Vought Agrees to Delay CFPB Funding Slash as Layoffs Continue

Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Russell Vought agreed to hold off on zeroing out the agency’s budget for at least two weeks even as he moves to slash its workforce, according to court filings.

Vought and the city of Baltimore want to let Judge Adam B. Abelson in the US District Court for the District of Maryland determine on the merits whether the acting director has the authority to transfer money in CFPB reserve accounts and take other measures to reduce its available cash, according to a joint motion for a briefing schedule filed late Thursday.

In a separate case, the National Treasury Employees Union filed a motion late Thursday to block Vought from dismantling the CFPB. Since taking over as acting chief one week ago, Vought effectively stopped all the CFPB’s work, halted more than $100 million in vendor contracts, and started laying off dozens of staff members.

In Baltimore’s case, the two sides agreed that Vought would hold off on transferring money out of the CFPB’s reserve fund or returning any money to the Federal Reserve or Treasury Department until Feb. 28, or upon a “contrary order” from the court.

The agency’s funding in the meantime would remain as it was on Feb. 13. The CFPB has around $711 million in its reserve fund, Vought said in a Feb. 8 post on Elon Musk’s X social media platform announcing he wouldn’t request the agency’s next funding draw from the Federal Reserve. The agency gets its money through Fed transfers, not from Congress.

Baltimore and Economic Action Maryland Fund sued Vought and the CFPB on Feb. 12, alleging the acting CFPB director is attempting to illegally shutter a congressionally created federal agency.

Baltimore relies on CFPB consumer complaint data to protect its citizens and carry out other functions, the complaint said.

The parties also agreed to convert Baltimore’s motion for a temporary restraining order into a request for a preliminary injunction, according to court papers.

Layoffs Continue

Meanwhile, Vought is pressing ahead in his efforts to gut the CFPB’s workforce.

As many as 100 “term” employees—career civil servants who have contracts with specific end-dates—were fired on Thursday. Those included fellows, members of the director’s “Financial Analyst” program, and technologists hired to review Big Tech’s moves into consumer finance.

Vought is prepping to fire as much as 95% of the agency’s staff as early as Friday, according to an amended complaint the National Treasury Employees Union filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The union followed up with a motion late Thursday and an accompanying brief Friday asking for a limited administrative stay and a temporary restraining order to block Vought.

Several CFPB employees, including those in roles mandated by Congress, were locked out of their phones and computers and received form termination letters Thursday, the union said. One of those employees was Julia Barnard, the CFPB’s student loan ombudsman since February 2024, according to the union’s brief. The student loan ombudsman is a position mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB.

Barnard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on LinkedIn.

“The law doesn’t permit this wholesale dismantling of an agency created by Congress—and the tremendous harms that flow from it,” the Friday brief said. “Neither the President nor his appointees have the constitutional authority to eliminate an agency created by statute.”

Democracy Forward Foundation represents the Baltimore plaintiffs. Gupta Wessler LLP and Public Citizen Litigation Group represent the NTEU and other plaintiffs who joined the suit.

The cases are Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. CFPB, D. Md., No. 1:25-cv-00458, Joint Motion for Briefing Schedule 2/13/25 and NTEU v. Vought, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00381, Motion for Limited Administrative Stay and Temporary Restraining Order 2/13/25.