Ginnie Mae hit by workforce reduction

Ginnie Mae, an agency nestled inside of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, faced a workforce reduction late last week, along with other personnel cuts across the department.

About 25% of the government guarantors workforce has been slashed, according to a former Ginnie Mae executive. Most of the employees were probationary hires.

The government guarantor now has close to 150 employees, which will have to oversee 140 issuers and over $2 trillion in guarantees, the former Ginnie executive added.

Ginnie has been historically under resourced, with heads of the agency previously calling on the federal government to allocate more funds to help its operations. 

Throughout last year, Ginnie was on a hiring spree after receiving the budget to grow ranks, bringing close to 50 new hires on board.

Following the hit to Ginnie's headcount, some stakeholders expect a slowdown or tabling of some announced initiatives.

One such initiative that may be tabled is Ginnie's revised Home Equity Conversion Mortgage securitization program, which aimed to enhance liquidity for issuers by allowing the re-pooling of active and non-active buyouts into new custom, single-issuer pools.

Other parts of HUD, including the Federal Housing Administration, may also face workforce reductions. Bloomberg reports that at least 40% of workers at the federal agency are at risk of being cut.

HUD did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The reduction to HUD's personnel comes after the Trump administration announced it was eying $260 million in cuts to the department. HUD Secretary Scott Turner disclosed the launch of a Department of Government Efficiency Task Force, composed of HUD employees, to scrutinize every dollar across the agency, per a press release.

There was no mention of job cuts in the announcement but according to reports, hundreds of workers were let go across the department Friday.

"Thanks to President Trump's leadership, we are no longer in a business-as-usual posture and the DOGE task force will play a critical role in helping to identify and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and ultimately better serve the American people," said Turner in the press release. Senators including Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Patty Murry (D-WA), expressed concern over personnel cuts hitting the department.

In a letter to Secretary Turner, the senators expressed being "deeply alarmed and troubled" by reports that HUD plans to cut its workforce by 50%, or nearly 4,300 staff.

"Freezing already obligated funds, cancelling necessary program contracts, and hastily gutting HUD's workforce will inevitably lead to costly delays, and many housing projects will fall apart completely, only making our current housing crisis worse," their letter addressed to Turner read.