The Scoop
In a shift from prior administrations, the State Department will impose indefinite suspensions without pay for foreign service employees who have had their security clearances suspended or revoked, according to an internal memo reviewed by Semafor.
The change comes in response to the annual defense policy bill recently passed by Congress, which modified a portion of the Foreign Service Act to now allow the department to implement indefinite suspensions for foreign service employees.
Any foreign service employee with a suspended or revoked security clearance and “are pending a final determination” will be affected — according to the memo, the shift will apply to 35 employees as of May 12.
“Taxpayers should not be footing the bill to fund the salaries of FSOs [foreign service officers] who have had their security clearance revoked and are not eligible to perform their duties,” a senior State Department official said in a statement.
“After two decades of seeking this legislative fix, the State Department under this administration will be enforcing this important accountability measure.”
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The memo notes that civil service employees were already subject to suspensions without pay in the case of a suspended or revoked security clearance that is awaiting a final determination, as well as highlighting the cost savings associated with the move.
“It saves taxpayers the significant direct cost of the pay for those FS employees unable to perform their full duties, as well as the costs associated with maintaining these employees in special status, generally over-complement, which creates additional management challenges, such as finding meaningful, unclassified work,” the memo states.
The department’s latest move is one of several aimed at cutting costs: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also presided over a larger reorganization plan that’s expected to lead to widespread layoffs.
Those layoffs are likely to wait until the Supreme Court weighs in on a lower-court judge’s decision to block the broader reorganization plan, Semafor reported this week.
Notable
- Democratic lawmakers want Secretary of State Marco Rubio to hold off on implementing mass layoffs, The New York Times reported.