Mullin says CISA needs hundreds amid $707M cut request
The staffing admission is useful because it collides with the administration’s own budget math and Treasury-led AI cyber plan.
TL;DR
Federal News Network reports that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told House Homeland Security lawmakers CISA has fallen from roughly 3,400 staff to 2,200 and likely needs about 2,800. The same hearing covered DHS contract reviews from Kristi Noem’s tenure and Trump’s AI security order, which puts Treasury in charge of the governmentwide AI cybersecurity clearinghouse while CISA supports. For state and local partners, the practical question is capacity, not org-chart praise.
Mullin’s testimony gives CISA supporters a helpful sentence and a harder problem. According to Federal News Network, the Homeland Security secretary said the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency probably needs about 2,800 staff to maintain partnerships with states and use grant funding for local and state municipalities, after dropping from roughly 3,400 to 2,200 under the Trump administration. That is not a small staffing delta. It is the difference between treating CISA’s state, local and private-sector work as a mission and treating it as a slogan.
The awkward part is that Mullin’s number sits next to the administration’s fiscal 2027 request, which Federal News Network says would cut CISA by $707 million compared with 2025 spending. Maybe DHS can reprioritize inside a smaller top line. Maybe a new CISA nominee, which Mullin said may be coming soon, can recruit and refocus the agency. But workforce-intensive missions do not become less labor-intensive because the budget document prefers a cleaner shape.
The AI piece has the same tension. Trump’s AI security order assigns Treasury the lead role for a governmentwide AI cybersecurity clearinghouse, with CISA supporting. Mullin defended that choice by pointing to financial gain as a major AI-enabled threat vector and said DHS and Treasury are coordinating. That may be perfectly rational for financial-sector risk. It still leaves CISA, the civilian cyber agency built for cross-government and critical-infrastructure coordination, explaining why it is not leading the administration’s signature AI cyber clearinghouse while also trying to staff back up.
Published ·Deep Fathom