Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

State Dept. Reform Plan Aims to Couple Drastic Cuts With Making Employees’ Lives Easier

The Guardian: The State Department insisted on Tuesday it is not aiming to shrink the influence of its workforce or the role of U.S. diplomacy in the world, saying during a congressional hearing the cost cutting it achieves through its redesign would instead free its employees from burdensome bureaucratic hurdles.

State has built a bottom-up model for its reorganization, Deputy Secretary John Sullivan told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, noting 72 percent of the members of the redesign team were “working-level employees.” Secretary Rex Tillerson wanted career employees to “drive this process from beginning to end,” Sullivan said, so the department and the U.S. Agency for International Development could better serve them.

“Their presence and contribution proved to be invaluable,” Sullivan said.

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