I still believe in serving my community

I’m sitting with my pop as he tells me (for the hundredth time) about his days in Limestone, Maine as a military man. He jokes about the boys hanging salamis from the rafters and how he’s just a stone’s throw from Canada. I tell him (for the hundredth time) it’s a wonderful story, and
he says he can’t hear me — his hearing aid is dead and needs a new battery. Like the 15 million other veterans in the U.S., he relies on VA hospitals and clinics for his healthcare. Those 400,000 federal employees are providing essential services to your family, your neighbors, your friends. Now, we’re seeing people in power fire those employees, and it’s being praised as saving taxpayer money.

It’s 2012. You wake up and check your phone for the weather — Hurricane Sandy is coming to Long Island. The bay floods, trees and power lines are knocked down, and your basement is underwater. How did we know Hurricane Sandy was coming? Who prepared our state of emergency and disaster response? Federal employees. Meteorologists at NOAA and responders at FEMA warned us, helped us prepare, and rebuilt our communities after the storm.

At the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal government’s HR agency, I saw firsthand how understaffed teams worked tirelessly to support federal employees and improve government efficiency. As an intern, I worked on projects like the Federal Intern Program to help the college students and young professionals you know get jobs. It was eye-opening. In any other organization, my supervisor would have had a team of experienced employees. Instead, he had two interns who were learning on the job.

Later, in OPM’s Office of Communications, I helped create a new website to provide resources for job seekers, federal employees, and veterans. Some might call this wasteful, but isn’t it more wasteful to keep funding outdated systems that fail to serve the public? In the 21st century, a technologically advanced government isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity.

Consider, too, the human cost of cutting these jobs. Consider me. I was your neighbor. I went to your high school. I volunteered at Maureen’s Haven. My mother is a volunteer firefighter, and my father served on the Riverhead Library board. I grew up believing that giving back to my
community was the highest honor, and that’s why I chose a career in public service. Now, I’m told that my pursuit of public service was selfish — that I was just trying to take taxpayer funds. Like my 20 colleagues in the Office of Communications and thousands of other feds, I’ve lost my job because powerful billionaires don’t see the value in serving our communities.

See story: DOGE chain saw buzzed through his agency, leaving Riverhead alum unemployed — but still determined for career in public service

Federal funding affects our daily lives. It’s the safe water you drink and the clean air you breathe. It’s the beaches we lay on in the summer and the jetties holding them together. You all know someone in government service. A teacher. A firefighter or a nurse. A food inspector or an engineer.

When billionaires like Elon Musk give themselves millions in bonuses while calling essential programs like Social Security and Medicare “Ponzi schemes,” we are being lied to. If Musk paid his fair share in taxes, we could fund these programs for decades. Instead, he’s firing 83,000 VA employees — doctors, counselors, and nurses who provide actual services to veterans — while protecting his own $400 million in Tesla contracts. They don’t want veterans like my pop to have VA healthcare. They don’t want FEMA and the National Guard to respond to natural disasters. They don’t want your community to come together to help each other.

This isn’t to say the federal bureaucracy is perfect. There’s room for reshaping and auditing, but indiscriminately firing employees across agencies — and then scrambling to rehire them when we realize they’re essential — isn’t the answer. When the Department of Defense pays $150,000 for a soap dispenser or Boeing charges an extra 8,000% for spare plane parts, someone should absolutely step in. But the overwhelming norm is that federal employees aren’t wasting your taxpayer dollars. They’re providing critical services that keep our communities running: emergency disaster relief, healthcare for our veterans, education funding so every generation is prepared to lead when it’s their turn.

This isn’t a Democratic or Republican issue. It’s about the elite in this country versus the rest of us. It’s about the rich and powerful prioritizing their profits over the people just trying to afford eggs.

Our economy is built on providing services to the public, grounded in the principles of community.

Federal employees go to work every day because they believe in serving their communities. I got up every morning because I believed — and still believe — that giving back to Riverhead is the greatest thing I can do.

Don’t let billionaires tell you that people helping your community are the problem. They’re not the reason your taxes are high or eggs are expensive. They’re the reason your community thrives.

Call Rep. Nick LaLota at 202-225-3826 and tell him to protect federal jobs and hold wasteful contractors accountable. Call Sen. Chuck Schumer at 202-224-6542 and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand at 202-224-4451 and demand they prioritize funding for essential services like FEMA, the VA, and
public education. This is our community, and it’s worth fighting for.

Dominic Bossey, an Aquebogue native, is a 2019 graduate of Riverhead High School. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Binghamton University and was employed by the Office of Personnel Management until Feb. 13, when the communications office at the agency
was abolished by DOGE.