The ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, which oversees the American Red Cross, has asked the organization's CEO, Gail McGovern, for information about how layoffs and local chapter closures have affected its ability to respond to disasters, ProPublica reports.

In a six-page letter dated December 23, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) noted the reduction of Red Cross staff from 36,000 to 23,000 and the number of local chapters from 700 to 250 since McGovern was appointed CEO of the organization in 2008 and asked McGovern to detail what the organization is doing in light of those cuts to ensure it can respond to both major and small-scale disasters, particularly in small towns and rural areas. Thompson also requested copies of internal after-action assessments of the organization's heavily criticized response to recent disasters in Northern California and West Virginia and asked for information about funds raised and spent for earthquake relief in Nepal, as well as how any lessons the organization learned in Haiti were applied to the situation in Nepal.

In addition, the letter asked how chapter closures have affected the organization's ability to raise funds and recruit volunteers, about reports of low employee morale, and about the organization's spending on marketing. According to ProPublica, McGovern has emphasized marketing as a way to boost fundraising and other revenue, such as fees from CPR classes, but those efforts have been disappointing and the charity has been running deficits in the tens of millions of dollars. Thompson gave the organization a deadline of January 27 to respond.

Earlier this year, a Government Accountability Office report suggested the Red Cross would benefit from more scrutiny by the federal government; that report was based on a congressional investigation which McGovern asked Thompson to cut short. "Given the Red Cross' important role in responding to both domestic and international disasters," wrote Thompson in his most recent letter, "it is critical that it acts quickly to address the serious problems ProPublica, NPR, and the GAO uncovered this year."