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

Department offices bought shut down until Thursday

Agencies cut employees using lump-sum payments, early retirement

Thursday is deadline to send plans for massive layoffs

(Adds new government report on incorrect payments, paragraphs 12-14)

By Timothy Gardner, Tim Reid, Alexandra Alper and Marisa Taylor

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Education stated on Tuesday it would lay off almost half its personnel, a possible precursor to closing altogether, as government agencies rushed to satisfy President Donald Trump’s due date to send strategies for a second round of mass layoffs.

The terminations belong to the department’s “final objective,” it said in a news release, alluding to Trump’s vow to get rid of the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools and supplies federal financing for needy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the shootings would cause the department’s taking apart, 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, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January.

Before announcing the layoffs, the agency purchased offices in the Washington area near personnel from Tuesday night through Wednesday, according to an internal notification seen by Reuters. An Education Department representative did not right away react to questions about the nature of the security issues triggering the closures.

Similar closures functioned as a precursor to shuttering the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian help agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans against unethical loan providers.

The layoffs are the most recent step in Trump’s sweeping effort to scale down the government, led by the world’s richest person Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has cut more than 100,000 jobs throughout the 2.3 million-member federal civilian administration, frozen most foreign help and canceled thousands of programs and agreements, despite dozens of claims challenging the legality of those relocations.

DOGE’s blunt-force approach has irritated numerous White House officials and Republican legislators, some of whom have faced mad constituents at city center. Trump told department heads recently that they, not Musk, have the last word on staffing, his first notable public relocate to limit the Tesla CEO.

All U.S. federal government companies have been purchased to come up with large-scale layoff strategies by Thursday, establishing the next phase of Trump’s cost-cutting project. Several agencies have provided staff members payments to retire early to meet Trump’s need.

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

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

“What is clear from the past weeks of mass firings, mayhem, and unattended unprofessionalism is that this regime has no regard for the thousands of workers who have dedicated 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 puffed up. DOGE claims it has conserved $105 billion in cuts, however it has actually only openly recorded a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has actually been pestered by errors.

The federal government reported an estimated $162 billion in inappropriate payments in fiscal year 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office annual report released on Tuesday. The large bulk were overpayments, the report stated. Total federal investments topped $6.75 trillion because fiscal year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The total inappropriate payments figure was down greatly from 2023’s $236 billion, the GAO stated.

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other companies have actually used lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to employees who consent to 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, integrated with another program that reduces eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction method to assist satisfy the Thursday due date, personnels specialists at a number of federal firms informed Reuters.

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

The General Services Administration, which manages the government’s property portfolio, is also seeking approval to use the buyout payments to employees, according to an e-mail sent by its acting head to personnel on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA could not be beyond U.S. company hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has currently used rewards of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnels and public governance experts said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal obstacles. It likewise needs workers who have actually accepted the offer to pay back the cash if they take another federal government task within five years.

Only a number of companies have telegraphed how numerous workers they prepare 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 personnel.

OPM itself has actually used 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 react.

On Monday, the HR department of the Fda sent out an e-mail to all 19,000 staff members revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline for a buyout program. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its previous deal by including two months of full pay in addition to the benefit, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters. HHS might not be grabbed comment outside of typical U.S. company hours. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid and Marisa Taylor, extra reporting by Nathan Layne and Kanishka Singh, writing by Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Muralikumar Anantharaman)