In a new report, concerns have been raised that recent and ongoing staffing decreases at the Interior Department’s Indian Affairs bureaus are making it increasingly difficult for them to carry out their responsibilities.
Compiled by the General Accountability Office, the report notes that all the Indian Affairs agencies had a total workforce of nearly 7,500 people in January of 2025, but that that figure, due to directives issued by President Trump, decreased within the next seven months to 6,624.
The percentage drop was greatest in the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration, which has seen a 28% staff decrease, followed closely by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, with a drop of 27%.
Further down the list is the big Bureau of Indian Affairs, with a 13% staff decline, and the equally large Bureau of Indian Education, with a payroll drop of 5%.
Naturally, such reductions – amounting to several thousands of staffers in both the Bureau of Indian Affairs as well as the Bureau of Indian Education – have had an impact.
These various agencies provide support and programs to 575 federally recognized Tribes, representing around 2.5 million American Indian and Alaska Natives.
Based on interviews, the report notes that some Tribal leaders thought that agencies “already did not have adequate staff,” and that “service delivery was impaired.”
The lack of staff, suggests the GAO report, is a serious matter given that the federal government long ago undertook a “unique trust responsibility to protect and support Tribes and their members through treaties, statutes, and historical relations with Tribes.”
The service historically rendered by the federal government to Tribal nations includes support for Tribal government operations, tribal schools, law enforcement, and natural resources management.
As of late last year, no new staff reductions in any of the Indian Affair’s agencies have been reported, suggesting that the biggest wave is over. Even so, recommends the report, existing functions within those agencies “might need to be restructured or realigned to achieve administration priorities.”
Officials with the various agencies, added the report, have said that they are now in the process of “developing supporting plans, if needed, to satisfy future policy decisions.”
Navajo President Buu Nygren, meanwhile, met with leaders last week on Capitol Hill and urged increased federal funding for such initiatives as the cleaning up of abandoned uranium mines and safe roads infrastructure projects.
February 5, 2026
By Garry Boulard
