Tillerson may cut 2,300 jobs at State Department

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is proposing to eliminate 2,300 jobs as part of a plan to cut more than a quarter of the State Department’s budget for the next fiscal year, officials said Friday. The plan will almost certainly meet resistance from lawmakers opposing President Trump’s effort to shrink the size of the federal government.

Tillerson’s plan reduces the number of new diplomats being hired and includes the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development’s possible consolidation, according to officials briefed on the proposal. The staff cuts would amount to about 3 percent of the department’s roughly 75,000strong workforce.

The proposal is a response to the Office of Management and Budget’s call to slash the State Department and USAID budgets by 31 percent through deep cuts to foreign aid and other programs, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

In an interview with NPR that aired on Friday, Tillerson said he intended to reorganize the department to make it more efficient and focused.

“What we really want to do is examine the process by which the men and women — the career foreign service people, the civil servants, our embassies — how they deliver on that mission,” he said.

Cutting more than a quarter of State Department’s current $50.1 billion budget would require dramatic reductions in programs and staffing, cuts that many in Congress oppose.

The State Department declined to comment on the job reductions, and officials cautioned that plans are tentative until the budget is submitted to Congress next month. Tillerson will outline plans to State Department staffers next week, officials said. Tillerson hasn’t addressed State Department workers since his first day on the job in February.