Federal Agencies Have Until April 14 to Propose Any Relocations Outside of DMV

The Trump administration has set a deadline for federal agencies to submit their plans for relocation outside of Washington, D.C., amid widespread efforts to scale back the size of the government’s workforce and office footprint. 

All agencies under the executive branch now have until April 14 to propose new locations for their respective offices and bureaus, as part of a Wednesday memo from the directors of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

The memo, which gives guidance and directives for agency workforce cuts and consolidation efforts, calls for relocation propositions outside of “Washington, D.C. and the national capital region to less-costly parts of the country.”

The call for relocation suggestions is part of the Agency Reduction in Force (RIF) and Reorganization Plans (ARRP) that agencies must now submit to OMB and OPM in two phases.

The first phase, which has a deadline of March 13, focuses on “initial cuts and reductions” to set the groundwork for more sweeping slashes, and requires lists of agency offices or “subcomponents” that offer citizen services, recommendations of agency or subcomponent eliminations or consolidations, a list of “essential” positions and the specific tools the agency plans to use to achieve its efficiency goals. 

Phase two of the ARRPs, which contains the call for office relocations and focuses on a “positive vision for more productive, efficient agency operations going forward,” has a deadline of April 14. Aside from relocation proposals, agencies must submit a “future-state organizational chart,” confirmation that the agency has reviewed all employee data, specific reductions that the agency plans to make and data-driven hiring plans. Those plans must adhere to a general principle of no more than one new hire for every four employee departures, per the memo. 

Phase two also calls for agency plans to ensure that employees are grouped together based on job functions in order “to promote effective collaboration and management, and that the agency’s real estate footprint is aligned with cross-agency efforts coordinated by [the General Services Administration] to establish regional federal office hubs.”

Representatives for OMB and OPM did not immediately respond to a request for further comment. 

The memo comes amid a whirlwind month of personnel cuts, consolidation and lease terminations from the new administration, led by Elon Musk’s non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Indeed, DOGE has already cut more than 250 federal leases across the country as of Wednesday, with square footage ranging from just a few hundred square feet to nearly 900,000 square feet. 

Roughly 300,000 federal workers live in the DMV, and the government occupies some 92 million square feet of space in the region, according to the GSA. Some proponents of cutting down the federal government’s footprint, which include past statements from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, argue that the District could become revitalized if the private sector were to take over buildings previously occupied by the government — particularly in D.C.’s downtown area, which has suffered with record high vacancy rates since the start of the pandemic in 2020. 

A transition away from government predominance in D.C. would be painful, Yesim Sayin, D.C. Policy Center executive director told Commercial Observer in December, as the stability it offered its workforce helped the region gain a reputation over the decades as “recession-proof.” Yet in an age of dismal downtown economic activity and latent private sector growth last year, Sayin said that a shift away from government dominance could be necessary to diversify D.C.’s economy and strengthen its long-term health as a city. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.