DOGE cuts come to Springfield

Springfield
business owner John Chiang received a letter March 10 that landlords dread: a
tenant is breaking its lease.

The tenant is
the U.S. government’s Department of Labor, which rents office space on the
second floor of the building at 3161 W. White Oaks Drive. The building is owned
by Chiang, 82, who also owns the information technology company Novanis that
operates out of the same building.

“In
Springfield, the commercial real estate market is not so great. It could take a
while to fill this vacancy,” he said.

No reason is given
for terminating the lease. But one need only read the national news headlines
to know the driving force behind the cut: the Department of Government
Efficiency, or DOGE.

The
initiative is being headed by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and is
designed to reduce the number of employees working for the federal government
as well as the amount of office space it leases and to trim other expenses. The
Trump administration has announced its intention to cancel 50% of its leases
with private property owners, in addition to closing half of the properties the
government owns.

The “wall of receipts”
on the DOGE website displays lists of grants, contracts and real estate that
have been canceled, along with the purported savings. Under the real estate
heading, there is a list of 748 lease terminations for more than 9.5 million
square feet of space nationwide that DOGE claims will total $468 million in
savings. However, it’s unclear what will happen to the employees of these
offices slated for closure, particularly since the new administration has also
emphasized that federal employees are to return to the office, rather than
working from home.

The Labor
Department’s lease is one of four in Springfield that are being terminated,
according to the DOGE website. The website is less than transparent about what
agencies are being affected. Cuts are listed by the square footage of the lease
being eliminated and the projected cost savings. But addresses and agencies involved
are not always listed.

“These are
just indiscriminate cuts being made to the workforce,” U.S. Rep Nikki
Budzinski, D-Springfield, said. “I think the DOGE approach to this has been
completely wrong, and you’re seeing this across the workforce.”

She said
members of Congress have not been informed on the specifics of the cuts.

“Interestingly,
DOGE posted on a website around 10 different federal facilities within the 13th
Congressional District that were on the chopping block to be closed. And then,
almost in the middle of the night, that website went dark. Now we’ve gotten
indications that the website could potentially be going up again,” she said.

Because of
the opaque nature of the website postings, it is difficult to discern what
offices are slated for closure.

But Illinois Times has confirmed the Wage and Hour Division of Department of Labor, at 3161 W.
White Oaks Dr. Suite 203, is to be closed. According to the DOGE website the
office has 2,128
square feet and is leased for $42,058 annually. It is listed as “termination
via mass mod,” which means the change was part of a revision to multiple contracts
at once. But it was posted on the website for more than a week before Chiang
said he received notification of the cancelation.

Employees within the
office said they weren’t allowed to speak to reporters. Designated
representatives for the agency and the union representing the employees could
not immediately be reached for comment.

The
Small Business Administration office at 3330 Ginger Creek Drive also appears to be on the chopping
block. The 2,022-square-foot office leases for $34,756 annually, according to
the DOGE website. The office was locked with no employees present the morning
of March 11. However, landlord Zach Bromley said he has not received any
notification of a lease termination.

Charles White, who was the lender relations
specialist for the Springfield branch office, sent a farewell email to his
business contacts on Feb. 26 stating that he had “opted to accept President’s
Trump deferred resignation.” He provided two names of other employees who would
be “contact points with SBA moving forward.” According to the SBA website,
those individuals work out of the Chicago office, which is the only other SBA
office in the state. White did not respond to inquiries from IT seeking
further comment.

A “departmental
management IG” office was also listed for closure on the DOGE website. The
U.S.
Inspector General has a Springfield office at 1124 Rickard Road, but a spokesperson
for the landlord said March 11 that they have not received any notification of
a lease termination. The website lists the office to be closed as 3,253 square
feet with a $63,848 annual lease.

Three of the Springfield
properties listed on the DOGE website are categorized as “terminated via mass
mod.” The fourth, described as a “public buildings service – field office,” states
a lease termination notice was sent Jan. 30 with a termination effective date
of April 29. The site is described as 3,860 square
feet with a $62,102 annual lease.

“This
is a reckless approach to how they’re trying to address efficiencies,”
Budzinski said. “They’re making a lot of mistakes. People are losing their
jobs, and people are also losing access to critical public services.”

Budzinski
said it is unclear just how many people may lose their jobs because of the
cuts.

“We’re
looking for answers to confirm the list that was preliminarily posted on a
website – if the Trump administration is taking the next steps to actually
close them. But the uncertainty is that they took that website down,” she said.

“We’re
going to continue to ask questions, and we’re going to continue to advocate
that each of those offices remain open as we believe constituents are taking
advantage of accessing public government services at each of those locations,”
Budzinski said.

Budzinski
added she supports cutting waste and making government more efficient but said
there needs to be a more deliberative process in reaching these goals.

She
added, “This is a chainsaw effort when it should be more of a scalpel approach
to taking on government efficiencies.”

This article appears in Opioid overdoses increase.