USAID’s information technology team is down to five members

The information technology staff of the now-hobbled U.S. Agency for International Development is down to a skeleton crew capable of providing only limited support, FedScoop has learned. 

The group is what remains of a once-large team as the Trump administration massively scales down American foreign aid and questions emerge about the future of USAID assets and the security of government data.

Only three information technology operations employees, a project manager and a contracting officer are currently working on the agency’s IT staff, according to someone within USAID.  That’s a tiny fraction of the approximately 100 or so staffers devoted to IT before the Trump administration started in January. 

“We are committed to implementing President Trump and Secretary Rubio’s foreign policy objectives by being as innovative, nimble, and focused as possible,” a State Department spokesperson told FedScoop in response to a request for comment. Calls to the USAID number for media listed on the State Department website did not go through. 

Jason Gray, the chief information officer who briefly served as acting administrator of the agency, is now assisting the front office with their plans for USAID, the agency source said. He’s also helping to manage account activation, another USAID source said. 

Employees behind the Information Assurance team, which managed compliance management focused on cybersecurity and privacy, are all on administrative leave, one source said. Contractors have also been removed. 

The future of USAID is still unclear. A federal judge recently found that USAID’s shuttering could be unconstitutional, though the Trump administration is likely to appeal the ruling. According to a memo obtained by Reuters, officials are now interested in turning USAID into the U.S. Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance, which would become part of the State Department and only focus on food security, global health, and disaster response. 

Yet efforts to move technical systems appear to be continuing. To facilitate the transfer of some USAID assets to the State Department, leadership created a small Coordination Support Team with members from both agencies back in February. Jeremy Lewin, a Department of Government Efficiency member and Harvard-trained attorney, has since disbanded the group, several sources confirmed, and according to a late March email viewed by FedScoop. 

The email said that the shuttering of the team would not result in any personnel actions or impact existing permissions and bilateral communications between the two agencies. The email mentioned that the reformed USAID would have a more long-term structure for communications between the two agencies. 

Meanwhile, USAID employees abroad still have access to their devices, some of which carry valuable government data. These employees are on administrative leave and have not received reduction-in-force correspondence or instructions on how to handle their government-furnished equipment, sources told FedScoop. 

According to an employee at USAID, there seemed at one point to be discussions about having USAID employees stationed abroad bring their government devices to U.S. embassies, where State Department employees could process the equipment. The status of that plan is unclear. 

USAID employees based in the U.S. who received reduction-in-force letters were told to return their devices when going into the office to obtain their personal belongings. 

The USAID website is still offline and the URL only displays a post about administrative leave.