US Education Department to Cut Half its Staff As Trump Eyes Its

Department offices bought shut down till Thursday

Agencies cut employees using lump-sum payments, early retirement

Thursday is due date to submit prepare for massive layoffs

(Adds 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 on Tuesday it would lay off nearly half its staff, a possible precursor to closing completely, as federal government firms scrambled to satisfy President Donald Trump’s deadline to submit plans for a second round of mass layoffs.

The terminations belong to the department’s “last objective,” it stated in a press release, mentioning Trump’s vow to get rid of the department, which manages $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil liberties laws in schools and supplies federal funding for needy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the shootings would cause the department’s dismantling, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said “yes,” adding that doing so “was the president’s required.” The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 employees, down from 4,133 when Trump took workplace in January.

Before announcing the layoffs, the company ordered workplaces in the Washington location near personnel from Tuesday evening through Wednesday, according to an internal notice seen by Reuters. An Education Department spokesperson did not right away react to questions about the nature of the security problems prompting the closures.

Similar closures worked as a precursor to shuttering the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian help company, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans against dishonest lenders.

The layoffs are the current step in Trump’s sweeping effort to downsize the government, led by the world’s wealthiest individual Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has actually cut more than 100,000 tasks throughout the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign help and canceled thousands of programs and contracts, regardless of lots of claims challenging the legality of those relocations.

DOGE’s blunt-force method has annoyed several White House authorities and Republican legislators, a few of whom have actually faced upset constituents at city center. Trump informed department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the last word on staffing, his first noteworthy public relocation to restrain the Tesla CEO.

All U.S. government agencies have actually been ordered to come up with massive layoff plans by Thursday, establishing the next stage of Trump’s cost-cutting project. Several companies have actually offered staff members payments to retire early to fulfill Trump’s demand.

Affected Education Department workers will be put on administrative leave beginning on March 21, the department stated.

The union representing more than 2,800 department workers said it would battle the “oppressive cuts.”

“What is clear from the previous weeks of mass shootings, chaos, and uncontrolled unprofessionalism is that this program has no respect for the thousands of workers who have actually 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 government is inefficient and bloated. DOGE declares it has actually conserved $105 billion in cuts, but it has actually just publicly recorded a portion of those savings, and its accounting has been pestered by mistakes.

The federal government reported an estimated $162 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office yearly report launched on Tuesday. The huge bulk were overpayments, the report stated. Total federal expenses topped $6.75 trillion because financial year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The total improper payments figure was down sharply from 2023’s $236 billion, the GAO said.

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other firms have actually offered lump-sum payments of approximately $25,000 before tax to workers 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 Fda.

The buyout provides, combined with another program that relieves eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being welcomed as a lower-friction method to help satisfy the Thursday due date, personnels experts at numerous federal firms told Reuters.

The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad suits after it fired thousands of probationary employees in a first wave of mass layoffs and basically dismantled entire departments like USAID and CFPB.

The General Services Administration, which manages the federal government’s home portfolio, is likewise seeking approval to use the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent by its acting head to personnel on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA could not be reached for comment beyond U.S. organization hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already 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 likewise requires workers who have accepted the deal to pay back the money if they take another government job within 5 years.

Only a couple of agencies have telegraphed how many workers they prepare to cut in the second phase of layoffs. These include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 employees, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is preparing to cut 1,029 staff.

OPM itself has provided lump-sum payments to some 650 of its workers, according to another individual with understanding of the matter. Employees were offered till March 12 to respond.

On Monday, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent out an e-mail to all 19,000 staff members announcing 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 bonus, according to a copy of the e-mail seen by Reuters. HHS could not be reached for remark outside of normal U.S. business hours. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid and Marisa Taylor, additional reporting by Nathan Layne and Kanishka Singh, composing by Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Muralikumar Anantharaman)