McMahon plans $43,279 in office furniture as Education Dept shrinks

Education Secretary Linda McMahon plans to spend $43,278.64 on new furniture for her office, according to records reviewed by The New York Times. The purchase comes as McMahon works to close the department she leads. On Oct. 28, two Senate Democrats asked her to cancel it.

The Times reported that the department notified Congress of the plan in September. The records had not been publicly disclosed. A senior department official told the Times the costs include a new desk, a conference table, chairs and other items, according to the version of the Times report republished by GV Wire. McMahon’s communications office did not respond to the Times’ request for an itemized breakdown.

What the department says

McMahon’s team told Congress her current furniture is worn out and “cannot be configurationally or aesthetically integrated into the agency’s new office space,” the Times reported.

Press secretary Savannah Newhouse told the Times the agency was “saving taxpayers millions of dollars.” She added: “Believe it or not, just like in the private sector, new federal offices need places to sit, write and meet.”

The senators’ letter

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that covers education, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the vice chair of the full Appropriations Committee, wrote to McMahon on Oct. 28, according to a press release posted by WisPolitics. They cited the same $43,278.64 figure.

The senators asked McMahon to scrap the planned purchases and to provide a full accounting of how and why taxpayer funds are being used for the furniture. They also asked her to refocus the department on helping students and to restore congressionally mandated funding.

“You vowed to put yourself out of a job,” the senators wrote, according to the release. They also wrote: “The American people are sick of the corruption, sick of the waste, and sick of the hypocrisy.” The letter says the department has pushed out nearly half of its staff and asked Congress to cut funding for higher education programs by nearly $5 billion.

The move and the staffing

In March, McMahon announced that the department would leave its seven-story building in southwest Washington, where employees have worked since 1961, the Times reported. The new headquarters is one block south, in a privately owned building formerly used by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration closed last year.

According to the General Services Administration, the new space is 80% smaller than the old building’s roughly 386,600 square feet of usable space. McMahon said in March that 70% of the old headquarters was vacant and that the move would save about $5 million a year. Two people familiar with the planning told the Times the federal government needs about $13 million to renovate the new space.

The Energy Department is slated to take over the old building, the Times reported. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee estimates that remodeling it will cost $215 million.

Federal workforce data show the department has about 2,300 employees, down from about 4,100 at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to the Times. The Times reported that McMahon told staff on her first day that their “final mission” was to help shut the agency down. She has overseen the firing of hundreds of workers and moved major functions to the Labor and Justice departments and other parts of the executive branch. Special education services are moving to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Republican-controlled Congress has not passed legislation to close the department, the Times reported. The Senate education committee has advanced a bill that would block the administration from transferring major Education Department offices to other agencies.

Earlier office spending episodes

The Times noted two earlier cases. In 2017, Housing Secretary Ben Carson planned to spend $31,500 on a custom mahogany dining room set but canceled the purchase. In 2018, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt spent $43,000 on a soundproof phone booth. The Government Accountability Office found the spending broke the law because the EPA had not notified Congress of cumulative office spending above $5,000. Pruitt resigned later that year.

During Trump’s first term, the Education Department spent nearly $50 million renovating its building, the Times reported: $36.7 million in 2019 and $12.5 million in 2020.