The State Department goes ahead with a plan aimed at eliminating or consolidating more than 300 of its offices and offices, according to documents provided to legislators and employees on Thursday, resulting in a reduction of more than 3,400 employees and 45% of its structural entities.
Changes, described in the multiple documents obtained by Director of Government And Nextgov / FCWThe “bureaucratic proliferation” and rationalization functions will be addressed with responsibilities that overlap, said the ministry, although certain important reforms of office missions are also included in reorganization. The plans presented on Thursday offer more details than those First presented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in April, although the number of employees’ discounts has been reported for the first time by Director of Government Earlier this month.
While the State eliminates a multitude of offices across the department, it reaffaches a large part of the functions affected elsewhere. The workforce of the workforce comes from a reference base of the levels of personnel according to May 4, which means that any attrition which occurred before this date will not count for the objective.
Releases exempt passport and visa operations with consular cases, as well as special agents in the active cases of the application of laws and regional staff assigned to a specific country office. The cuts will have only an impact on national staff, although the civil and exterior service personnel will be dismissed, according to documents.
“Rif’s plans have been carefully adapted, in accordance with the applicable law, to preserve the basic functions,” said State in a document prepared for Capitol Hill. “Reductions will mainly affect non -essential functions, duplicate or redundant offices and offices where considerable efficiency can be found from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities.”
This is where the state cuts will take place, by division:
- The Division of Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, or the “family E”, provides for Rif 198 employees and 99 others voluntarily leave. This will lead to a 42% reduction in this team.
- The Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs Division, or “F / J Family”, provides for rif 386 employees and to see 145 others go voluntarily. This division will be reduced by 69%.
- The management division, or “family M”, plans to dismiss 897 employees and let another 796 go by deferred resignations. This will lead to a reduction of approximately 15% of the staff.
- The Division of Political Affairs, or “F family”, provides for rif 112 employees and to lose 162 others by resignation. This was equivalent to discounts of around 14%.
- Public diplomacy and public affairs, or “R” family, plans to fire 88 employees and see 80 others go voluntarily. This is equivalent to a decrease of about 22%.
- The office of the secretary of state Marco Rubio, or “family S”, will only dismiss 51 employees and 189 others registered to resign. About 12% of the office will be reduced.
- Army control and international security division, or “T family”, provides for Rif 141 employees and allowing 104 others to go voluntarily. This will lead to a reduction of approximately 22% of this team.
The state plans to finish its implementation of the reorganization by July 1 and, as it makes changes, it “will communicate them to the workforce”, said the ministry in a document “fnceuly asked questions”. He has already incorporated the comments of the workforce and the congress, said the ministry.
This reminded the staff that their office disappearing from the organizational table does not necessarily mean that they will be dismissed. Some employees will simply be reassigned. The ministry has asked employees to ensure that their personal contact details are up to date.
While agents of the external service will be affected by layoffs, the ministry said that its human resources team will work with staff whose next assignments have been eliminated to find new roles.
It was not immediately clear how the decision to continue the reorganization plan – and to send Rif’s opinions by July 1 – will comply with a Order ordered by the Tribunal Posts a state and 19 other agencies to make these changes. The state did not respond to a request for comments.
New structures
The state will eliminate many of the offices from its civil security division, human rights and democracy, which, according to the ministry, had become “subject to ideological capture and radicalism”.
Offices such as democracy, human rights and work (DRL) and the population, refugees and migration (PRM) will now fall under the under-secretary for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs.
DRL will assume a “leaner” portfolio, said State, which will reflect “diplomacy -based diplomacy (based) in the traditional Western conceptions of fundamental freedoms”. A familiar external service agent with the Office qualified the “substantial” change of change in the mission of the office. The global division wasting humanitarian and foreign assistance, according to employees, will be “completely decimated”.
A new security affairs office will be resistant to the International Organization Bureau Affairs – which draws up an American policy with the United Nations – which would merge the coverage of the United Nations, sanctions and counter -terrorism operations office, said a memo.
This same memo has detailed several other office consolidations. The unity of European and Eurasian affairs, for example, will merge the coverage of the Russian nations and the Caucus in a new office of Russian and Caucus affairs, he says. And at the Affairs Office of South and Central Asia, the Coordinator of Afghan Rafocation efforts and the special representative of Afghan reconstruction will be closed, this note has added. Their functions should be transferred to the Office of Afghan Affairs.
A major restructuring of the under-secretary of arms control and the international family of international security “consolidates almost all programs focused on the security of the department in a new vertical focused on the resolution of contemporary security and military challenges”, also indicated reading.
International narcotics and the police will now be nested for this arms control family, and a pair of armaments and non-proliferation control offices will merge in a single weapon and non-proliferation office, he said.
A new office of the Office of Political-Military Affairs, nicknamed the State Exchange Office, will combine the current offices of political and military advisers. The Military Political Affairs Bureau works with the Ministry of Defense to advance the objectives of military and national security.
The State Department has repeatedly said that its reorganization would empower regional offices and rationalize decision -making. An external service agent said it was difficult to see how it takes place.
“It does not seem simpler, and they take completely different functions and suddenly suited them together to create offices from Frankenstein,” said the employee.
In a separate memo, a report to the congress on the structure of the cyberspace and digital policy office argued that changes Being made at the office will further improve the cybersecurity efforts of the State Department. “The secretary … also examined the internsitutions actions and concluded that the proposed goes further in the wider interests of the United States and the federal government,” he said. Politico reported for the first time The planned reshuffle of the cyberspace unit.
There were bipartite concerns with regard to the rupture of this cyber office, according to the summary of a meeting which Director of Government And Nextgov / FCW previously reported. The work of the office focused on digital freedom will be integrated into the subsecretary office in public diplomacy and public affairs.
The State Intelligence and Research Office, a community intelligence office that protects the agency’s top secret networks and produces information to clarify diplomatic decisions, has been shifted under a new emerging threat office, because reported earlier. This office emerges threats will focus on areas such as cybersecurity and proliferating concerns about artificial intelligence.
