New GAO Report Analyzes RIF Impact on OCR
A General Accountability Office (GAO) report made public this week focuses on the impact of the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) reduction-in-force (RIF) of Office of Civil Rights (OCR) personnel. In March 2025, OCR issued RIF notices to about half of its workforce—299 of 575 staff—and closed seven of its 12 regional offices, placing affected employees on paid administrative leave and prohibiting them from working. According to the GAO, ED’s court filings indicate that paying salaries and benefits for these staff between March 21 and December 12, 2025, cost between $28.5 million and $38 million while they were on payroll but prohibited from working. An additional 137 OCR staff were RIF’ed in October, but their jobs were restored in November.
The report notes, “As of December 9, 2025, Education officials said the agency remained committed to the RIF and would work to officially separate these staff in the future. As of early January 2026, Education had rescinded the RIF notices to OCR staff in both the March 2025 and October 2025 groups.” The report also notes that from March 11 to September 23, 2025, OCR received over 9,000 discrimination complaints and resolved more than 7,000. However, approximately 90 percent of those complaints were dismissed.
The nature of cases remains unclear: ED “has not made information available on the nature of the investigations it has opened, including the type of discrimination involved. OCR historically maintained a list on its public website of the institutions it was investigating but has not updated this list since January 2025.” Close to half of OCR complaints in recent years have involved students with disabilities.
Read the full report here.