McMahon distances herself from past Education layoffs, vows some rebuilding even amid elimination effort

The Education Department went too far with some of its cuts last year and certain issues were handled in an “inadequate” way, the agency’s leader told lawmakers on Tuesday as she vowed to reempower some parts of her agency. 

Education Secretary Linda McMahon stressed that the cuts were in motion before she arrived at the department and in some cases were “difficult” to defend. The department has laid off one-third of its employees and has seen an overall cut of about half of its workforce through those cuts and various incentive programs. 

McMahon did not strike an entirely remorseful tone, however, as she repeatedly defended both efforts to outsource core Education responsibilities to other federal agencies and the larger project of shuttering the department entirely. She has overseen 10 partnerships with the departments of State, Interior, Health and Human Services and Labor to date, which has led to Education employees detailing out to those agencies and conducting largely the same work from a different location while remaining on the Education payroll. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee panel that held Tuesday’s hearing, questioned the virtue of such changes. 

“You are sending Department of Education employees to work at other agencies to administer the same programs from different buildings,” Baldwin said. “At best, this will prove nothing about what the Department of Education does. It's making everything more complicated for states and local school districts.” 

Lawmakers and advocates have repeatedly expressed concerns with the Trump administration’s plans, echoing those within the department both before and after the changes took effect. Baldwin alluded to previous findings of issues with Labor’s grants management, suggesting it was ill-suited to take on even greater responsibilities from Education. McMahon conceded “there are opportunities in every agency to improve their grant programs.” 

“There's some hiccups along the way at the beginning, but in the end, this is a program that I believe will help our students,” the secretary said, adding the prevalence of students unable to read or write at their associated grade level made clear that Education required a shakeup. 

While McMahon boasted of her success in having “shrunk our bloated bureaucracy,” she acknowledged some services have been negatively impacted and lamented some of the reductions in force. 

“The RIF happened a week after I got sworn in,” McMahon said. “The process had been in place to reduce greatly the Department of Education, the number of people there, under very stringent budget requirements that we were given.” 

Asked by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., how she could defend the cuts given growing backlogs in some areas, McMahon acknowledged it was a challenge to do so. 

“It is very difficult when I’m trying to address those particular issues except to know that those things were happening and we look forward to them stop happening,” McMahon said. 

When Murphy pushed back that the resulting challenges were foreseeable due to the staff cuts, the secretary responded, “Well, that is hindsight.” Murphy asked for clarification, leading McMahon to say, “You know perfectly well what that means.” 

Several senators focused on backlogs to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cases before the Office of Civil Rights, with the latter drawing particular scrutiny after the department shed half of the component’s staff. McMahon said the department is working diligently to address casework and has asked laid off OCR staff to return. Education joins the Health and Human Service Department, Interior Department, General Services Administration, Internal Revenue Service and other agencies that have recalled employees it had pushed out. 

McMahon suggested the department’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal would lead to the hiring of more attorneys to process claims at OCR. Murphy pushed back, noting the office was slated for a 35% cut in the proposal. McMahon denied the claim, suggesting Murphy’s numbers were inaccurate.

The budget would in fact cut the OCR by 35%, from $140 million to $91 million. As of February, the office employed 327 individuals. While McMahon insisted the budget would increase that total, it instead proposed a total of 271 employees, a 17% reduction. The secretary later said that staffing level “a floor number,” and she was hopeful “we’ll have the ability to increase” it. 

The issue was one of several in which McMahon told lawmakers they would have to “agree to disagree,” something Democrats on the panel were reluctant to accept. 

“I don’t think it’s a matter of disagreeing,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. “I think it’s a matter of very poor policy.”

In Education’s fiscal 2026 appropriations bill, lawmakers included language prohibit the transfer of funding for interagency agreements without direct support in law and stated that "no authorities exist for the Department of Education to transfer its fundamental responsibilities under numerous authorizing and appropriations laws, including through procuring services from other federal agencies, of carrying out those programs, projects, and activities to other federal agencies.” Lawmakers did not appear to explicitly ban the agreements and details altogether, however, instead asking for biweekly briefings with significant details on the costs, staffing implications and impacts on grantees and other stakeholders.