The American flag waves at the federal Bureau of the Fiscal Service office on Avery Street in Parkersburg. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — A local member of the Constitution Party of West Virginia said that group opposes the dismissal of 80 probationary employees at the federal Bureau of the Fiscal Service and questions the manner in which those and other staffing reductions are being handled.
“We strongly oppose the recent job losses (in) the federal government, especially here in Parkersburg and Wood County,” said Chad Conley, a spokesman for the party and former Wood County Board of Education candidate. “We know how negative an impact it’s going to have” on the community.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been working to overhaul and reduce the size of the federal government, efforts led by the president’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency and spearheaded by adviser Elon Musk. Among the initiatives was the termination of many probationary employees, generally those within the first two years of federal employment.
Last week, 80 probationary employees were let go from the Bureau of the Fiscal Service offices in Parkersburg, according to an official with the union representing some employees of the agency. Approximately 2,200 people work for the agency here, local officials have said.
The move came a little over a week after representatives of DOGE were reported to have visited the Parkersburg offices to access a government accounting system. It is not known if the visit was connected to the dismissals.
Requests for comment from the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and the Treasury Department, of which it is a part, were not answered Monday and have not been since before the reported DOGE visit.
Conley said the Constitution Party, which recently gained ballot access and whose members support the concept that government exists only to secure the rights of the people, is “all about small government, cutting waste, fraud and abuse.” But he said the approach being used now is not the way to go about it, suggesting there isn’t enough due diligence being performed about what jobs should be cut and which ones should be retained.
“It’s basically a knee-jerk reaction,” Conley said.
The chairman of the Wood County Democratic Executive Committee said he is also concerned about the situation.
“I’ve been fielding calls from (Fiscal Service) workers that are concerned about their jobs,” Chairman Jeff Fox said. “The only way for our town, our county to turn around is good-paying jobs.”
Del. Scot Heckert, the chairman of the Wood County Republican Executive Committee, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.
Fox said the latest source of confusion for workers is the emails sent to federal workers asking them to list about five things they accomplished in the last week. Musk on his social media platform X said that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” A follow-up email from the federal Office of Personnel Management made the same request but did not reference the potential loss of a job for employees who did not respond.
The response from agency heads, including some appointed by Trump, has varied.
The president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal workers in 37 departments and agencies including the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, said in a statement that the email “should be called out as completely un-American.”
“NTEU’s members are professional civil servants and will not back down to these blatant attempts to attack a vital resource for the American public,” NTEU President Doreen Greenwald said. “Make no mistake, we will show up to our jobs on Monday and continue doing the work necessary to keep this nation running. NTEU members will not allow themselves to be intimidated or manipulated into throwing away their careers and abandoning their oaths to the Constitution.”
The situation at Fiscal Service remained a topic of conversation at Monday’s Wood County Commission meeting, with commissioners reiterating their hope that available federal office space here could be used to help reduce costs while bringing jobs to the area.
“We are going to talk to our U.S. senators about what is happening here,” Commissioner Jimmy Colombo said.
He talked about an early indication the federal government might be looking to move people out of Washington, D.C.
“We want them to know that we have space available here and our county needs the jobs,” Colombo said.
Commission President Blair Couch said the locality pay for someone in the nation’s capital is around $35,000 more than it would be in Parkersburg and Wood County.
“We would think they would want to move jobs here,” he said. “It would be less expensive here.”
Couch said he is hopeful people laid off from FIscal Service will be able to find other work locally.
The county has sent letters to the offices of the U.S. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, both R-W.Va., outlining the situation and looking at possible solutions.
Couch said the idea was proposed for local and state leaders to have a meeting with DOGE representatives.
“We would ask if we can have a sit-down with them … and hear about what they are planning on doing,” Couch said. “Nobody responded to us.
“We will make every effort we can to retain jobs and add jobs. Jobs are what drives our local economy.”
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com
Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com