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The General Services Administration (GSA) is facing significant budget cuts and increased staff surveillance under the new Trump administration. The agency, which manages federal real estate and contracts, is planning to halve its budget and increase monitoring of its remaining staff. This could be a model for cuts across the federal government.
Budget Cuts and Staff Reductions The GSA’s budget was $61 billion in the 2024 fiscal year. The plan is to cut the costs of programs, contracts, and salaries in half. Staffers have been told to expect deep job cuts among the agency’s approximately 12,000 employees and the closure of many of its offices around the U.S.. It is expected that all regional and field offices are set to be eliminated and consolidated into four to five “hubs” for all GSA employees.
Increased Surveillance Those employees who remain are being warned to expect their actions to be surveilled. Monitoring will include when employees log in and out of their devices, when employees swipe in and out of their workspaces, and monitoring of all their work chats. “Keylogger” software that would keep track of everything the employees typed on their work machines would be installed on their work computers. All GSA staff are expected to end remote work entirely and be back in the office. Employees were told they could no longer use their badges to access GSA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters as they did previously, but would instead be forced to go through “full security screenings,” including X-ray scans prior to entering the building.
Criteria for Retaining Staff Staffers who will be retained must meet three major criteria: their job is required by law, their work is “critical” to the mission, and their work generates revenue. Some of the job roles being targeted included communications, administrative support, stakeholder engagement, and interns. GSA employees were told IT roles would be “consolidated”.
DOGE Involvement The cuts are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team led by Elon Musk to drastically shrink the size of the federal government. DOGE staffers are embedded within GSA’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), a unit that develops tech tools and platforms for the government.
GSA’s Importance The GSA oversees some 360 million square feet of real estate and $105 billion in annual contracts. It is divided into two divisions: one that acquires real estate and the other that runs almost all of the government’s contracts. One of the GSA officials described the agency’s work as the “circulatory system” of the federal government.
Reactions The mood across GSA is grim. “People are crying — these people have children,” said one of the GSA officials. “This is a paradigm shift,” the official continued. “The world of government as you knew it, it’s gone”.
GSA, budget cuts, government efficiency, employee surveillance, Trump administration, DOGE, Elon Musk