OCR Layoffs Estimated to Cost Up to $38M, GAO Says

The Education Department has reversed plans to lay off nearly 300 employees in its Office for Civil Rights (OCR), according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released Monday that estimated the reduction in force cost up to $38 million.

The report doesn’t make clear how many of the fired OCR staffers are back at work. In December, the department decided to bring some of the employees back to work before rescinding the layoffs in January. Nearly half of the employees in the civil rights office were laid off in March as part of a broader reduction in force that affected nearly half of ED’s 4,100 employees. The department fired another 137 in October.

Congress reversed the October layoffs, but if both rounds had been successful, OCR would have been left with about 60 employees, down from 575 before President Trump took office, according to the GAO report.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in March that the mass layoffs reflected her department’s commitment to efficiency and accountability and that the agency would continue to uphold its statutory obligations, which includes enforcing federal civil rights laws.

But advocates and Democratic-led states have argued in court filings and statements that the layoffs have hindered the department from effectively enforcing those laws and have left students unprotected. The diminished staff at OCR dismissed more than 70 percent of the 9,000 complaints received from March 11 to Sept. 23, 2025, according to the GAO report.

GAO investigators dinged the department for not documenting the potential costs and savings related to the reduction in force, as the agency was instructed to do in federal guidance about the layoffs. GAO estimated using information provided in court filings that the layoffs cost between $28.5 million and $38 million.

“By not demonstrating that its analyses accounted for all potential costs and savings, and by not documenting such analyses, Education lacks reasonable assurance that its RIF actions achieved the stated goal of reforming the federal workforce to maximize efficiency and productivity,” the GAO report states. “Specifically, Education cannot ensure that OCR improved service to the American people, increased productivity, or reduced its overall budget for fiscal years 2025 through 2027 with its actions.”

ED officials told GAO “they provided information to OMB orally,” and that litigation, employees’ acceptance of buyouts and other factors complicated their analyses and impacted their ability to fully engage with the GAO review.

GAO recommended that ED estimate the full costs and savings associated with the OCR layoffs, but department officials rejected that idea, saying the decision to rescind the layoffs has rendered “the matter moot.”