SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Bailey Biegler had been at her job with the USDA for about a month when on Friday, with about 3 1/2 hours of the work day left, Biegler received an email.

She’d been terminated.

Biegler was a probationary employee in a full-time permanent office position with the USDA in Madison, Wisconsin. Biegler worked in the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service, specifically in the plant, production and quarantine division.

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“It’s not like the position doesn’t exist,” Biegler said. “It was an individual termination.”

Bieger grew up in Aberdeen and graduated from South Dakota State University in Brookings in 2022. She joined the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department after graduation and worked in Pierre before taking the job with the USDA in Wisconsin.

“I keep on telling people close to me that I’m OK,” Biegler said. “There are so many other people that are so much more dire circumstances than I am. I don’t have children to look after, I don’t have a mortgage to pay.”

Still, she doesn’t have a job. “It’s not great, no. But I’m better than I could be,” Biegler said.

Her termination is part of President Donald Trump’s plan to do what he said to cut waste and reduce spending in federal agencies. An estimated 200,000 federal probationary workers will be cut. Probationary employees may have one to two years of probation after starting a job.

“It’s a little bit more complicated than just a reduction in workforce or just the regular lay-off,” Biegler said. “Not only is the speed very quick, there are procedures within the federal government of reducing (workforce) or laying people off. And this is different than that.”

Biegler’s probation period would have been for one year. While she was on the job for about a month, the cuts impacted others with more years of service because when an employee moves up or takes another position, there is a probation period, she said.

“There’s a lot of nervousness and apprehension about everything that’s been happening,” Biegler said.

Biegler was working in Wisconsin. Thousands of civilians work for the federal government in South Dakota.

A December 2024 Congressional Report said South Dakota had 8,780 civilian federal government employees.

The USDA employs nearly 1,000 civilians, according to a Feb. 17 directory list. Some of the 1,072 listed are committee members and not employees.

Thousands of USDA employees from a range of jobs and agencies have been cut, according to reports from ag industry media.

Examples of USDA services include animal and health inspections, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) which administers credit and loan programs, commodity, disaster and farm marketing programs, and through the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), which provides financing to build or improve infrastructure in rural communities.

The USDA said in a Feb. 14 news release, “(The) USDA is pursuing an aggressive plan to optimize its workforce by eliminating positions that are no longer necessary, bringing its workforce back to the office, and relocating employees out of the National Capital region into our nation’s heartland to allow our rural communities to flourish.”

Cuts are also impacting the Veterans Affairs agency. On Feb. 13, the VA said it had cut more than 1,000 probationary employees. The VA said in its release that vast majority probationary employees “are exempt from the Feb. 13 personnel actions because they serve in mission-critical positions – primarily those supporting benefits and services for VA beneficiaries – or are covered under a collective bargaining agreement. ”

The VA has a heavy presence in South Dakota including the VA Healthcare System in Sioux Falls with more than 1,000 employees. Outreach clinics include sites in Watertown, Winner, Pierre, Aberdeen and others.

The Associated Press has also reported that cuts to probationary employees have impacted the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) including cuts to to recently hired employees who review the safety of food ingredients, medical devices and other products.

Cuts to the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, The National Park Service and others have also been reported.

Biegler’s future with the federal government is uncertain. “I have some hope of being reinstated. There is a process for terminated employees to go through,” she said.

She knows her former supervisor and former coworkers are advocating for her.

She’d like to return because she enjoyed the job and was learning a lot about the administrative portion of the USDA. That’s one big reason why she took the job, was to learn about the inner workings of the USDA. She handled purchase orders, time cards, fleet management and other duties for her division.

Biegler said there had been rumblings of cuts but weren’t expecting it in the USDA, she said. When they learned it was possible, it happened quickly. Her supervisor was not aware she was being cut. The supervisor learned when she showed the supervisor her termination email, Biegler said.

The 3 1/2 hours she had before she was terminated at day’s end meant she had to quickly make sure she completed tasks or shared information of her day-to-day duties. Plus she also needed to gather her personal work information from human resources.

“I was expecting to be locked out of the system by the end of the day,” Biegler said.

Biegler wants to stay in the Madison area. She will look for another job and if she can’t return to the USDA, she hopes it’s a job she likes and is at the same level of the one she had to leave. If not, “If I have to adjust to something on a lower level…I’m going to have to live with that…,” Biegler said.

For now, she’s buoyed by the support of family and friends. Some of whom helped her move to her new job in Madison back in January.