By Scott Reeder
Springfield business owner John Chiang received a letter March 10 that landlords dread: a tenant is breaking its lease.
The tenant is the U.S. government’s Department of Labor, which rents office space on the second floor of the building at 3161 W. White Oaks Drive. The building is owned by Chiang, 82, who also owns the information technology company Novanis that operates out of the same building.
No reason is given for terminating the lease. But one need only read the national news headlines to know the driving force behind the cut: the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The initiative is being headed by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and is designed to reduce the number of employees working for the federal government as well as the amount of office space it leases and to trim other expenses. The Trump administration has announced its intention to cancel 50% of its leases with private property owners, in addition to closing half of the properties the government owns.
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“These are just indiscriminate cuts being made to the workforce,” U.S. Rep Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, said. “I think the DOGE approach to this has been completely wrong, and you’re seeing this across the workforce.”
She said members of Congress have not been informed on the specifics of the cuts.
“Interestingly, DOGE posted on a website around 10 different federal facilities within the 13th Congressional District that were on the chopping block to be closed. And then, almost in the middle of the night, that website went dark. Now we’ve gotten indications that the website could potentially be going up again,” she said.
