Washington, DC – Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding answers regarding the administration’s illegal dismantling of USAID and its transfer of USAID’s staffing and responsibilities to the State Department. The Ranking Member outlines concerns that Secretary Rubio’s drastic staffing cuts and personnel decisions fail to retain the talent and technical capacity needed to meet our national security priorities and wastes U.S. taxpayer dollars. 

The full text of the letter can be found below. A PDF copy can be found here.  

Dear Secretary Rubio:  

I am writing to express my deep concern that in the process of illegally dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and transferring its duties and responsibilities to the Department of State, the Department is failing to retain the talent and technical capacity needed to administer USAID programs. The wholly insufficient retention of USAID personnel both in Washington, D.C., and at posts globally caused by your haphazard staffing plans poses tremendous risk to both the Department and the United States. Without sufficient personnel to provide oversight and enforce controls, foreign assistance programs are left vulnerable to mismanagement, waste, and increased liability.  

State Department leadership recently informed the House Foreign Affairs Committee that you intend to hire approximately 800 people to handle the programming and responsibilities being subsumed into the Department from USAID. The process utilizes Schedule A appointments for Washington, DC-based positions and Limited Non-Career Appointments (LNA) for overseas positions. Importantly, in most, if not all, cases, USAID personnel will not be offered the opportunity to transfer jobs directly between USAID and the State Department. Instead, you are firing employees from USAID and then rehiring them at the State Department, often for the exact same job, but with fewer benefits, reduced pay, and less job security. This is not just inefficient and wasteful—it’s deeply demoralizing for dedicated public servants who have spent years advancing U.S. interests abroad. From a government efficiency and anti-waste perspective, this process makes no sense. It also appears to violate 5 U.S.C. 3503, which is meant to protect employees when functions transfer between agencies.  

The notion that 800 people could adequately manage, administer, and oversee the foreign assistance programs being transferred from USAID to the State Department – which include life-saving global health and humanitarian activities as well as billions of dollars in congressionally-mandated development assistance funding – lacks credibility. Simply put, your short-sighted approach won’t just waste taxpayer dollars, it will cost lives.  

Of additional concern is that embassies are advertising Senior Program Management Specialist positions (responsible for the management of foreign assistance) as open to Eligible Family Members (EFM) and Members of Household (MOH). While EFMs and MOHs provide many essential services to our government overseas, and I greatly value their contributions, senior program management positions require specific skills. Responsibility for government grants and contracts brings with it personal and professional liability. Unless an EFM or MOH already possesses these skills and experience, the State Department’s approach to hiring demonstrates both a significant lack of understanding regarding the technical capabilities and accountability needed for these positions. It further demonstrates the complete absence of foresight in planning for the transfer of these programs.  

An orderly process to reform foreign assistance and ensure continuity of programs and human resource capacities would have been possible if you had chosen to work with Congress, but instead you chose to force through a chaotic and haphazard process with arbitrary deadlines that now leaves our foreign assistance open to the very waste, fraud, and abuse your personnel and organizational moves have failed to address.  

The Committee continues to have many outstanding questions about your efforts to dismantle USAID, including on how you are handling the transfer of personnel. I request that you please respond in writing to the following questions by July 23, 2025:  

1. Was a cost-benefit or other analysis done on the cost of offboarding, severance payments, and/or retirement payments for USAID personnel who have been hired or will be hired at the State Department to carry out responsibilities transferred from USAID to State? What is the cost of these actions?  

2. How many embassies have advertised, are advertising, or will advertise foreign assistance program management positions as open to EMFs and/or MOHs? How many such positions have been advertised, are being advertised, or will be advertised as open to EMFs and/or MOHs?  

3. What are the required technical skills for foreign assistance program management positions?  

4. How is the Department ensuring that people with appropriate grant and contract technical and management skills are being hired for positions that oversee or manage foreign assistance?