By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

A watchdog report found that an unrealized plan to cut U.S. Department of Education staff cost taxpayers up to $38 million, as many workers were later rehired and the department failed to demonstrate how the cuts benefited the public.

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, found the Education Department’s planned cuts served no purpose.

“By not documenting its analyses, as required, Education lacks reasonable assurance that its actions achieved the stated goal of reforming the federal workforce to maximize efficiency and productivity, including whether such actions saved taxpayer dollars,” the report concluded.

The report focused on a plan to cut 299 employees from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The planned cuts are called a reduction-in-force, or RIF, in government parlance. The Office of Civil Rights enforces federal civil rights laws by investigating complaints of alleged violations in schools.

In early 2025, during President Donald Trump’s second term, several federal agencies moved quickly to propose cuts as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency signaled plans to significantly reduce the ranks of federal employees.

About half of the Office of Civil Rights, or OCR, staff received RIF notices in March 2025. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said at the time the cuts were intended to improve efficiency as she and President Donald Trump sought to dismantle the entire Department of Education.

Those 299 employees were put on paid administrative leave, which the GAO estimated cost taxpayers about $28.5 million to $38 million amid months of legal wrangling with public employee unions.

In December, the Education Department rehired 85 OCR employees who had been subject to the RIF, though it said the remaining cuts would proceed. Then, in January, the agency changed its stance, rescinding all RIF notices and reinstating the employees.

“Agency officials also said that since the March 2025 RIF, OCR has kept up with its workload and met its mission without these staff,” according to the report. “They noted that Education decided to recall these staff to contribute to the enforcement of existing civil rights complaints. These officials also said that there is always work to be done and the agency will continue utilizing available resources to do so.”

American Federation of Government Employees Local 252 President Rachel Gittleman said politics got in the way of education.

“For more than nine months, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sidelined hundreds of employees at the Office for Civil Rights from the critical work of protecting our nation’s most vulnerable students and families, while costing American taxpayers up to $38 million and mounting a massive backlog of complaints from parents and students,” she said in a statement.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, called the Education Department’s decisions “unacceptable.”

The Education Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Center Square, citing the partial government shutdown after Congress failed to pass spending bills to keep the government open. It is the second partial shutdown of Trump’s second term, following a record 43-day shutdown in 2025.

The GAO recommended the Education Department estimate the full costs and savings associated with the reorganization it initiated in March 2025 and document its analysis.

Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, disagreed with the GAO’s recommendation. She said since the department had rescinded the RIFs, the issue was “moot.”

GAO officials disagreed, saying the Education Department should now conduct the analysis and estimates of the effects of the RIFs so that the department is better prepared for future reductions in force.

“Although Education has now rescinded the RIF actions, Education incurred costs, for example, paying salaries and benefits for these staff,” the report noted.

Neal McCluskey, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom, predicts the Trump administration has decided to bring back OCR employees to enforce the administration’s own federal priorities, such as stamping out diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, instead of returning educational decisions to state and local governments.

“My theory is that they are reorienting the kinds of things they investigate in schools,” McCluskey told The Center Square. “So it’s not so much allegations of sexual harassment or things that you would have seen in previous administrations. Now it is looking for DEI or DEI-like policies and discrimination against religious families or conservatives.”