U.S. Administration Proposes $707 Million Cut in CISA Programs

President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year (FY) 2027 budget includes a $707 million cut across programs within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is responsible for securing U.S. digital and critical infrastructure against cyber and physical threats. CISA is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

According to the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Fiscal Year 2027 Budget of the U.S. Government, the decrease in CISA’s budget eliminates “weaponization and waste.”

“The budget removes offices that are duplicative of existing and effective programs at the state and federal level, such as certain targeted school safety programs,” the budget reads. “The budget eliminates programs focused on so-called misinformation and propaganda as well as external engagement offices such as council management, stakeholder engagement and international affairs. These programs and offices were used as a key hub in the censorship industrial complex to violate the First Amendment, target Americans for their protected speech and target the president.”

The budget also proposes the Office of Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) to be a distinct office within CISA.

Previously, the FY 2026 budget proposed dissolving the existing CWMD office in the DHS and transferring its programs and responsibilities across several other DHS components. According to the OMB, the FY 2027 budget would fund CWMD programs, including Securing the Cities, radiological detection capabilities and BioWatch.

CISA’s operations and support account, which “funds the necessary operations, mission support and associated management and administration costs for the agency,” has a proposed federal funding amount of $2.02 billion, according to the OMB. The FY 2026 budget allocated $2.38 billion for CISA’s operations and support account.

The OMB proposes an increase of more than $43 million to CISA’s research and development account, reflecting the functions previously performed by the CWMD, and a $69 million decrease in funding for CISA’s procurement, construction and improvements account.

Overall, the FY 2027 proposal sets a total budget of $2.49 billion for CISA, which would be a net reduction of more than $385 million after internal adjustments and transfers.

According to the CISA Budget Overview FY 2027 Congressional Justification, the budget would also reduce personnel levels to 2,865 positions and 2,528 full-time equivalents for CISA, a decrease of 867 positions and 766 full-time equivalents from FY 2026.

The budget also proposes eliminating CISA’s election security program and entirely defunding bombing prevention and federal school safety programs.

“This program change consolidates efforts and leverages state and local capabilities while enhancing operational efficiency without diminishing organizational effectiveness. This approach ensures sustained support for critical infrastructure security and resilience while optimizing resource allocation,” the budget justification states.

The subsections of CISA operations that are proposed to receive zero funding in FY 2027 include bombing prevention, chemical security, intelligence, council management, stakeholder agreement, international affairs, national cybersecurity protection system and improvised explosive device precursor.

The budget indicates new funding for technical forensics, detection capability development, transformational research and development, and countering weapons of mass destruction.

“The FY2027 budget proposal ties CISA to a refocus away from weaponization and waste, which tracks with a lot of this administration’s stated priorities for the term. The examples in the text stay high level, so it is still unclear what exactly would be cut; nothing maps dollars to line items,” said Aaron Colclough, vice president of operations at Suzu Labs. “That vagueness overlaps with functions or offices that were already reduced, so we’re not in a position to say what is net-new from the wording alone. This looks like the president's usual high opening bid before Congress settles the real numbers.”

The proposed total FY 2026 budget for CISA was $2.4 billion, but the FY 2026 annualized continuing resolutions amount to approximately $2.87 billion.

“Nation-state adversaries are actively and strategically exploiting weaknesses in U.S. cyber defenses, and sophisticated threat actors are targeting critical infrastructure with increasing persistence, while manufacturers bear responsibility for the cybersecurity of their products, including proactively identifying and remediating vulnerabilities and managing supply chain risk,” said Doc McConnell, head of policy and compliance at Finite State. “Those efforts are most effective when backed by a strong government cybersecurity function. Now is the time to strengthen our collective ability to detect and respond to threats, not reduce it.”

CISA declined SIGNAL Media’s request for comment and referred to the OMB, which has not yet returned SIGNAL’s email or call.