The Trump administration wants to significantly cut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) stakeholder engagement program and eliminate almost 900 agency positions under its fiscal year (FY) budget 2027 request.
According to the detailed request provided by CISA, the Trump administration would eliminate 120 of the stakeholder engagement program’s 145 positions and cut the program’s funding by more than $50 million.
The Stakeholder Engagement Division (SED) at CISA leads national and international voluntary partnerships and engagements for information sharing and collaboration.
The FY 2027 budget request said the cuts would eliminate SED’s council management offices, stakeholder engagement activities and offices, and the international affairs external engagement offices.
In its budget justification, CISA said that the move “aligns with shifting mission priorities by focusing resources exclusively on SRMA [sector risk management agency] and National Coordinator efforts, thereby strengthening critical infrastructure security.”
In other moves, CISA said it would eliminate 867 agency positions, representing about 766 full-time equivalent employees as part of its broader $360 million reduction. That’s down from CISA’s current 3,732 positions.
It is unclear whether that will be included in the final package passed by Congress. While the requested position decrease is lower than the FY 2026 request – which proposed eliminating 1,083 positions – the agency received bipartisan pushback last year on the requested cuts. Concern was raised over whether CISA could effectively do its job with reduced staffing as cyber concerns amount.
But since it is a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), CISA has not received funding under a full-year DHS appropriations bill for FY 2026 and had undergone an official position reduction.
The department has instead been funded through a mix of continuing resolutions and temporary measures since Oct. 1, 2025, with a current DHS shutdown tied to ongoing disputes over immigration enforcement-related funding.
CISA’s workforce already sits below the number requested by the Trump administration. The latest total head count provided by CISA was 2,389 in January. CISA acting Director Nick Andersen told Congress last month that number has decreased even more with the ongoing DHS shutdown, though he did not provide details.
In addition to CISA workforce cuts and stakeholder engagement offices’ eliminations, the agency’s budget request proposed shuttering its election security program. According to the budget justification, following the program’s elimination “CISA will continue to focus on its core mission areas and adapt to evolving policy direction.”
The request is unsurprising after comments made last year by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem who told Congress that CISA’s election security program infringed on the First Amendment rights of Trump’s supporters during the 2024 elections. However, she also told lawmakers later in the year that CISA was “back on mission” and that the election entities were “eliminated.”