The State Department will eliminate 15 percent of its domestic staff as part of a reorganization that will close one-sixth of its 734 offices and bureaus, officials said Tuesday.
Of the remaining 602 offices and bureaus, 137 are to be moved within the department. Affected employees will receive reduction-in-force notices by July 1.
State Secretary Marco Rubio announced the reorganization to staff Tuesday, as employees had anticipated.
Rubio said the offices to be eliminated are not mandated by law, do not align with President Trump’s priorities, have overlapping functions, or “represent radical causes.”
The overhaul is to be led by Michael Rigas, once the is confirmed by the Senate to be Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources-designate. Rigas served as acting director of the Office of Personnel Management in the first Trump administration.
The secretary said that “change is difficult” and said he would welcome employee feedback through a new portal.
“Our people are our strength, but all too often the bureaucracy hamstrings our ability to advance America’s core national interests,” Rubio said. “I want to empower our talented workforce to do their jobs as efficiently and effectively as possible.”
State employees in the civil service subject to RIFs, or layoffs, will likely be separated from the department at the end of their required notice period of either 60 or 90 days, the department told employees. Foreign Service officers will either be separated or, in some cases, receive reassignments. Contract employees will be terminated within 60 days.
FSOs may have to rebid for new roles if their current positions are eliminated.
Each undersecretary at State is currently finalizing a workforce plan and, once approved, will communicate specific effects to staff. That will affect employees at offices to be moved as well as those to be shuttered. Some employees will be reassigned, while others will be laid off.
For now, the changes are only to affect domestic offices. State told employees it has made no decisions on embassy, consulate, or overseas post closures. The reorganization does not include ongoing efforts to integrate the remains of the U.S. Agency for International Development into State.
The most significant changes will occur within the office of the Undersecretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, which will become the Office of Foreign Assistance and Human Rights. Many of the existing entities within that office, such as the Office of Global Criminal Justice, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, do not appear to have a place in State’s new organizational chart.
State Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau stressed in a message to employees obtained by Government Executive that there will not be any disruption to “ongoing programming.” Going forward, Landau said, State will “align its activities and programs with the foreign policy priorities of the president and the secretary.”
The reorganization did not include some of the more radical changes to the nature of the Foreign Service that were part of a draft executive order to remake State.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Read the full article here