FEMA now says workers were "wrongly" reinstated

"Dubbed the Katrina Declaration and sent to Congress in August, the petition warned that cuts to the agency were putting people and property at risk, and were a departure from improvements in disaster response put in place after the botched response to the devastating 2005 Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Just one day after it was made public, the Department of Homeland Security put signers who had used their full names on indefinite leave - one employee was fired."

""CNN reporting revealed that 14 FEMA employees previously placed on leave for misconduct were wrongly and without authorization reinstated by bureaucrats acting outside of their authority," the department said in an email. "Once alerted, the unauthorized reinstatement was swiftly corrected by senior leadership. The 14 employees who signed the Katrina declaration have been returned to administrative leave." Catch up quick: The employees were placed on leave this summer after signing the petition protesting the Trump administration's disaster response efforts."

"They received notices of their reinstatement last week, and were ordered to return to the office Monday. But by the afternoon, they received memos ordering them back on leave, said David Seide, senior counsel at the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that helped workers file their complaints. "It's appalling that the politicos have overruled the managers," he tells Axios."

Fourteen FEMA employees who signed the Katrina Declaration were placed on administrative leave after warning that agency cuts endangered people and reversed post‑Katrina disaster-response improvements. An unauthorized reinstatement by bureaucrats briefly returned the workers to duty, according to a DHS email, but senior leadership quickly corrected the action and returned the 14 signers to administrative leave. Signers had been put on indefinite leave when the petition became public and one employee was fired. The signers filed complaints with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, received reinstatement notices, then were ordered back on leave the same day.

Read at Axios