More than 170 employees of the U. S. Department of Education in Georgia could lose their jobs due to the Trump administration’s plan to reduce the department and the federal workforce. The largest group of workers is from the Federal Student Aid office with 97 employees, followed by the Office for Civil Rights with 46 employees.

Employees learned of the layoffs on the same day the department announced it would cut over 1,300 jobs, impacting nearly half its staff. This includes around 240 layoffs in the Office for Civil Rights, which already had a backlog of complaints.

In Georgia, there are 593 open civil rights cases with the Department of Education since 2011. There is concern that funding cuts may follow job losses, placing a financial burden on local taxpayers, especially in rural districts where federal funding makes up a significant portion of their budgets.