Department workplaces bought shut down up until Thursday

Agencies cut workers utilizing lump-sum payments, early retirement

Thursday is due date to send strategies for large-scale 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 staff, a possible precursor to closing entirely, as government agencies rushed to meet President Donald Trump's due date to submit prepare for a second round of mass layoffs.

The terminations belong to the department's "last objective," it said in a news release, alluding to Trump's vow to remove the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, implements civil rights laws in schools and provides federal funding for clingy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the firings would cause the department's taking apart, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said "yes," adding that doing so "was the president's mandate." The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 employees, below 4,133 when Trump took office in January.

Before announcing the layoffs, the agency ordered offices in the Washington location near to staff from Tuesday night through Wednesday, according to an internal notice seen by Reuters. An Education Department spokesperson did not right away react to concerns about the nature of the security issues prompting the closures.

Similar closures served as a precursor to shuttering the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian help firm, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which safeguards Americans against unscrupulous lenders.

The layoffs are the most current step in Trump's sweeping effort to scale down the government, led by the world's richest individual Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has cut more than 100,000 jobs across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign aid and canceled thousands of programs and agreements, in spite of lots of claims challenging the legality of those moves.

DOGE's blunt-force technique has actually annoyed numerous White House officials and Republican legislators, some of whom have confronted mad constituents at town halls. Trump informed department heads recently that they, not Musk, have the last word on staffing, his very first notable public move to restrain the Tesla CEO.

All U.S. government agencies have been bought to come up with large-scale layoff strategies by Thursday, setting up the next stage of Trump's cost-cutting campaign. Several firms have offered employees payments to retire early to fulfill Trump's demand.

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

The union representing more than 2,800 department employees said it would fight the "drastic cuts."

"What is clear from the past weeks of mass shootings, chaos, and unchecked unprofessionalism is that this program has no regard for the countless employees who have actually devoted their professions to serve their fellow Americans," stated Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.

Trump and Musk have actually argued that the government is wasteful and puffed up. DOGE declares it has saved $105 billion in cuts, but it has just openly recorded a fraction of those cost savings, and its accounting has actually been afflicted by mistakes.

The federal government reported an approximated $162 billion in incorrect payments in fiscal year 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office yearly report released on Tuesday. The large majority were overpayments, the report said. Total federal expenses topped $6.75 trillion in that financial year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The total inappropriate payments figure was down dramatically from 2023's $236 billion, the GAO said.

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other firms have actually used lump-sum payments of as much as $25,000 before tax to workers who concur to leave their tasks. Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, its Fda.

The buyout uses, combined with another program that reduces eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being welcomed as a lower-friction way to help fulfill the Thursday deadline, human resources specialists at a number of federal firms informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has actually been grappling with myriad claims after it fired countless probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and basically took apart whole departments like USAID and CFPB.

The General Services Administration, which manages the federal government's property portfolio, is also seeking approval to provide 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 remark outside of U.S. business hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has currently used benefits of as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnels and public governance professionals said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less susceptible to legal challenges. It likewise needs workers who have accepted the offer to repay the money if they take another government task within 5 years.

Only a couple of companies have actually telegraphed how many employees they prepare to cut in the second stage of layoffs. These consist of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 employees, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 staff.

OPM itself has actually used lump-sum payments to some 650 of its staff members, according to another individual with knowledge of the matter. Employees were given until March 12 to react.

On Monday, the HR department of the Fda sent an e-mail to all 19,000 workers 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 prior offer by adding two months of full pay in addition to the bonus, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters. HHS could not be grabbed comment outside of regular U.S. organization 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)