WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s campaign to shrink and redistribute the U.S. Department of Education has not eliminated the agency. Instead, employees say it has created a more complicated bureaucracy, with staff spread across federal buildings and education grants routed through systems that were not designed for them. Five Education Department employees who spoke about the changes said the restructuring has made it harder to serve states, schools and students who depend on federal support. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly and feared professional retaliation. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has described the effort as a way to reduce Washington bureaucracy and improve efficiency. The department says its partnerships with other agencies will preserve funding while placing programs with agencies it considers better positioned to administer them. But employees overseeing grants said the transition has required some workers and grant recipients to learn multiple payment and management systems. Attempts to use the Labor Department’s systems for major Education Department grants were halted twice after states raised concerns about technical problems and a lack of trained personnel, according to employees. The next distribution of Title I funding — about $18.4 billion annually for schools serving large numbers of students from low-income families — is scheduled to go through the Education Department’s system on Oct. 1. Employees said the department plans to try Labor’s system again next year. Some smaller competitive grants have already moved to Labor’s platforms. Career and technical education funding was transferred last year, and several states reported receiving payments months late. The department said it has successfully processed more than 7,200 payments totaling over $1.93 billion through Labor’s payment system since Oct. 1, 2025. “It's not efficient for us and it's not efficient for them,” one employee said, describing the transition as haphazard and inadequately trained. Another worker who manages hundreds of millions of dollars in grants said the new process could jeopardize timely assistance for students who need additional support. Bryce McKibben, a Temple University higher education policy expert, said colleges and states have reported difficulty determining where to obtain information as portals and guidance change. He said the disruptions could discourage organizations from seeking federal funds. The reorganization also has physically dispersed hundreds of employees. More than 100 workers in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services began reporting to a Health and Human Services building on Sept. 10. Civil rights employees moved to the Justice Department, while other Education Department employees are relocating from the agency’s longtime headquarters to a smaller building nearby. The moves are being carried out through interagency agreements, a tool federal agencies commonly use to share personnel and resources. The administration’s broad use of those agreements to restructure the Education Department has drawn criticism from lawmakers, including some Republicans, who have called the scope unusual. A special education employee said working with HHS could have practical benefits but questioned the cost of moving staff across the street. The agreement with HHS runs through September 2027, while individual employee assignments are made in renewable 120-day periods, leaving workers uncertain about whether they will move again. The agreements’ total cost remains unclear. Senate Democrats have asked the Government Accountability Office to review the expenses and consequences of the administration’s effort to divide the department. Congress directed the Education Department to provide regular briefings on the agreements, including their cost and effect on grant administration. Congressional staffers said those briefings stopped in June, while the department said it continues to provide updates to committee members. The physical moves may also undermine promised savings. The Education Department said in March that moving from the Lyndon B. Johnson Federal Building to a smaller facility would save about $4.8 million a year. It also said the Department of Energy could avoid more than $350 million in deferred maintenance by moving into the Education building. Those estimates did not include the cost of preparing the building for Energy employees. The House committee overseeing federal buildings moved to make $215 million available for renovations, including the restoration of high-security spaces that had been removed during an earlier modernization project. Government records show about $49 million has been spent on that renovation since 2021, despite an earlier projection of $37 million. Rachel Gittleman, president of the American Federation of Government Employees local representing Education Department workers, said employees moved to other agencies may have desks in as many as three locations: the old Education headquarters, the department’s new office and the agency where they are assigned. “This is not efficiency, this is chaos,” Gittleman said. The administration’s reorganization follows other costly disruptions. A Government Accountability Office review found that the Education Department spent as much as $38 million between March and December 2025 paying employees who were not working after layoffs. During that period, the department resolved more than 7,000 civil rights complaints, with roughly 90% dismissed rather than investigated, according to the watchdog. Despite the uncertainty, employees said they are continuing to work because they believe in the department’s mission. One worker assigned to the Labor Department said the physical and organizational changes have made that mission feel more distant. “I reported to a building this week that doesn’t say ‘education’ anywhere,” the employee said.