A month has passed since a March 14 executive order called for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” Since then, all but 12 of the agency’s staff of approximately 75 employees have been put on paid administrative leave and received notice of an agency-wide reduction in force to take place May 4. And a number of those furloughed employees—alongside a declaration by a pseudonymous fourth, called “Blake Doe” in the State of Rhode Island v. Trump lawsuit—shed light on what these past weeks looked like behind the scenes and what they mean for the agency.
Three furloughed IMLS staff members, who spoke with PW on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, said that of the 12 people still working in the agency, only two are managing operations specific to library services. Among them is Lisa Solomson, whom the sources affirm has been newly appointed acting deputy director of library services, which they considered an unusually significant promotion from a project specialist role. Solomson, the sources noted, is married to Matthew H. Solomson, a federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump at the end of his first term.
One source, who noted that Solomson has a library science degree but not the advanced credentials typically expected of the deputy director, called Solomson’s promotion a “blatant example of cronyism.” Regardless, another noted, it is ultimately up to acting director Keith Sonderling to select IMLS deputy directors: “Technically there’s nothing legally wrong,” the source said. (PW attempted to contact the IMLS multiple times via phone, email, and social media for this story, but received no response.)
Sources attest that the other library services staffer known to still be working at IMLS is associate deputy director Teri DeVoe. In the past, DeVoe has supervised the Grants to States program, which at regular staffing levels involves the supervisor, three program officers, and one program specialist, according to Doe’s declaration.
On the museum side of IMLS, a senior museum program officer and associate deputy director remain in their posts. According to PW’s sources and the Doe declaration, these staffers include CFO Chris Catignani; head of communications Anthony Marucci; IMLS general counsel Thomas M. Browder III, along with and three additional lawyers; director of human resources Antoine Dotson; and a senior human resources specialist.
These staffers ultimately report to Sonderling, who was sworn in on March 20. One IMLS insider who spoke with PW expressed concern that, compared with staffers who have served for years in the agency, Sonderling “has virtually no operational knowledge of IMLS.” Another remarked that Sonderling is “sort of moonlighting” in the position while also serving as U.S. deputy secretary of labor.
The reduced IMLS staff, which one source compared to a “skeleton crew,” appears to lack the personnel to administer existing grants or process incoming grant applications. “I hope they’re planning what to do with whatever budget they have for fiscal year 2025, what to do with that money,” a person on leave from the agency told PW, "but it doesn’t appear payment requests are being processed.”
The Doe declaration noted that, “at any given time, hundreds of awarded grants are at different phases in the grant cycle.” It added: “Of the 30 employees who processed or administered grant programs and the five employees who handled the financial aspects of grants prior to March 31, only four are not currently on administrative leave.”
To date, only one payment—an April 11 disbursement of $67,000 from IMLS to the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records—has been publicly confirmed since Sonderling was sworn in. On April 14, Arizona secretary of state Adrian P. Fontes went on record with the District Court of Rhode Island to confirm the payment. Arizona’s attorney general is among the 21 plaintiffs in the Rhode Island v. Trump case seeking to block the executive order.
On April 14, attorneys for the Trump administration filed their opposition in the Rhode Island case, arguing that the “plaintiffs have no standing to demand the broad relief sought in their motion;” that their claims of harm from unfulfilled grants are thus far "speculative;" and that “challenges to grant terminations belong in the Court of Federal Claims.” They also argued that federal court is not the proper venue to litigate “adverse employment actions,” referring federal employees on administrative leave to the Office of Special Counsel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Federal Labor Relations Authority. An initial hearing in the case will take place before chief judge John J. McConnell in the District Court of Rhode Island on April 18.
A Precarious Position for IMLS Staffers
Meanwhile, as they await the May 4 reduction in force date, IMLS staffers who spoke with PW said they are uncertain about what will happen next. None of those staffers have been able to obtain a full retention register despite access to this register being a right for federal employees. The register should be available to all IMLS employees in order to help them determine which of them are eligible for retainment during a reduction in force or reapplication and/or reinstatement to their old positions at a later date. “IMLS employees have tried directly requesting this information, but are now switching tactics and submitting FOIA requests,” said one furloughed staffer.
One source asserts that even the retained employees “are in a very precarious position”: they could be forced, likely against their personal will, to cancel funding appropriated by Congress, awarded by the IMLS, and legally agreed upon in cooperation with awardees, leaving them vulnerable to legal action. “IMLS largely operates on a reimbursement basis, which means that awardees with a legal grant agreement spend funds in advance in good faith that the federal government would reimburse the funds per the contract,” the IMLS staffer explained—and would therefore have grounds to sue should those contracts not be honored. That is to say, even employees offered the opportunity to keep their jobs might be justifiably worried about accepting those offers. And, the staffer continued, anyone’s refusal “to return [to the office] and perform the duties assigned to them by acting director Sonderling would be forced to quit, which means that they forfeit rights to severance pay.”
Hundreds of grants in IMLS programs have already been canceled, in a late-night effort on April 9 for unspecified reasons, two sources said. The cancellation prompted the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, which represents the IMLS and other federal agencies including the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, to issue a statement. "This callous disregard for the communities and institutions counting on IMLS grants is another outrageous example of the Trump Administration causing harm for no good reason,” the AFGE wrote. “We are horrified to see these heartless cuts."
One source reflected on damage that may be caused by the sudden and unanticipated loss of small federal grants that support hyper-localized programming at libraries and museums. Small grants support homework help for young people, IT training, collection development, or wifi connectivity for rural libraries and small organizations without easy access to technological resources. IMLS grants underwrite the tools and services ordinary visitors have been able to take for granted, until now.
"We’re invested in the programs and what projects are accomplishing," one source told PW. "Our best-case scenario is that we can work on these projects again. The least we can hope for is making sure that all of this is being done legally, because everything happened so fast."
Despite the termination of library and museum grants, the IMLS workers on leave express guarded optimism that all or most of the statutory Grants to States program may continue, although one person was not hopeful about grants to California, Connecticut, and Washington, which were announced as canceled via social media. Suspended members of the IMLS team also express hope that the lawsuits filed by 21 states’ attorneys general and by the American Library Association might keep the agency open, with congressionally appropriated funds flowing to institutions.
Another IMLS staffer, though self-described as “an optimist,” said that, while they were impressed that “IMLS got a lot more attention than anybody expected,” the response from the administration suggests that “they’re willing to still take on the risk and liability associated with trying to eliminate an agency down to the statutory requirements. Like everything else that’s happening with this administration, the approach is to slash and burn and see what survives.”
