Despite strong performance reviews, Grand Coulee Dam workers fired in DOGE cuts told they 'failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications'

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27-02-2025

Feb. 26—When Stephanie Duclos reported to work at the Bureau of Reclamation's offices at Grand Coulee Dam last Tuesday morning after Presidents Day Weekend, she was called in to her supervisors' office. She was fired.
It wasn't unexpected. She knew probationary employees hired in the last year or two were on the chopping block as part of the ongoing purge across the federal workforce by the Trump administration.
What shocked her was seeing other employees fired who had worked there for much longer, but had recently changed jobs within the agency. One woman had worked there for over 20 years.
"It was horrible," she said. "Basically, they were saying we were getting let go because of our performance."
Duclos is not sure how many employees were terminated, since they were brought in individually, but she said she knows at least ten besides herself. More were fired this Monday, she said.
The Spokesman-Review interviewed three women who were fired Feb. 18.
Reclamation did not return multiple requests to clarify how many employees have been fired.
The employees interviewed each received the same basic form termination letter, dated Feb. 14 and signed by Reclamation's acting deputy commissioner Sean Torpey, stating, "The Department has determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the Department's current needs."
Duclos, 51, was hired last April as a project manager assistant. Her duties involved helping the project manager with administrative tasks like writing memos and training new employees. With her position gone, those tasks will likely fall on the project manager.
People around town are now assuming Duclos was fired because of her performance. "That wasn't the issue," she said.
Duclos received an overall "exceeds expectations" rating in her first six-month performance evaluation, which she shared with The Spokesman-Review. She also received an "outstanding" rating in some areas.
Another employee interviewed shared a positive letter of recommendation her supervisor wrote for her after she was fired.
Duclos said her direct superiors were apologetic about firing her and that the orders came from higher up.
"You could see they cared about us, but there was nothing they could do," she said.
Duclos, who grew up in the Grand Coulee area, used to be a bus driver for the school district and a tour bus driver for the dam, where she heard about the open position at Reclamation's Grand Coulee Power Office overlooking the dam.
"When you live here all your life, there are only so many places you can work," she said.
Duclos applied through the Schedule A non-competitive hiring process, which allows the government to hire people with disabilities without requiring them to compete for the job, since she has severe depression. Schedule A makes it easier for the government to hire employees, but they have a longer probationary period.
Cutting her position and positions like it will dump more responsibilities on the workers left behind and lead to burnout, she said. There won't be enough people to run the dam efficiently.
She said she might be "replaceable," but the only others who were trained in certain programs she needed to use were also fired.
If firings continue along with other federal agencies like the Forest Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs, Duclos said it will have a big effect on the small town and its economy.
"The whole thing is ridiculous," she said.
James Hanlon's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.