McMahon confirmation, buyout offer signal new chapter at Education Department

The Department of Education is offering employees a buyout worth up to $25,000 as part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to scale back the federal workforce.

Linda McMahon is set to inherit the downsizing effort after the Republican-controlled Senate voted Monday to confirm her to lead the department. The former professional wrestling executive will be in charge of a federal agency that President Trump wants to dismantle.

Education Department employees had until 11:59 p.m. Monday to accept the buyout offer, according to an email that Jacqueline Clay, a chief human capital officer, sent Friday afternoon.

The resignation would take effect March 31.

“This is a one time offer in advance of a very significant Reduction in Force for the US Department of Education,” Ms. Clay wrote.

The memo said the buyout amount would be “the equivalent of severance pay or $25,000, whichever is less.” Employees who have worked for the federal government for at least three years or received a student loan repayment are ineligible.

Politico first reported the news, before the Department of Education verified the memo had been sent.

The push to gut the Education Department is part of the administration’s broader push to scale down the federal workforce dramatically. Mr. Trump also offered all federal workers eight months salary in exchange for resigning from their positions earlier this year.

Roughly 75,000 federal workers — or about 3% of the civilian workforce — have accepted the deferred buyout, which has survived legal challenges.

Meanwhile, Ms. McMahon is taking over a department that has a $268 billion budget and 4,200 employees but which appears poised for a significant shake-up.

An ally of Mr. Trump, Ms. McMahon led the Small Business Administration over the first two years of his previous term in office.

The Department of Education has long been a favorite target for Republicans and conservatives, who have cast it as a symbol of a bloated government. They hold that states are best equipped to handle local education.

Created in 1979, the Department of Education establishes policies on federal financial aid for education and distributes that money to schools and colleges nationwide.

It also oversees the Title I program that provides supplemental funding to high-poverty K-12 schools and special education programs that provide resources for students with special needs.

In her confirmation hearing, Ms. McMahon said she was focused on making the department “operate more efficiently” and acknowledged that only Congress could close the agency.

She pledged to preserve Title I money for low-income schools, Pell grants for low-income college students, and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

For his part, Mr. Trump pledged on the campaign trail to shutter the department as part of his push to rid American schools of “wokeness” and “left-wing indoctrination.”

Last month, Mr. Trump told reporters he wanted Ms. McMahon to “put herself out of a job.”

The 51-45 Senate vote to confirm the 76-year-old fell along partisan lines.

Before the vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune called Ms. McMahon “an accomplished business woman and public servant” who will seek to “limit bureaucracy, empower state and local governments and let good teachers do what they are best at, and what they love to do and that is to help students succeed.”

The South Dakota Republican said that although Washington only “provides a small percentage of education funding, it is responsible for an outsized amount of the bureaucracy and mandates in education, and more often than not it is these polices that are holding back school districts from innovating and ultimately improving the education they provide.”

However, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Ms. McMahon’s confirmation represents a “slap in the face to students, parents, teachers who care about our public schools.”

“A vote for Ms. McMahon is a vote for draconian cuts to education and rising property taxes for middle class and suburban American families,” the New York Democrat said. “Donald Trump is clear he wants to eliminate the department and push never-before-seen cuts to public schools.”

“Ms. McMahon will make that happen,” he said.

• This article was based in part on wire service reports.