WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS), announced she led her colleagues in calling on the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s moves to illegally dismantle and eventually abolish the Department of Education (ED). Specifically, the Senators are probing Trump’s push to transfer Education grant programs to agencies with no expertise in education policy, such as the Department of Labor (DOL), as Trump looks to offload programs from ED in his pursuit of shutting down the Department.
“We are deeply concerned that the administration’s decisions to [transfer] grant programs in this manner delayed crucial funding that millions of students and schools rely on, created administrative inefficiencies, increased the cost of program administration, and compromised the quality of technical assistance provided to states and grantees,” wrote Baldwin and the Senators.
In May 2025, the Trump administration formalized an interagency agreement (IAA) through which it moved the day-to-day management of career and technical education and adult education grant programs, including Perkins V and AEFLA, from ED to DOL. Perkins V grants annually provide over $1.4 billion in funding for career and technical education programs for about 11 million students around the country. AEFLA provides over $700 million in annual funding for adult education opportunities, most often for people without a high school degree or who are English language learners. In 2024, AEFLA served about 1.3 million adult students.
ED is reportedly paying DOL around $1 million to cover the cost of administering these programs during FY25 and FY26. Public reporting suggests that the transfer of these programs has been deeply flawed, leading to weeks-long delays in grant disbursements and harming students and schools.
In November 2025, ED announced six additional IAAs, pointing to the May IAA as a template for their work to dismantle the Department. These IAAs transferred significant responsibilities for grant administration for dozens of programs for early childhood, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education out of ED.
The lawmakers asked GAO to investigate these IAAs — and any future IAAs — and the agreements’ impacts on program costs, timely access to funding, access to services, and quality of technical assistance for grantees.
The letter is also led by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Patty Murray (D-WA).
Full text of the letter can be found here.
An online version of this release is available here.
