No strategic workforce plan is guiding the Trump administration’s effort to fold the U.S. Agency for International Development into the State Department, the department’s inspector general said in a new report.
Nearly all USAID employees will be laid off under reduction-in-force procedures on July 1 or Sept. 2. The functions of the independent foreign-aid agency are to be absorbed by State, which plans to handle them by bringing on 308 U.S. direct-hire staff, 370 locally employed staff, and 40 personal services contractors. That’s less than one-tenth of USAID’s workforce in fiscal 2024, which had nearly 4,500 domestic direct-hire staff, 5,000 local staff, and more than 1,000 contractors.
In a report issued on Monday, the inspector general’s office found that although State leaders had consulted with its bureaus and offices on the hiring numbers, they made their decisions without a strategic workforce plan.
The Government Accountability Office recommends that “strategic workforce planning should precede any staff realignments or downsizing, so that changed staff levels do not inadvertently produce skills gaps or other adverse effects that could result in increased use of overtime and contracting.”
Auditors also noted that USAID is being closed at the same time as the Trump administration is reviewing its foreign-aid efforts and State leaders are moving quickly to shutter or consolidate more than 300 offices and bureaus.
“Although they are being executed separately, the review of foreign assistance and the department reorganization are interconnected,” the report’s authors wrote. “Consequently, failure to successfully implement the realignment may increase the risk that other reforms could be adversely impacted.”
Investigators also reported that State did not complete an implementation plan for transferring USAID to the department before starting the effort.
“Without a complete implementation plan, the department’s efforts to realign USAID functions will lack transparency and accountability and fail to provide stakeholders with insight regarding intended results and how to achieve those results,” they wrote. “Moreover, the department increases its risk that actions taken prior to implementation plan completion may need to be revised or adjusted.”
The report also warned about the planned closure on or around July 1 of the Assistance Transition Working Group, which is composed of nine department officials who are overseeing the initial realignment. Those officials said the goal is to shift responsibility to State bureaus.
Investigators recommended that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio delegate responsibility of the transfer to the deputy secretary for Management and Resources as well as ensure that bureaus have appropriate resources to handle their new responsibilities. They also suggested that the department complete the realignment implementation plan and develop a strategic workforce plan for the reform efforts.
Rubio currently holds four positions that are normally full-time jobs: Secretary of State, acting national security advisor, acting administrator of USAID, and acting archivist of the United States.
The department generally agreed with the recommendations, and the OIG said the matters are resolved—pending documentation that they have been implemented.
