Lisa Desjardins:
That’s right.
Department of Education officials spoke to reporters a short time ago. This is major news. Now, these are going to be the largest cuts that the Department of Education has experienced since it was created. So, let’s take a look at what we know.
We are expecting 1,300 people to be fired, reduction in force. That’s a termination. Now, that is in addition to more than 500 people who took different offers, for example, the fork offer to leave early. So, when you put all that together, Amna, what you have is a Department of Education that will see a total work force cut of about 50 percent.
Now, this is — it looks to be one of the largest cuts we have seen in reduction of force in federal history for one agency, of course, the USAID also having a major cut. Workers today didn’t find out about this directly. Some of them may be learning about it right now as I speak to you.
But what they did receive was an e-mail telling them that they had to leave their offices in the Washington area by 6:00, that the doors would be shut, and that for security reasons, the e-mail said, they were not allowed to return tomorrow. Offices here in the Washington area will be closed tomorrow for the Department of Education.
The official on the call with reporters said that’s for safety reasons. Now, they didn’t take any questions, so we don’t really understand. They said that’s for the safety of the workers that are remaining. One other important note, they plan on closing Department of Education facilities in a number of cities. I think they mentioned New York, Chicago, Boston, and in Washington, going from three buildings down to one, ultimately.
