MORGANTOWN – A federal building lease canceled by DOE in Parkersburg appears to be un-canceled. And Morgantown sees a tiny ripple among $20 billion in DOGE contract cancellations.
On the Parkersburg un-cancellation, DOGE had listed the Internal Revenue Service national office there among eight federal office closures across the state. As we reported last week, the office is 7,671 square feet, with a $184,015 annual lease. DOGE expected total savings of $306,692 by closing it.
But Business Insider followed up a New York Times report this week that DOGE had removed 136 leases from the list of 793 planned terminations, reducing expected savings from $500 million to $350 million.
A review of the list on Friday shows the Parkersburg IRS office no longer there. The Parkersburg News & Sentinel reported on Wednesday that the office is still open.
Asked about the change, the U.S. General Services Administration told Business Insider it “is reviewing all options to optimize the federal footprint and building utilization [and] actively managing lease contracts by leveraging existing contract cancellation rights.”
We previously mentioned planned closures of the Mine Safety Health Administration offices in Summersville and Rockview, with lease prices of $107,456 and $563,693, respectively.
Also on the MSHA office closure list is the one in Waynesburg, Pa., a few minutes north of Morgantown. It has 8,233 square feet and a $168,726 annual lease. Expected savings are $478,057.
Terminated contracts
On its Wall of Receipts page, DOGE lists 5634 contract terminations totaling about $20 billion in savings.
Among them is a one-year subscription to E&E News’ Energywire, by Politico, for eight users at the Department of Energy’s Morgantown National Energy Technology Laboratory.
E&E News describes itself as “a team of media professionals devoted to delivering vital and unbiased energy and environmental news for policymakers, industry experts, and educators.”
The reason given is “termination for government convenience.”
For comparison, the Pittsburgh communications firm of Rack-Wildner & Reese, doing business as Akoya, is seeing termination of 14 DOE contracts totaling $31,901,968.
Akoya calls itself a woman-owned boutique firm that “delivers creative, practical communication strategies and multimedia content to help you change minds, engage customers and stakeholders, and deliver results.”
DEI is a central target of DOGE cuts, and hundreds of “DEIA” (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility” contracts are listed, often with the description “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”
At the top of the Department of Health and Human services list are five DEIA training contracts totaling $15,454,480. A separate Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services DEI contract was for “organization cultural change,” for $4,204,520.
