Top leadership spots in EPA’s mission support office remain unfilled while the agency muddles through the federal government shutdown.
This month, a trio of career executives parted ways with the program either to move elsewhere within EPA or leave public service altogether. The Office of Mission Support is a focal point for how the agency manages staff during the spending stop, helping to decide who will be furloughed or even laid off as EPA stays open using leftover funds.
Yet three of the six senior positions in the program’s front office are listed as “vacant,” according to the agency’s website on Thursday morning. An archived screenshot of that webpage indicates those jobs — deputy assistant administrator for mission support programs, deputy assistant administrator for workforce solutions, and deputy assistant administrator for infrastructure and extramural resources — were filled earlier this month.
Kimberly Patrick, who handled mission support programs, is an EPA veteran and was briefly named acting administrator during the transition before President Donald Trump chose James Payne, a top EPA career lawyer, for the job. Patrick has gone to EPA’s enforcement program as deputy director of the Office of Site Remediation Enforcement, according to her LinkedIn profile.
