Coverage of tribal natural resources is supported in part by Catena FoundationThe U.S. Government Accountability Office, also known as GAO, has published numbers on how many employees left the Bureau of Indian Affairs during President Trump's first year in office.
The BIA, which is responsible for overseeing trust responsibilities with 575 federally recognized tribes, focused on reducing its own workforce through mass layoffs and hiring freezes within the Interior Department — much like agencies elsewhere.
This thinning of agency staff happened while Trump tasked Elon Musk to run his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which became defunct in November.
The 31-page report finds that 846 employees were gone by July 2025. That's roughly a 11% net decline from 7,470 to 6,624 workers. When such restructuring takes place, the BIA is supposed to notify tribes in advance.
But in fact, the opposite occurred, according to Anna Maria Ortiz, director of GAO's natural resources and environmental team. "And tribal leaders told us that the consultations happened after the staff reductions," she shared.
Her research team found the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs slashed its entire workforce by more than a fourth — 120 staffers in all. It's a special post behind Interior Sec. Doug Burgum.
William "Billy" Kirkland, who is from the Navajo Nation, became the 15th Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. The U.S. Senate confirmed him a few months after those cuts took effect to the very office he would soon helm.
Ortiz thinks the real takeaway is such workforce reductions have only "strained that capacity," adding "it's resulting in delays and service delivery, the loss of a lot of institutional knowledge and it's very hard for BIA to fulfill its mission of supporting tribes."
While the BIA did not initially comment on this report, the agency appreciates GAO's review, telling KJZZ that it's committed to increasing "efficiency, accountability and support for tribal self-determination" by modernizing internal policies.
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