The Food and Drug Administration is finalizing plans to replace some of the employees it laid off with contractors, according to three FDA officials, after steep cuts to the agency’s workforce disrupted drug and food safety inspections.

“Recent adjustments in staff numbers have created a heightened need for the FDA to be nimble, efficient and respond creatively, in order to continue and maintain FDA’s regulatory inspection presence and the gold standard of excellence,” agency officials wrote, in emails and draft contracting documents obtained by CBS News.

The contractors would effectively replace most of the work done by more than 50 laid-off federal employees who handled travel logistics and conducted oversight on spending for the agency’s inspectors, said two FDA officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The plan was approved by FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, one email said.

The move appears to contradict what laid-off workers supporting FDA’s Office of Inspections and Investigations had been told in their layoff notices: that they were being let go because their work was “unnecessary or virtually identical to duties being performed elsewhere in the agency.”