The Department of Government Efficiency claimed tens of billions of dollars in savings on its infamous “Wall of Receipts,” but the Government Accountability Office found it touted savings that never happened and could not be substantiated.

• CHRISTIAN ROBLES
  Technology Reporter, Nextgov/FCW

  DOGE

The Trump administration should prominently display data quality issues and limitations on the Department of Government Efficiency’s website listing estimated savings, the Government Accountability Office recommended in a new report, finding the public tally heralding billions of dollars in estimated savings was rife with errors.

The watchdog found that the website’s estimated savings tracker — or “Wall of Receipts” — listed contracts that were not actually cancelled, took credit for leases that were in the process of termination before DOGE’s existence and did not adequately explain how savings were calculated. The findings cast doubt on DOGE’s claim that it saved taxpayers $215 billion by slashing contracts, grants, leases and other wasteful expenditures.

The report, requested by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., analyzed the wall of receipts’ estimated savings of roughly $110.34 billion from supposedly terminated contracts, grants and leases.

GAO found that roughly $34.6 billion of the estimated $61 billion saved from cancelled contracts came from either contracts that were never actually terminated or could not be corroborated as terminated.

DOGE specifically reported it cancelled 13,476 contracts but “almost 2,000 contracts were not terminated,” according to GAO’s analysis of the Federal Procurement Data System. In one case, DOGE continued to estimate saving taxpayers more than $1.7 billion by cancelling a Defense Health Agency IT support contract after Defense Department officials got DOGE officials to agree the contract should not be terminated, GAO wrote. No action was ultimately taken on the contract.

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