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LINCOLN — For more than 15 years, the brick building in south Lincoln has served as a local hub for the U.S. Department of Agriculture — a place where farmers meet face-to-face with federal workers overseeing complex conservation projects on their land.
But last month, a new force in federal government plunged the service center’s future into uncertainty.
The Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, moved to cancel the building’s lease months early and claimed it saved taxpayers more than $62,000. For now, the office is still occupied and the federal government hasn’t banked any savings.
Local critics say closing the public-facing buildings on DOGE’s list would hurt federal workers, farmers seeking guidance on conservation programs and visitors to one of Nebraska’s natural wonders.
When asked about plans for the Lincoln building last week, a manager who emerged from a back office responded with four words: “We don’t know anything.” He declined to give his name.
DOGE reports on its “Wall of Receipts” to have terminated leases for five federal buildings in Nebraska, including a National Park Service visitor center on the Niobrara River and an IRS tax-filing help office in the Panhandle.
A sixth office, the Edward Zorinsky Federal Building in downtown Omaha, appeared on a now-deleted list of “non-core” federally owned buildings that could be sold. The 357,000 squarefoot building hosts employees from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Housing and Urban Development and the IRS.
Federal employees who work in the buildings, landlords who rent them out and U.S. Rep. Don Bacon told the Flatwater Free Press they received little or no advance notice before the lease terminations appeared on DOGE’s website. It’s still unclear whether the federal tenants will actually have to move out and find new offices.
The local lease terminations are a drop in the bucket nationally. DOGE reports it has whacked nearly 800 federal leases, though many of the terminations, including at least four in Nebraska, won’t kick in for months.
Musk and DOGE say the lease terminations target “unused” and “underutilized” buildings and amount to about $500 million in savings. DOGE has not explained how it arrived at that figure and did not respond to questions posed by FFP.
U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, a Republican who represents Lincoln and parts of eastern Nebraska, endorsed DOGE’s efforts to decrease the size of government.
“DOGE has been working to shrink the federal workforce,” Flood said in an emailed statement. “As the federal workforce declines, the need for office space will also decline across the country.”
The U.S. General Services Administration, which leases buildings for the federal government, is working to “secure suitable alternative space” for some agencies as their overall footprints diminish, said agency spokesman Osvaldo Equite, who didn’t respond to specific questions.
At least four of the buildings on the list in Nebraska are currently in use by their respective agencies, according to FFP reporting.
DOGE is terminating leases and other contracts so it can claim premature and inflated savings figures, said Charles Tiefer, a professor emeritus at the University of Baltimore School of Law and federal contracting expert.
It’s also, he said, leaving a wake of wreckage for federal agencies and the people they serve.
“It’s chaos. It’s amateur hour,” Tiefer said. Saving taxpayers money is an admirable goal, but DOGE’s approach is beyond reason, said George Johnson, who leases out the National Park Service visitor center in Valentine to the federal government.
“I think a lot of that inefficiency could have been cured with just a scalpel instead of an ax, and everybody would’ve been happier,” Johnson said. “The way it is now, most people are gonna be pissed off about it.”
Tiefer, the retired law professor, said the DOGE’s unprecedented mass cancellation of leases ignores normal rules for ending federal contracts.
Typically, it’s a back-and-forth conversation where landlords can request funds from the government for the work they’ve put into the property — it’s not as simple as sending a termination email, Tiefer said.
