After cost-cutting blitz, Trump administration rehires hundreds of laid-off employees

MIAMI AP Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk s cost-cutting blitz are being demanded to return to work The General Services Administration has given the employees who managed regime workspaces until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press Those who accept must assessment for duty on Oct after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation during which time the GSA in particular cases racked up high costs passed along to taxpayers to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire Ultimately the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed stated Chad Becker a former GSA real estate official They didn t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions Becker who represents owners with authorities leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions explained GSA has been in a triage mode for months He announced the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Regime Efficiency had gone too far too fast Rehiring of purged federal employees GSA was established in the s to centralize the acquisition and management of thousands of federal workplaces Its return to work request mirrors rehiring efforts at in several agencies targeted by DOGE Last month the IRS announced it would allow certain employees who took a resignation offer to remain on the job The Labor Department has also brought back various employees who took buyouts while the National Park Provision earlier reinstated a number of purged employees Critical to the work of such agencies is the GSA which manages multiple of the buildings Starting in March thousands of GSA employees left the agency as part of programs that encouraged them to resign or take early retirement Hundreds of others those subject to the recall notice were dismissed as part of an aggressive push to reduce the size of the federal workforce Though those employees did not show up for work they were to be paid through the end of this month GSA representatives didn t respond to detailed questions about the return-to-work notice which the agency issued Friday They also declined to discuss the agency s headcount staffing decisions or the prospective cost overruns generated by reversing its plans to terminate leases GSA s leadership group has reviewed workforce actions and is making adjustments in the best interest of the customer agencies we serve and the American taxpayers an agency spokesman explained in an email Democrats have assailed the Trump administration s indiscriminate approach to slashing costs and jobs Rep Greg Stanton of Arizona the top Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing the GSA informed AP there is no evidence that reductions at the agency delivered any savings It s created costly confusion while undermining the very services taxpayers depend on he revealed DOGE identified the agency which had about employees at the start of the Trump administration as a chief target of its campaign to reduce fraud waste and abuse in the federal regime A small cohort of Musk s trusted aides embedded in GSA s headquarters sometimes sleeping on cots on the agency s sixth floor and pursued plans to abruptly cancel nearly half of the leases in the federal portfolio DOGE also craved GSA to sell hundreds of federally owned buildings with the goal of generating billions in savings GSA started by sending more than lease cancellation notices to landlords in several cases without informing the authorities tenants The agency also published a list of hundreds of administration buildings that were targeted for sale DOGE s massive job cuts produced little savings Pushback to GSA s dumping of its portfolio was swift and both initiatives have been dialed back More than leases slated for termination by DOGE have since been spared Those leases were for offices scattered around the country that are occupied by such agencies as the IRS Social Assurance Administration and Food and Drug Administration DOGE s Wall of Receipts which once boasted that the lease cancellations alone would save nearly million has since reduced that estimate to million by the end of July according to Becker the former GSA real estate official Meanwhile GSA embarked on massive job cuts The administration slashed GSA s headquarters staff by its portfolio managers by and facilities managers by according to a federal official briefed on the situation The official who was not authorized to speak to the media provided the statistics on condition of anonymity As a product of the internal turmoil leases expired without the executive truly vacating the properties the official declared The situation has exposed the agencies to steep fees because property owners have not been able to rent out those spaces to other tenants The population may soon get a clearer picture of what transpired at the agency The Executive Accountability Office an independent congressional watchdog is examining the GSA s management of its workforce lease terminations and planned building disposals and expects to issue findings in the coming months reported David Marroni a senior GAO official