DOGE now says it's terminated 16 leases for federal offices in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- An update from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) now shows the new agency claims to have terminated 16 leases for office space federal agencies were using in Wisconsin.
As of last week, DOGE's website listed four locations where leases were terminated in Wisconsin, including one in Milwaukee. The agency, operating under the oversight of President Donald Trump's billionaire special advisor, Elon Musk, added another 12 leases to its online database in an update Sunday.
The new locations include:
- Internal Revenue Service, La Crosse, 2,165 sq. ft., $36,199 annual rent
- Bureau of Indian Affairs, Ashland, 34,970 sq. ft., $649,408 annual rent
- Bureau of Indian Affairs, Shawano, 1,990 sq. ft. $36,395 annual rent
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Admin., Madison, 2,477 sq. ft., $50,150 annual rent
- Office of US Attorneys, Green Bay, 5,364 sq. ft., $71,009 annual rent
- Rural Housing Service, Stevens Point, 15,843 sq. ft., $448,204 annual rent
- Departmental Management - IG, Madison, 1,486 sq. ft., $37,494 annual rent
- Food and Drug Administration, Madison, 2,975 sq. ft., $121,221 annual rent
- Federal Highway Administration, Madison, 6,254 sq. ft., $204,103 annual rent
- Food and Drug Administration, Wauwatosa, 6,757 sq. ft., $187,375 annual rent
- Social Security Administration, Wausau, 1,851 sq. ft., $34,211 annual rent
- National Labor Relations Board, Milwaukee, 10,226 sq. ft., $258,805 annual rent
It was unclear Tuesday what the exact status was for each of the locations. On Monday afternoon, a person who answered the phone at the National Labor Relations Board office in Milwaukee said the office was still open, and they were unaware of any lease being terminated.
On Tuesday afternoon, a CBS 58 reporter rang the doorbell at the Food and Drug Administration's office on Mayfair Road in Wauwatosa. Someone answered but said they couldn't comment on the office's status, while another person answered the door and took down the reporter's contact information.
Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the Department of Health and Human Services provided additional detail about the Wauwatosa office as of Tuesday evening.
The office, in a very nondescript setting, appeared to largely be housing physical paper files.
The only other office in southeast Wisconsin is a Milwaukee location for the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA.) That office was on the initial list of closures, posted last week.
There were still U.S. government cars parks in spots reserved for DCMA personnel at the downtown Schiltz Park office complex. However, nobody answered the door at the office Tuesday, and when a reporter peered through a crack between the two locked doors, it appeared the lights were off with nobody inside.
GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wausau) said Tuesday he supported the DOGE effort to cancel a number of federal leases.
"We don't need as much office space. Our country is $36 trillion in debt," Tiffany said. "We have to reduce the footprint of our federal government and the expenditures that are going out from the federal government."
DOGE claims to have cancelled a total of 748 leases nationwide, amounting to $660 million in savings. Overall, the agency claims it has cut federal spending by $105 billion.
Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) pointed to Musk's previous admission some funding for USAID was mistakenly cancelled, as well as findings of previous incorrect reporting figures, as evidence of an incompetent agency that needed to be reined in.
"That's the problem, is this is all being done not with the consultation of Congress," Pocan said. "It's being done by a billionaire and a bunch of 20-somethings who have no federal government experience, and half the time, the information they put out is wrong."