From left, Caci Petrehn, a Democratic candidate for West Virginia Senate District 3, and her son, Sully Petrehn, speak with Ace Parsi, the Democratic nominee for West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, on Tuesday prior to the start of a press conference conference about federal job cuts at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service in Parkersburg Tuesday afternoon. (Photo by Gwen Sour)

PARKERSBURG — Democratic congressional candidate Ace Parsi joined local advocates Tuesday in Parkersburg to call for more scrutiny of federal job cuts at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and to support residents opposing proposed changes to the city’s sanitation service.

Parsi, who is running for West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, said the Parkersburg bureau handles sensitive financial information and that the public deserves answers about who accessed that data during the Department of Government Efficiency’s review of federal agencies.

“It’s like our bank ledger,” Parsi said. “It’s the thing that sends the checks, and so it has obviously very, very sensitive information about every member of this, not only this community, but this nation.”

Parsi said any elected official or candidate for public office should be asking what data was accessed, how it was used and what process led to workers being laid off.

“There needs to be an investigation of that for the benefit of the American public,” he said.

Brian Hayden, right, a local advocate on social issues shares his concerns regarding Parkersburg's sanitation contract following a press conference held in Parkersburg Tuesday afternoon. (Photo by Gwen Sour)

Parsi also criticized the treatment of federal workers affected by the cuts, saying many of them were public servants who deserved respect and workplace protections.

“The people in there are not private stooges,” Parsi said. “They are public servants, and public servants deserve respect.”

He said efforts to make government more efficient should involve workers and people with knowledge of agency operations, not broad cuts made without understanding what employees do.

“Everybody wants our government to work more effectively,” Parsi said. “But the way they did it did not do that. They just indiscriminately riffed people.”

Parsi said the issue should not be dismissed as old news.

“This was not yesterday’s news,” he said. “This is the present, and we need to be out here fighting with and for those federal workers here at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.”

Caci Petrehn, who is running for State Senate in District 3, said the cuts affected people in the local community who had worked for years to get hired at the bureau.

“I got to experience firsthand what it was like to see the impacts of DOGE in the community,” Petrehn said.

Petrehn said some workers had finally secured jobs they saw as stable, only to lose them shortly afterward.

“One of my friends had a job that she was with for 10 years prior, and took a pay cut just to go to Fiscal for the stability of the position, and ended up losing it,” she said.

Petrehn said the jobs at the bureau are an “important economic cornerstone” for Wood County and said federal workers should have the ability to organize.

“We need to be fighting for them, be fighting for our federal workers to be able to unionize,” she said.

Parsi also connected the bureau issue to the ongoing debate over Parkersburg’s sanitation service. He said he was invited to attend Tuesday night’s City Council meeting by residents who have been organizing around the issue.

Previous reports said Parkersburg City Council voted 6-3 in January to approve a five-year contract with Waste Management to provide trash service for the city. City officials cited staffing shortages in the Sanitation Department as a reason for considering the change. Residents later submitted about 3,100 petition signatures seeking a referendum on the ordinance approving the contract. Waste Management is expected to begin providing trash service July 1 under an interim agreement while questions related to the petition process continue.

Brian Hayden, a local advocate, said residents should attend the meeting and speak during the public forum. Hayden said city officials have tried to “shoehorn in a new sanitation service” that he believes will cost residents more in the long run.

“We had a very effective service,” Hayden said. “Our local administrators have managed to run it to the ground through various ways of neglect and abuse.”

Parsi said both issues reflect larger questions about public services and accountability.

“We deserve a government that serves us, the people, rather than just completely private interests,” he said.