The State Department plans to release a letter to all employees Thursday evening informing them that the department is officially moving to implement a “targeted reduction in domestic workforce.”
“Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force. First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States,” the letter, signed by Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael Rigas, reads.
The letter advises that once these notifications have taken place, the department will go into the “final stage” of reorganization, where the new organizational chart unveiled by Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier in the year will fully take effect.
Senior State Department officials described the changes as “the most complicated reorganization in government history,” emphasizing that the cuts were largely made to eliminate Cold War-era redundancies as well as eliminating functions that were “no longer aligned with the president’s foreign policy priorities.”
“At the end of the day, we have to do what’s right for the mission,” one senior official said.
“There’s a tremendous amount of sort of unnecessary bureaucracy,” the second official asserted.
The State Department previously reported to Congress that it would aim to reduce its domestic workforce by around 15% as part of the reorganization. However, the senior officials specified that more than half of that goal would be met through “voluntary reductions” — people who elected to take the deferred resignation plan offered through the “Fork in the Road” emails earlier this year.
The officials also said the department did not have current plans to reduce its force overseas.
“The secretary wants to take this one step at a time,” one official said.
The officials also defended the department’s decision to cut some highly trained foreign service officers rather than reassign them.
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