The Department of Government Efficiency estimated savings of $749,773 with the cancellation of three annual leases for Office of Personnel Management locations in Butler County, according to the department’s website on Wednesday, March 5.

Two leases related to the Boyers location and another lease related to an East Butler location were included on a list of 748 lease terminations recently posted to the department’s website. The terminations do not signal closures for either facility.

Related to Boyers, the website indicates a total savings of $526,052 for a lease that cost $161,862 annually for 11,500 square-feet, and a total savings of $156,900 for another lease that cost $48,277 annually for 3,450 square-feet.

The space in Boyers is larger than the space included in the leases that are being terminated, Butler County Commissioner Kim Geyer explained in an email Wednesday.

“The underground mine is not closing. The underground mine is a private corporation. OPM is a tenant of the mine,” she said.

The Office of Personnel Management has a facility in Iron Mountain, 1137 Branchton Road, Cherry Township. A 2019 article by Government Executive claimed the facility totals 221,000 square-feet.

An anonymous employee for OPM, verified by the Butler Eagle, was also able to confirm that the occupied space at Boyers is larger than the 14,950 total square-feet in the two leases.

As for layoffs, Geyer said she was told people are not being laid off.

“For all we know, this space could be occupied by filing cabinets,” Geyer said. “We just need to stay calm, wait and see.”

DOGE touts that the nearly 750 lease terminations — in total — will eliminate 9,587,384 square feet of real estate and save about $468 million.

While layoffs have not been confirmed, the employee claimed OPM staff are on high alert in case cuts to space precede cuts to staffing.

“I think we’ve made a pretty good case that all our staff is needed and necessary for now, at least,” they said.

The employee cited a Feb. 27 post on X made by the official DOGE account that praised OPM staff for completing their first fully digital retirement as a boon for the staff.

“DOGE gave us props on the X platform for being able to show we can process a case from start to finish without paper,” they said. “We got some good PR from that.”

The post quoted an earlier Feb. 11 post, also made by DOGE, that brought attention to the Iron Mountain facility and claimed “retirements are processed using paper, by hand.”

“Update on the mine! OPM has successfully executed the first ever fully digital retirement. The process took 2 days and more work is needed, but this is a great improvement from the current paper solution taking multiple months,” the Feb. 27 post said.

In regards to future digital retirements, the employee stated that OPM is “at the mercy” of other agencies’ capabilities for submitting retirements digitally.

Related to East Butler, the website indicates a total savings of $66,821 for a lease that annually costs $160,369 for 13,994 square-feet in real estate.

The Government Executive article mentioned a call center for OPM in East Butler. At the time, it hosted 150 employees.

OPM’s East Butler location is on Grant Avenue.

According to an anonymous, but verified, former OPM employee, the call center “cannot be eliminated.”

“The elimination of that call center space would certainly require new space to be obtained,” they said. “The only other options would be to move it elsewhere, like to Iron Mountain, or make it completely remote, something that in and of itself is being reduced or eliminated.”

According the website, the lease terminations come via “Mass Mod,” which means multiple contracts were changed at once.

A separate X post from DOGE on March 3 claims $370 million was budgeted for OPM’s IT services. It listed the first reductions in a goal to reduce IT spending by about 80% “while maintaining equivalent levels of service.”

Future cost-cutting measures by DOGE are expected to be listed on its website.

Eagle assignment editor Tracy Leturgey contributed to this report.