DOGE listed five San Diego County government office locations on its list of lease terminations. Critics say it will impact the services people rely on. NBC 7 Investigates’ Alexis Rivas reports.
Dozens of federal workers across San Diego County don’t know if they’ll still have an office in a matter of weeks or months. All they know is that their office is included on the Department of Government Efficiency’s “wall of receipts.” Along with other cost-cutting measures, that site shows how much money DOGE says it’s saving taxpayers by terminating leases of government offices.
Critics say shutting down these offices would directly harm people in San Diego County – whether they visit some of those offices, or rely on the services the workers inside those offices provide. Moreover, they say DOGE made these cuts indiscriminately.
Five government offices in San Diego County are among the 748 across the country on DOGE’s list.
- Social Security Administration - Carlsbad
- Internal Revenue Service - San Marcos
- Food & Drug Administration - University Town Center
- International Trade Administration - Kearny Mesa
- Department of Labor - Downtown San Diego
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DOGE’s site says the closure of these local offices will save taxpayers $2,782,017. However, NBC 7 Investigates hasn’t been able to verify if that number is accurate. We found some of the local leases haven’t been canceled yet, and it’s unclear if they will be.
My biggest fear across the board is that people that really need the help, won’t get the help.
Rep. Mike Levin, (D) California 49th District
It also wouldn’t be the first time that information DOGE publicized was inaccurate. NBC News has repeatedly found that to be the case. Elon Musk, who heads the department, recently made a statement acknowledging mistakes, with a promise to correct them.
An IRS office that’s open to the public
The San Marcos City Civic Center is also home to a branch of the Internal Revenue Service. That office is one of only two Taxpayer Assistance Centers in San Diego County. It specifically provides tax preparation services, helping people navigate the complex world of 1099s and W-2s.
In early March, that included Adriana Camacho, who needed to get some questions answered about how to sort through some health insurance issues.
“This is my first time here,” Camacho told NBC 7 Investigates. “They were just able to explain to me that we need to do this and this."
In just a few minutes, Camacho got her questions answered. She was happy the office wasn’t far from her home in Vista.
If the lease termination happens, North County people like her would be forced to drive to downtown San Diego. While the office is listed on the DOGE website, the City of San Marcos told us it hasn’t received any notice that the government would be terminating the lease.
The IRS wouldn’t comment about the future of its physical footprint in San Marcos.
Other offices closed to the public, but doing work for the public
Of the five locations on the list, the IRS office is the only one with employees who meet face-to-face with the public. The rest carry out other government work, often in service to other public-facing offices. In many cases, people may not even realize these offices exist.
That includes a Food & Drug Administration office in the University Town Center. It occupies space within a building primarily filled with healthcare providers. NBC 7 Investigates spoke with a worker who told us the office is filled with about 20 investigators. They oversee quality control of food and drug manufacturing.
The worker told us the office was aware it was on the lease termination list but that he personally hadn’t gotten any confirmed information on what would happen. He even expressed surprise because more workers were expected to join them due to return-to-work policies.
The FDA wouldn’t comment on its lease situation in UTC.
But Congressman Mike Levin did. He’s been critical of many of DOGE’s dramatic downsizing efforts.
“The field offices certainly matter,” Levin said. “My biggest fear across the board is that people that really need the help, won’t get the help."
He’s especially concerned about the future of the Social Security Administration and offices like the one in Carlsbad, even though it’s not open to the public.
“My concern is that this is really the biggest attack on social security since the program’s inception in 1935,” Levin said.
Just two weeks after President Donald Trump took office, DOGE eliminated the lease for the SSA building in Carlsbad, the building’s property manager told NBC 7 Investigates. The SSA says the Carlsbad office will merge with the one in Santa Ana when it closes doors on June 4. Had the lease not been terminated, it would have run through mid-2026.
It’s unclear if any Carlsbad workers will be laid off. We asked that follow-up question to the SSA, but it hasn’t gotten back to us.
“Make no mistake, I want to see inefficiencies and waste and fraud and abuse done away with to whatever extent we can. But there’s a way to do it,” Levin said. “Dealing with inefficiencies in the system, getting at the bureaucracy for the right reasons with the air being a more effective government is one thing. But what we’re seeing here is destruction from within.”
A division of the Department of Labor in a downtown San Diego building is also on the list. It’s one of five leases the federal government has in the building. The property manager says it hasn’t been told the DOL lease will end.
The DOL wouldn’t comment either way.
The owner of a building in Kearny Mesa didn’t respond to our questions about whether it knew about the future of the International Trade Administration office.
NBC 7 Investigates spoke with a couple of workers who said they were also in the dark about what would happen. Officially, the ITA told us it wouldn’t comment.
Government agencies not answering questions
Only the Social Security Administration got back to us with answers about its local office.
The other four federal offices in San Diego County with leases listed on the DOGE site punted our questions to the General Services Administration, the federal department that handles leases. But when we reached out to them, they kicked the can back down to each agency, while providing this statement:
Acting Administrator Ehikian’s vision for GSA includes reducing our deferred maintenance liabilities, supporting the return to office of federal employees, and taking advantage of a stronger private/government partnership in managing the workforce of the future.
GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization. A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases. To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space. In many cases this will allow us to increase space utilization and obtain improved terms.
In an effort to reach DOGE, NBC 7 Investigates also reached out to the White House to try to get our questions answered. We haven’t heard back.
DOGE claims these 748 lease terminations will save $659,829,727. To put that in context, last fiscal year, the federal government spent $6.75 trillion. Those purported savings amount to about .01% of yearly government spending.
