Report: DOGE overestimated, backtracked on savings from real estate lease cuts

Since the start of the second Trump administration, the U.S. DOGE Service — aka the “Department of Government Efficiency” — has been a lightning rod of controversy due to the ways it has sought to curtail government costs. It’s done so by slashing federal jobs, ending congressionally-approved programs and maintaining what some have viewed as unclear reporting about its actions.

But a report published Thursday by news outlet NOTUS took a closer look at the real estate contracts impacted by DOGE cuts. It found that 748 terminated federal building leases — and the stated $660 million in savings they would bring — were downwardly revised multiple times over the past two months.

“Had it been accurate, that figure would have represented 10 percent of the total leases managed by the General Services Administration (GSA). … That sum, however, didn’t represent an early marker of progress from the nascent cost-cutting effort,” the analysis determined.

“Instead, it was a high watermark that vastly overstated the amount DOGE had actually saved taxpayers.”

Over a 10-week period, the initial $660 million figure became $500 million, with further revisions pegging the savings at $400 million and eventually settling on $311 million. That was until until Sunday, when a newly released figure clocked in at roughly $262 million in savings, according to the report.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives‘ DOGE subcommittee repeatedly touted the cost savings in hearings — despite the seemingly regular revisions made to the total potential savings for taxpayers.

On President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office — the end of what is often seen as the most productive point of a presidential term — the GSA said the administration had “[t]erminated 595 vacant or underutilized leases, eliminating $298 million in future lease obligations.”

NOTUS undertook “an examination of the current line-item listings on DOGE’s site.” It found that “the specifics it touts as new ‘savings’ were often for moves that long predate this presidency.”

But the practices of DOGE’s reporting have created “headaches” for White House allies on Capitol Hill, the report added.

One example is the planned closure of a Social Security Administration (SSA) office in New York, A Republican lawmaker in the affected district called the closure “laughable” in a recent letter to Lee Dudek, the acting commissioner of SSA. The congressman also took his issues to social media.

NOTUS reported that the closure was planned during the Biden administration, although it was set to happen under the new Trump administration. DOGE “touts it among the cuts on its savings page,” NOTUS explained.