An email Runcie sent to his staff Tuesday night, obtained by The Washington Post, shows some of his thinking about the situation. In the email, Runcie said he declined to testify because Jay Hurt, the chief financial officer at FSA, is the expert and the point man at the agency on the subject. Runcie said that the department has spent considerable time and resources to ensure the Jay is well prepared for the testimony and he had not heard a single compelling reason from DeVoss staff as to why he needed to attend the hearing.
In less dire circumstances, I would consider testifying as I have done on five previous occasions. However
I am incredibly concerned about significant constraints being placed on our ability to allocate and prioritize resources, make decisions and deliver on the organizations mission, Runcie wrote.
He continued: We have dozens of pages of decisions that have been typically made within Federal Student Aid that are now required to be elevated to the Department level. Once at the Department level, the decision making framework and process is not clear to anyone at FSA and the cycle time continues to increase risk for our work streams and stakeholders.
Runcie said in the letter that the student aid office is contending with pressing projects. Among them: weighing a student-loan-servicing contract bid, shoring up cybersecurity, building out the expansion of the Pell Grant program, tending to loan forgiveness for defrauded borrowers and getting the tax-data-retreival tool in the financial aid application back online. He said his team has asked DeVos to hire staff for additional help but has yet to receive a response.
Instead, Runcie said, the Trump administration has been preoccupied with transferring all or a portion of the functions of FSA to the Treasury Department. Runcie said there have been discussions about creating cross-agency teams, holding numerous meetings and retreats to determine feasibility.
This is just another example of a project that may provide some value but will certainly divert critical resources and increase operational risk in an increasingly challenging environment, Runcie said of the Treasury collaboration.
He went on to thank his team but said he has been encumbered from exercising my authorities to properly lead and could no longer in good conscience continue to be accountable as the chief operating officer given the risk associated with the current environment at the department.
Senior officials within FSA, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said Runcies departure left many in the financial aid office befuddled and, in some cases, in tears. One 25-year veteran of the department said Runcie had the respect of leaders in the office because of his dedication to a difficult job, but Runcie refused to be thrown to the wolves at the hearing.
The official said the administration has shown a lack of respect for civil servants at the department, even though DeVos publicly praised their work when she first took office. The secretary also has said she is keeping an eye out for employees sympathetic to the Obama administration who might try to subvert the mission of the department.
Any person with knowledge of Federal Student Aids operations understands that FSA has faced a litany of unsolved problems going back years, Hill, the spokeswoman, said. The Secretary looks forward to finding a highly qualified candidate to effectively lead FSA and maintain the publics trust in this agency so important to students.
Matthew Sessa, the deputy chief operating officer of FSA, will assume Runcies duties until further notice.
It is deeply troubling to see that Department of Education civil servants do not feel they can adequately do their jobs in the current environment under Secretary DeVos and feel the need to resign in protest, said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. This kind of chaos, mismanagement, and undue political interference is not a surprise, but it is still deeply disappointing.
