Interior fires senior leaders after fight over DOGE access to key payroll system

The Interior Department has fired its top technology and cybersecurity leadership, in addition to others in the department’s shared services and solicitor’s offices, after they objected to giving the Department of Government Efficiency access to a key federal personnel and payroll system. 

The agency’s chief information officer, Darren Ash; its chief information security officer, Stan Lowe; Associate Solicitor Tony Irish; and the human resources associate director for the Interior Business Center, Julie Bednar, have all been fired, according to two sources familiar. Both requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

At the same time, many other leaders in the department’s tech shop are taking the administration’s re-upped deferred resignation offer — including its chief data officer, Tod Dabolt, as well as its chief technology officer, Andrew Havely — meaning that most of the tech leadership positions at the department are now vacant, per two sources. 

In addition to the departure of the CTO and CDO, the principal deputy CIO June Hartley and deputy CIO for enterprise services Karen Matragrano are both leaving. Another deputy CIO, Ken Klinner, took the first deferred resignation offer, according to one of the sources.

Combined with the firing of the CIO and the CISO, that leaves only two roles within that office filled on a permanent basis: the chief of staff and deputy CIO for the resources management division.

Interior declined to comment for this story. 

The firings of the CIO and others come after weeks of back and forth with billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting DOGE over access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System, one of a few centralized systems in the government used to deliver paychecks to federal workers. 

Last week, Ash and Lowe were put on administrative leave and placed under investigation after DOGE obtained access to FPPS. 

As the New York Times has reported, this level of access lets DOGE employees change things like employment status without oversight. WIRED reported that a top lawyer was also put on leave in addition to the CIO and CISO as DOGE officials sought a level of access to allow them to create and delete email accounts. Senior career feds at Interior had written a risk assessment memo about the dangers of giving this level of access and sought the signature of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, per the Times. 

Granting the administrative access to the payroll system — as sought by Musk’s associates — to anyone apart from a few in HR is highly unusual, one source told Nextgov/FCW, as the system stores sensitive information about feds across the government. A single mistake could cause “massive issues,” they noted. 

The system connects with over forty government customers that use it, according to a 2024 privacy assessment, which itself notes the inherent privacy risks of FPPS, given the volume of sensitive data — like Social Security numbers — that it houses to calculate payroll. 

Ash has worked in the federal government for over 30 years, including in CIO roles at the Transportation Department, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Agriculture Department. 

His departure is both the latest in a series of abrupt changes in agency CIO shops — which the administration is looking to open to potential political leadership — and yet another example of federal employees leaving or being fired after pushing back against DOGE requests to access sensitive government systems and information. 

Lowe has worked across both government and private sector and had been at Interior for nearly two years, and Irish had worked his way up the chain at the Interior Department for almost two decades, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

Federal employees that are not in their probationary periods typically must be given a chance to defend their employment before a final determination on their removal has been made. On Thursday, Irish posted on his LinkedIn, "I look forward to utilizing the administrative process to answer those charges [against me]."

Bednar was set to retire at the end of the month after 34 years in government.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include Interior declining to comment and details about Irish's LinkedIn post.