Education Secretary Linda McMahon is spending more than $43,000 on new office furniture even as she pushes Congress to close her department, The New York Times reported. Her office won’t say exactly what the money is buying.
According to Education Department records reviewed by the Times that haven’t been publicly disclosed, McMahon’s team told Congress her current furniture is worn out. The team said it “cannot be configurationally or aesthetically integrated into the agency’s new office space.”
A senior department official told the Times the $43,278.64 tab covers a new desk, a conference table, chairs and other items. McMahon’s communications office did not respond to the Times’ request for a detailed breakdown.
The new furniture is headed for a smaller headquarters. McMahon announced in March that the department would leave the building in southwest Washington it has occupied since 1961. It is moving one block south into a privately owned building that once housed the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration shut down last year.
McMahon has said the move will save about $5 million a year in operating costs. She has credited “unprecedented progress in reducing the federal education footprint,” part of her work toward President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate the department.
McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who co-founded WWE with her husband, Vince McMahon, has overseen deep staff cuts at the department since taking office.