Trump administration leaders at the General Services Administration are looking to cut its governmentwide real estate portfolio by 50% and is pursuing similar cuts to its spending and personnel.
But GSA is seeing some of its biggest headcount reductions within its Public Building Service, its real estate shop that serves as the federal government’s landlord.
According to sources familiar with the situation at GSA, approximately 725 Public Buildings Service employees took the Office of Personnel Management’s “deferred resignation” offer — a nearly 13% reduction of its headcount.
PBS currently has a headcount of about 5,600 employees. The workforce cuts do not include employees in their probationary period that GSA recently fired, or an upcoming reduction in force that will lead to more terminations.
GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian told staff in an email on Monday that the first phase of GSA employees who took the deferred resignation offer have been placed on administrative leave “to begin their next chapter.”
A former GSA employee still involved in the real estate industry raised concerns that the Public Buildings Service is cutting its workforce faster than the agency’s long-standing goal of shrinking its portfolio of government office space.
“You’re talking about getting rid of the people, but you haven’t yet accomplished getting rid of the work that those people are doing,” the former GSA official told Federal News Network. “Get rid of the buildings, then get rid of the property managers who service those buildings, and get rid of the project managers who manage the construction projects at these at these federal buildings.”
PBS accounts for about 40% of GSA’s total workforce.
“You don’t need as many people to operate GSA, especially if you get rid of federal buildings. It’s federal buildings that drive headcount at GSA,” the former official said. “If GSA was purely a leasing organization, the amount of people you need would be drastically reduced.”
Multiple administrations have focused on reducing the federal government’s footprint. GSA leaders under the Biden administration accelerated plans to offload office space that agencies no longer needed.
The former GSA official said funding and administrative hurdles have often held up efforts to reduce office space. But cutting funding and personnel, he added, would only complicate those efforts.
“This isn’t anything new. GSA has been trying to get rid of federal buildings,” the former official said. “There’s laws and policies that stand in their way. And the issue of money — how do you pay to get people out of the buildings? How do you pay to do environmental remediation? There’s a lot that goes into it.”
Federal News Network recently spoke to a former PBS employee who was still in her probationary period and was fired earlier this month. The employee, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation, said she helped GSA terminate leases that were expiring and up for renewal.
Current GSA employees have told Federal News Network that some of the agency’s senior leaders have raised concerns that they’re “losing too many key people” in workforce reduction efforts.
“The people that I personally know who have taken the deferred resignation are the people who have the good, marketable skills,” the former GSA official said. “They’re smart people. They’re motivated. They’re hardworking. And they’re the ones who are going … Those are the people that are leaving the government are exactly the people you want to be to remain there.”
GSA leaders have told staff they are expected to reduce total spending across all programs and personnel by 50%.
“The remaining 50%, you’ve completely demoralized them through the way you’re talking to them, the way you’re treating them,” the former GSA official said. “I feel like they’re shooting themselves in the foot long term.”
Meanwhile, GSA has terminated leases for at least half a dozen Social Security Administration field offices.
A source familiar with the federal real estate industry said GSA has ended leases for the SSA field offices in White Plains, New York; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Meridian, Mississippi; Campbellsville, Kentucky; Greenville, North Carolina and Hazard, Kentucky.
The industry source called the scope of the reductions “unprecedented.” GSA, he added, typically signs five-year leases with the option of renewing for another five years, and that the agency is targeting potentially hundreds of leases that are coming up for renewal.
“Whenever they’re in a renewal situation, they’re looking at them very carefully,” he said.
The industry source said some of the SSA field offices targeted for closure served rural populations, and that the nearest remaining SSA field offices are at least an hour’s drive away.
“These offices are open to the public,” he said. “It’s a service that the federal government provides to anyone who’s got connections with the Social Security Administration. So they’re closing access to the public.”
The industry source called GSA’s strategy was “not smart.” In addition to reducing access to SSA services in these communities, the industry source questioned whether the lease reductions would save GSA money.
“The basic methodology is that GSA puts out a [request for proposals], and then people compete for it, and many times, actually build a building for them. Then it keeps it on the local property tax roll, so that’s advantageous for the community, and the government just leases it,” the source said. “It is much cheaper than the government owning and operating the actual buildings. They’re basically attacking a system that saves the government money, and allows the public to get access to government agencies.”
A GSA spokesperson said in a statement that Acting GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian’s vision for GSA “includes reducing our deferred maintenance liabilities, supporting the return to office of federal employees, and taking advantage of a stronger private/government partnership in managing the workforce of the future.”
“GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization. GSA is actively working with our tenant agencies to assess their space needs and fully optimize the federal footprint, and we’ll share more information on specific savings and facilities as soon as we’re able,” the spokesperson said.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), based on the latest data from its website, claims the federal government has saved more than $144 million by eliminating nearly 100 leases across the U.S. DOGE reports the canceled leases represent more than 2.3 million square feet of building space.
The former GSA official, however, said some of the DOGE’s reported savings include leases that GSA agreed to terminate under the Biden administration.
“We’re already hearing anecdotally … where a letter may go out from DOGE to say, ‘We’re going to terminate this lease.’ But GSA has already been trying to negotiate a buyout of that lease for months. They’re taking a lot of credit, it seems like, for stuff that GSA has already been working on,” the former official said.
In some cases, the former GSA official said the agency is canceling leases years ahead of their renewal.
“All the communication is coming from GSA, but it’s the idea that’s being driven by DOGE. It’s the left hand not talking to the right hand. And so, they’re sending out kind of mixed messages to the ownership group, and in some cases, really harming the negotiation position of the government,” the former official said.
A union representing employees at the National Labor Relations Board said DOGE recently created confusion for staff when its website included its office space in Buffalo, New York, among its list of terminated leases.
An NLRB union official told Federal News Network that the agency told employees in Buffalo that they would be relocating to smaller office space within the same building, and that those plans were finalized under the Biden administration.
“New space had been picked out, designs and details worked out months ago. All we were waiting for was the build-out, to be done so the new lease could be signed,” an NLRB union official told Federal News Network.
According to the union official, the same morning the lease appeared in the DOGE report, the NLRB regional director in the Buffalo office told staff she had been given notice they had 90 days to vacate and that both the current and future lease had been canceled.
The NLRB Union official said GSA later in the day refuted the lease cancellation, and told the NLRB that there was never any intent to cancel the current or future lease.
“Chaos for chaos’ sake, and no other purpose but smoke and mirrors,” the union official said. The National Labor Relations Board did not respond to a request for comment.
The former GSA official said these miscommunications are becoming increasingly common at the agency, because all official communications are coming from agency leadership — not from managers and supervisors below them.
“A manager can call people and say, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on.’ But they can’t send out come sort of formal guidance. GSA HR can’t provide any kind of formal clarification,” the official said. “Basically, anything that’s going to be communicated that’s formal, or a kind of policy position or clarification, it has to be approved at the administrator level.”
The official said this communications environment has created a lot of “hearsay” within the agency
“One of your coworkers may be telling you something that’s absolutely true, [but] it’s all a game of telephone inside of GSA … they’re creating this environment where there’s just no clarity. There’s no source of truth. There’s nothing you can look to say, ‘This is what’s going on. This is information you can rely on.’”
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