BETSY DEVOS/BUDGET/EDUCATION/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will go before a House panel on Tuesday [3-20-18] to defend her agency’s budget, including a sweeping overhaul of the Education Department that has strained relations within her agency and with Congress — and defies the White House’s budget office.
In recent weeks, Ms. DeVos has clashed fiercely with department staff members over the plan, which they say she tried to withhold from Congress as she imposed on the department what they call an illegal collective bargaining agreement.Ms. DeVos will testify before the House Appropriations Committee, whose staff was told a week ago that her office had withheld vital information from it regarding the department’s budget for the fiscal year that begins in October. The budget request calls for a 5 percent spending cut, eliminates dozens of programs and pitches a $1 billion school choice proposal. It also includes a shake-up of several divisions that is already underway.”
–Erica L. Green, “As DeVos Faces Congress, Officials Say She Hid Plans to Overhaul Department,” The New York Times online, Mar. 20, 2018