On March 5, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board issued a 45-day stay on the termination of U.S. Department of Agriculture probationary employees.
Some 5,600 USDA workers were let go on or about Feb. 13. They were working in all divisions.
It remains to be seen if the stay order will take hold, as Elon Musk's DOGE team takes over significant segments of the federal government with approval from President Donald Trump.
The laid off workers have hope that they will receive more consideration.
The Merit Systems Protection Board is an independent, quasi-judicial agency established in 1979 to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices.
And on March 12, the MSPB told the USDA to place all terminated probationary employees "in pay status and provide each with back pay from the date of termination."
A worker at USDA-Rural Development in North Platte who lost her job in February told the Bulletin March 14 that she has pending job applications at two businesses in North Platte. She is also watching for new developments from the federal government. She was told that she might receive back pay from USDA, but has not received any definite notice, let alone a check.
Asking to remain anonymous, she said she is not on unemployment. The Department of Labor told her that she did not receive the proper paperwork to apply for unemployment benefits when she was terminated.
And the MSPB issued another order on March 12, telling the USDA to "work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid."
That sounds good to employees but the lack of concrete news leaves plenty of room for skepticism. It is an example of the effects of actions taken by DOGE, the department that is on a seek-and-destroy mission to cut federal spending.
Trump describes the actions as swift and unrelenting. Critics compare it to those of a dictator intent on taking full control of the government.
So far, there is relatively little pain from the cuts in west central Nebraska, although there are widespread concerns that DOGE's actions will hurt the farm prices of crops and livestock. The city of North Platte, the county and the public school system have not reported any hiccups. Research projects are proceeding as scheduled at UNL's West Central Research and Extension Center.
At the North Platte Regional Airport, transportation security officers are answering a weekly email from DOGE, replying with five things they did on the job the week before. They all remain on the job.
In eastern Nebraska, it's a different story. A $19 million, five-year federal grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been cancelled. The grant was issued to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln to develop agricultural projects in Africa.
Also, as this report was being written on March 14, the Flatwater Free Press reported that leases are being cancelled on five federal buildings in Nebraska, including a USDA Service Center in Lincoln, a National Park Service visitor center on the Niobrara River and an IRS tax-filing help office in Scottsbluff.
And, "A sixth office, the Edward Zorinsky Federal Building in downtown Omaha, appeared on a now-deleted list of "non-core" federally owned buildings that could be sold," the Free Press reported.
The USAID grant to UNL was for the university's Water for Food Global Institute. UNL is leading the project, and has been working for a year to set up a process to help small farms, mostly in Africa, improve irrigation and mechanization. UNL administrators were nearly ready to award subcontracts, spokeswoman Frances Hayes told the Bulletin.
But Hayes received official notice March 4 that the funds would stop. She said the USAID cut will eliminate three full-time jobs as well as some part-time jobs at UNL, as well as sub-contracting companies that were prepared to apply for funds to get the help to Africans an others who need it.
DOGE is making reductions that conservatives cheer, at least from a distance.
For instance, USAID -- the federal agency created in the 1960s to send aid to other countries -- has been virtually shut down.
In one USAID line item, DOGE reports $28 million in savings for a diversity and inclusion scholarship program in Burma. In another, $2.4 million has been shaved from a $5.5 million contract to support election integrity in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In Trump's speech to Congress on March 4, he cited several aid programs that have been cut. Some we've been able to verify. Some not.
Trump's list of talking points includes:
* (a whopping) $22 billion from HHS to provide assistance, including free housing and cars, for illegal immigrants.
* $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants.
* $8 million to promote LGBTQ I plus in Africa.
* $60 million for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America.
* $10 million for male circumcision (and condoms) in Mozambique, to counter the spread of HIV.
* $20 million for the Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East.
* $1.9 billion to a recently created Decarbonization of Homes Committee.
* $3.5 million consulting contract for lavish fish monitoring,
* $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.
* $42 million for social and behavior change in Uganda.
* $14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia.
* $47 million for improving learning outcomes in Asia.
* $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education.
Not all of those can be readily found among the thousands of listings on the DOGE website, but some cuts on the website stand out.
For instance, two $9.9 million contracts have reportedly been eliminated at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the website says.
The CFPA was created in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, when the nation's largest banks had so many worthless assets (mostly home mortgages that owners could not pay) on their books that they couldn't pay their bills, and had to be bailed out by the federal government, which printed money to keep them afloat.
The CFPB was created to prevent that level of fraud from happening again. But critics said its budget and staff have become bloated, it has created redundant layers of banking regulations, and is too zealous in its investigations, needlessly tying up business development.
The CFPB is virtually shut down now. Its Washington headquarters is shuttered. CNBC reported that about 200 employees were fired, and those who remain were told to stop most of their work.
The two $9.9 million government grants mentioned earlier to CFPB were for training in support of "the federal Office of Minority and Women Inclusion," which is a division of the Securities and Exchange Commission that oversees Wall Street. One grant was for training in the assessment of diversity, equity and inclusion. The other was for training in psychological safety, the DOGE website says.
When it comes to the US Department of Agriculture, the DOGE report is lengthy. It includes four large contracts, each for $25 million, for "diversity, equity and inclusion accessibility."
DOGE claims to have saved $17 million at the USDA Forestry Department from a contract "supporting the human resources department in the Project Management Office" in Virginia.
There are many other listed spending cuts.
The list of contracts -- most with significant savings -- includes contracts with the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and Defense.
There are just seven line items of suspect contracts at the Department of Defense -- the nation's largest department. The biggest saving listed there is $2.2 million from cancelling DEIA (diversity, equity and inclusion assessment) training.
Savings from cancelled contracts have also been made at the federal departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Labor. To look at another listing at random, DOGE says $4.7 million was saved in a cancelled contract "to advance and understand the application of behavioral science principles to selected programs within the (labor) department."
Cuts have been made to the departments of State, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, Interior and EPA. Even the president's office sustained cuts, if only for $106,000 in subscriptions to Politico magazine.
Cuts have been made to the General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, including North Platte's federal building that houses the Veterans Administration.
Residents recall that the U.S. Postal Service once operated in the North Platte federal building. The building was renovated for more than $6 million in 2010, a federal stimulus spending project designed to help rev up the economy after the 2008 mortgage collapse.
The DOGE website lists cancelled contracts at the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA), to name some other agencies.
To pick a listing with a high savings at random, DOGE says the SBA won't get $8 million for "evaluation, research and evidence building in support of performance management."
USAID cuts, plus many more
In another example of cuts at USAID, DOGE reports a savings of nearly $13 million to a task order to support the USAID's Asia bureau in its programming "to facilitate rapid, sustainable and equitable economic growth by ...(bringing) a systems approach to addressing public financial management objectives."
It is hard to know exactly what that means, or might have meant.
More than 650 USAID contracts are reportedly gone now, and they are among the 5,356 federal contracts that have been terminated, saving the government $20 billion.
DOGE also lists 7,488 terminated federal grants (saving $17 billion).
Also, 793 leases of buildings and offices have been terminated, saving $500 million, DOGE says.
Website: More construction needed
The website is initially updated weekly; but over time, it is expected to improve and updates will converge to real-time, DOGE says, which might be an optimistic statement.
The sobering news is that if all the listings are accurate and if all the cuts remain in effect, it will take many, many more to substantially reduce federal spending.
DOGE says the cuts equate to about $720 per each of the 161 million federal taxpayers. However, any savings will be applied to the $36 trillion national debt. It won't go back to the taxpayers.