Tillerson spent $12 million on consultants for State Department redesign
Source: ABC News
By CONOR FINNEGAN Apr 6, 2018, 12:40 AM ET
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been heavily criticized within his department and by outside experts for his support for President Donald Trump's deep budget cuts to diplomacy. But newly reported numbers show that while he pushed to downsize, he was spending millions of dollars asking outside firms how to do it.
Over course of less than a year, the State Department spent a total of $12 million on 45 consultants to develop a plan on how to reform the agency and reduce its size, a spokesperson for the department confirmed to ABC News. At the same time, the Trump administration proposed two budgets that both slashed funding for State and U.S. Agency for International Development by about one-third.
The expenses were part of Tillerson's "redesign" effort, a campaign much-maligned among rank-and-file members of the agency, in particular because it lead to buyouts, a hiring freeze that ended only after Tillerson was fired, and a freeze on employees' spouses working at embassies and consulates overseas.
Tillerson once called it "the most important thing I want to do during the time I have," but after he was fired, much of the project's future remains in doubt -- and with the news that amid proposed budget cuts he spent $12 million on consultants, employees left in its wake are furious.
PHOTO: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson greets U.S. Department of State employees in the Dean Acheson Auditorium of the Department of State, May 3, 2017, in Washington, D.C.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tillerson-spent-12-million-consultants-state-department-redesign/story?id=54275966
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