The White House is proposing to reduce by nearly 40 percent the uniformed public health professionals who deploy during disasters and disease outbreaks, monitor drug safety and provide health care in some of the nation’s most remote and disadvantaged areas. The proposal is part of a plan announced last week by the Office of Management and Budget to overhaul the federal government. It would cut the size of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps from its current 6,500 officers to “no more than 4,000 officers.” Administration officials, who have said the officers are “more expensive” than equivalent civilians, want “a leaner and more efficient organization” better prepared to respond to public health emergencies. They have not offered projections on how much might be saved.

Jim Currie, executive director of the Commissioned Officers Association of the U.S. Public Health Service, said the reductions would greatly affect the Corps’ ability to respond to disaster sites as it routinely does now. “I don’t quite understand the animosity toward the Commissioned Corps,” he said. “These folks are doing day jobs” — at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and elsewhere within the government — “and when they’re needed, they go and deploy and work their butts off for 12 to 14 hours a day.”

The Corps has deployed to natural disasters, disease outbreaks and humanitarian crises. More than 1,460 officers were sent to respond to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, including more than 350 who deployed twice, said Kate Migliaccio Grabill, a commander and USPHS spokeswoman. Nearly 300 officers were sent to staff a U.S. field hospital in Liberia during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. When thousands of unaccompanied minors crossed into the United States from Mexico in 2014, triggering a humanitarian crisis, more than 350 officers were sent to the Southwest to provide a variety of services, including medical screenings and behavioral health support. During this current crisis involving migrant children separated from their parents at the border, the service is also being tapped to help, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday.