Marco Rubio submits plan to overhaul US State Department
The US State Department on Thursday notified Congress of plans for a major reorganisation that would cut thousands of jobs and focus the department on promoting 'America's interests'.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the department needed slimming down after decades of bureaucratic bloat that had brought spiralling costs with no gains for US citizens. Mr Rubio first announced the reorganisation in April, ordering officials to assess how many jobs would be cut in the closure of 132 bureaux and offices and the merging of others.
'Since my first day as Secretary, I have said that this Department must move at the speed of relevancy and, in April announced a broad reorganisation of the Department to better achieve that goal,' Mr Rubio said in a statement. 'The plan submitted to Congress … will result in a more agile Department, better equipped to promote America's interests and keep Americans safe across the world.'
Mr Rubio also posted a link to a Fox News story saying the department plans to merge or eliminate more than 300 offices and bureaus.
An executive summary of the proposal, seen by Reuters, said nearly 45 per cent of the department's domestic offices would be merged, eliminated, consolidated or streamlined in the reorganisation.
The department plans to cut thousands of US-based workers, reducing its civil service and foreign service domestic workforce by 3,448 people, according to the congressional notification, out of the 18,780 people as of May 4.
Nearly 2,000 of those will be subject to job cuts while more than 1,500 will be deferred resignations. No job cuts are planned for locally employed staff or US personnel posted overseas.
The State Department published a new organisation chart showing that a new under secretary of state position would be created to oversee foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs, which will include much of the work previously done by the US Agency for International Development, which was eliminated by Elon Musk and the Department for Government Efficiency.
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