US Education Department to Cut Half its Staff As Trump Eyes Its
Department workplaces ordered closed down till Thursday
Agencies cut employees utilizing lump-sum payments, early retirement
Thursday is deadline to submit prepare for massive layoffs
(Adds brand-new government report on improper payments, paragraphs 12-14)
By Timothy Gardner, Tim Reid, Alexandra Alper and Marisa Taylor
WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Education said on Tuesday it would lay off almost half its staff, a possible precursor to closing entirely, as government companies rushed to fulfill President Donald Trump’s due date to submit prepare for a second round of mass layoffs.
The terminations are part of the department’s “final mission,” it said in a press release, alluding to Trump’s vow to remove the department, which supervises $1.6 trillion in college loans, implements civil liberties laws in schools and supplies federal financing for needy districts.
Asked on Fox News whether the shootings would lead to the department’s dismantling, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said “yes,” including that doing so “was the president’s mandate.” The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 workers, below 4,133 when Trump took workplace in January.
Before revealing the layoffs, the firm bought offices in the Washington area closed to staff from Tuesday evening through Wednesday, according to an internal notification seen by Reuters. An Education Department representative did not right away react to concerns about the nature of the security problems triggering the .
Similar closures served as a precursor to shuttering the head office of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian help agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans against deceitful lenders.
The layoffs are the current step in Trump’s sweeping effort to scale down the federal government, led by the world’s richest individual Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has cut more than 100,000 tasks throughout the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign aid and canceled countless programs and agreements, despite dozens of suits challenging the legality of those relocations.
DOGE’s blunt-force technique has annoyed several White House officials and Republican lawmakers, some of whom have faced angry constituents at town halls. Trump informed department heads recently that they, not Musk, have the last say on staffing, his first notable public relocate to restrain the Tesla CEO.
All U.S. government firms have actually been bought to come up with massive layoff strategies by Thursday, setting up the next stage of Trump’s cost-cutting campaign. Several agencies have used workers payments to retire early to satisfy Trump’s need.
Affected Education Department workers will be put on administrative leave beginning on March 21, the department said.
The union representing more than 2,800 department employees said it would combat the “heavy-handed cuts.”
“What is clear from the previous weeks of mass shootings, mayhem, and uncontrolled unprofessionalism is that this routine has no respect for the countless workers who have committed their careers to serve their fellow Americans,” said Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.
Trump and Musk have actually argued that the federal government is wasteful and bloated. DOGE claims it has actually conserved $105 billion in cuts, but it has only openly recorded a fraction of those cost savings, and its accounting has actually been pestered by errors.
The federal government reported an estimated $162 billion in improper payments in financial year 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office yearly report released on Tuesday. The huge bulk were overpayments, the report said. Total federal investments topped $6.75 trillion because , according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The overall inappropriate payments figure was down greatly from 2023’s $236 billion, the GAO stated.
EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS
Other firms have actually provided lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to employees who accept leave their tasks. Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration.
The buyout uses, combined with another program that alleviates eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction method to assist satisfy the Thursday deadline, personnels professionals at numerous federal companies informed Reuters.
The Trump administration has actually been coming to grips with myriad claims after it fired thousands of probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and essentially took apart entire departments like USAID and CFPB.
The General Services Administration, which manages the federal government’s residential or commercial property portfolio, is also seeking approval to provide the buyout payments to employees, according to an e-mail sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA could not be grabbed comment beyond U.S. service hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has currently used bonus offers of as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.
Personnels and public governance specialists said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal challenges. It also requires employees who have accepted the deal to repay the cash if they take another government job within 5 years.
Only a number of companies have actually telegraphed the number of employees they plan to cut in the 2nd stage of layoffs. These include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is intending to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 staff.
OPM itself has provided lump-sum payments to some 650 of its staff members, according to another person with understanding of the matter. Employees were provided until March 12 to respond.
On Monday, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent an email to all 19,000 employees revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline for a buyout program. Those who accept would need to retire by April 19.
Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its previous deal by adding two months of complete pay in addition to the reward, according to a copy of the e-mail seen by Reuters. HHS might not be reached for remark outside of regular U.S. service hours. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid and Marisa Taylor, additional reporting by Nathan Layne and Kanishka Singh, writing by Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Muralikumar Anantharaman)