DOGE's plans to offload government buildings supported by former GSA official
EXCLUSIVE: Former General Services Administration (GSA) head Emily Murphy, who served all of President Donald Trump’s first term, told Fox News Digital that the GSA will "rightsize its portfolio" by selling or leasing unused government buildings – saving money to help the government run more efficiently.
"I think that there's an incredible opportunity right now for GSA to save the government substantial amounts of money by rightsizing its portfolio," Murphy told Fox News Digital about Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) working with GSA to identify "vacant or underutilized federal spaces" as part of the Trump administration’s plan to cut wasteful spending.
"Right now, GSA is losing money," Murphy said. "The federal buildings that they own have over $370 billion in deferred maintenance. That's a liability that is just growing and growing and growing because the buildings haven't been maintained. So getting rid of owned space that hasn't been maintained and that isn't occupied, first of all, takes that off the government's books, gets rid of that liability. But it also creates opportunities in communities. Having a building that's unoccupied isn't good for a city. It isn't good for the state. It isn't good for anyone."
Murphy said those empty buildings are often in ideal downtown, "heavy utilization areas" that can be a real asset to building up the community and returning funds to the Treasury Department.
"GSA has to rightsize its lease portfolio. Otherwise, it's going to be paying rent on buildings it's not occupying, and it doesn't have the funding necessary to do that," Murphy said.
The GSA's cost-cutting efforts have already resulted in 794 lease terminations with a total of over $500 million of lease obligations being canceled, a source familiar with the GSA's actions told Fox News Digital.
DOGE AND AGENCIES CANCEL 200,000 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CREDIT CARDS
Murphy said terminating leases and selling unused office space will benefit the government twofold. First, it can shore up money to fund government agencies in the short term. Second, it will reduce long-term financial obligations.
"No taxpayer should want the government to be paying for space it doesn't use," Murphy said. "It's billions of dollars a year [that] go out in rent and real estate payments from the federal government. This is a substantial amount of money, and it's a real chance for GSA to do a great job for the American people and reduce the long-term financial obligations of the government and, frankly, free up money for agencies in the short term as well."
Murphy told Fox that GSA exists to "cut down on waste" and during her tenure, they managed to return about $21.6 billion in savings. She embraced DOGE’s efforts to cut wasteful spending and increase government efficiency, telling Fox News Digital those issues should have bipartisan support.
"Prioritizing efficiency and minimizing waste in our government really should be a bipartisan issue. Government contracting, government real estate doesn't have a Republican side or a Democratic side of the coin," Murphy said. "What DOGE is doing right now is just pushing forward and trying to make sure that taxpayers can have confidence that every dollar being spent is really in their best interest.
Murphy explained that GSA was created to manage the federal government’s portfolio of properties and procurement and welcomed the renewed focus on efficiency.
"GSA is essentially the government's management arm. It handles the real property, the procurement, many of the shared services the government has, the vehicles in the government's fleet. It runs a lot of the back office functions of the government. It was created about 75 years ago to specifically take on that challenge, so that agencies didn't have to all be doing the same repetitive tasks again and again," Murphy said.
Stephen Ehikian was sworn in as acting administrator and deputy administrator of the GSA on Inauguration Day.
"Under the Trump-Vance administration, I will return the GSA to its core purpose of making government work smarter and faster," said Ehikian. "Moving forward, GSA will be laser-focused on driving an efficient government and enabling our sister agencies to provide better service to taxpayers at lower costs."
GSA has produced the most savings across federal agencies, according to the official DOGE website. A webpage titled "Non-core property list (Coming Soon)" on the GSA’s website outlines the agency’s ongoing effort to save on government buildings.
"We are identifying buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations, or non-core properties, for disposal. Selling ensures that taxpayer dollars are no longer spent on vacant or underutilized federal spaces. Disposing of these assets helps eliminate costly maintenance and allows us to reinvest in high-quality work environments that support agency missions," it says on GSA’s website.
The Associated Press reported that dozens of federal office and building leases will be terminated by June 20, with hundreds more expected in the coming months. AP also reported last week that GSA published a list of more than 440 federal properties the government was planning to offload. The list was then revised to include only 320 buildings before the webpage was ultimately updated to its current "coming soon" language.
Musk has lamented about unused office buildings on his personal X account and DOGE’s official account.
"Still *way* too many leases on unused buildings," Musk posted on Feb. 25.
"Agreed! Today, lease cancellations on vacant/underutilized buildings are up from ~257 to ~440, with annual rent savings increasing from ~$100M to ~$171M. Still plenty of available office space for the current workforce," DOGE replied to Musk the following day.
"Today, the Federal Government exceeded $100M in annual rent savings through cancellations of 250+ vacant/underutilized leases totaling 3M+ square feet. With ~7,250 current leases, there is plenty of available office space for the current workforce," DOGE announced in a post on Feb. 25.
"Crazy that the government was just renting and paying for upkeep services of hundreds of empty buildings!" Musk replied.