Department needs to reduce overhead, modernize IT and cut contractor reliance to put more staff in field operations; senators warned mass firings and program interruptions risk degrading park services, firefighting and other functions.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told the Senate subcommittee that a major goal of the administration’s FY2026 budget blueprint is to reduce back‑office overhead, modernize IT systems and cut contractor dependence so the department can redeploy savings into fieldwork such as park operations and firefighting.
Burgum described an incomplete internal workforce accounting on his arrival and said that the department lacked reliable duty station records and modern HR/IT systems. He told the committee: “The IT…
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