Education Department Has No Top Ethics Official and Reviewed Fewer Than Half of Officials' Financial Disclosures on Time After 2025 Shake-Up, Federal Ethics Office Finds

The U.S. Department of Education currently has no designated agency ethics official, and its ethics staff certified fewer than half of a sample of senior employees' public financial disclosure reports on time last year, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) said in a program review released Oct. 27.

OGE, which oversees ethics programs across the executive branch, reviewed the department's program from January through July 2026, covering calendar year 2025. It issued 14 recommendations.

Education Department Ethics Office Rebuilt After Cuts

According to the report, the department began a reduction in force and reorganization in March 2025 that eliminated the Ethics Division in the Office of the General Counsel. The division was later re-established in the Office of the Secretary.

The department's designated agency ethics official, the official responsible for the program, left at the end of November 2025. A replacement named in December 2025 left in May 2026, and "Education currently does not have an assigned DAEO," the report says. The ethics team now consists of the alternate ethics official, one full-time ethics attorney, two part-time attorneys and four attorneys from the Office of the Inspector General with part-time ethics duties.

The report says ethics officials from the Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration helped rebuild the program, including reviewing nominees' reports and a backlog of disclosure filings. It also says the secretary's initial ethics briefing was given late because of staff turnover, and other appointees were briefed late because ethics officials were furloughed.

Disclosure Reviews Fell Behind

Because employees were not added to the government's filing system on time, OGE said it "could not accurately assess" the department's public financial disclosure system and that the department's master list of 2025 filers "remains a work in progress."

In a sample of 81 public reports, 89% were filed on time but 48% were reviewed and certified within the required 60 days. For new employees' first reports, 8 of 45, or 18%, were certified on time. Three of six Senate-confirmed officials confirmed in 2025 certified their ethics agreements on time.

The department also lost access to its online system for confidential financial disclosure reports in February 2025 after a contract lapsed or was canceled, according to the report. Filers were told to email PDF reports to a shared mailbox, and current ethics officials "only became aware of this issue in early 2026."

Advisory Board Reports Never Certified

OGE also looked at outside experts serving on two department advisory boards. For the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises on college accreditation, 16 of 17 members filed disclosure reports on time, but two were certified on time and 11 were never certified. For the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the Nation's Report Card, 13 of 26 filed on time and 19 of 26 reports were never certified.

In a statement included in the report, the department said "leadership prioritized ethics resources to ensure substantial compliance" during the reorganization, and that "the unprecedented furlough in late 2025 and the departure of the Department's DAEO in December 2025 and again in May 2026 forced the Department to prioritize the highest risk matters." It said it is adopting new procedures for financial disclosure and has waited more than three months for the Office of Personnel Management to complete interviews before the top ethics post can be filled.

OGE said it will conduct follow-up reviews.

Sources: U.S. Office of Government Ethics, "Ethics Program Review: U.S. Department of Education," Report No. 27-01, Oct. 27, 2026 (PDF): https://www.oge.gov/Web/oge.nsf/Ethics%20Docs/2824BF8DAC07B07185258E9D00565335/$FILE/ED%20Plenary%20Report%2027-01.pdf?open ; OGE announcement: https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/News+Releases/41713B955EEA764385258E9D005A65AE?opendocument ; Cover photo: Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building, Washington, D.C. (APK, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)