Updated 8:50 p.m. March 6 with comment from the U.S. General Services Administration.
The futures of two federal offices in the State College area are unclear after both were listed for lease termination by the Department of Government Efficiency.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Pennsylvania Ecological Services Field Office at 110 Radnor Road and the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division Office at 101 Innovation Boulevard are among the hundreds of lease terminations appearing under “savings” on the website of the nongovernmental agency created by President Donald Trump and overseen by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
It was not clear if the offices would be moved or closed entirely, nor whether the employees of those offices would be relocated or terminated. A spokesperson for The U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees federal government real estate activity, said the agency does not comment on personnel matters and referred questions about employees to their respective departments.
“GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “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.”
Speaking on the local Tor Michaels radio show on WRSC Wednesday morning, U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Howard Township, said he is “going to ask for the rationale on it, that’s for sure.”
“We’ll see. A lot of what’s going on now is a pause,” Thompson said. “There are some positions that will be lost. Given what we’re facing as a nation, making sure we deliver on what the American citizens expect and need — maybe not what they want, but what they need — there will be some loss of positions, I’m assuming. At the same time I have been weighing in with the administration on some of these cuts just to make sure I understand what their rationale and their explanation is. I’ve been able to, I think through my intervention, been able to have some of those deemed to be essential. I will continue to play that role in all circumstances.”
According to the DOGE website, the 6,700-square-foot Fish and Wildlife space has an annual lease of $197,699 and its termination will result in $823,748 in total savings.
The Pennsylvania Ecological Services Field Office provides “assistance and consultation to private citizens, local, county and state governments and federal partners in all 67 counties throughout the commonwealth,” according to its website, which lists 13 “key contacts” working out of the State College office.
People could be seen inside the office packing boxes on Wednesday afternoon.
The 443-square-foot Labor Department office in the Lubert Building at Innovation Park has an annual lease of $12,131 and its terminations will result in $45,491, according to DOGE.
DOGE claims $468 million in savings have been identified among 748 federal office lease terminations nationwide.
At Tuesday’s Centre County Board of Commissioners meeting, Chair Mark Higgins said he knew nothing about the future of the offices other than the lease terminations.
Higgins added that with the sweeping cuts being made by the Trump administration, he is uncertain what kind of losses the county may see in its federal funding, saying that it “could be a few hundred thousand, could be 6 million, could be 20 million.”
“We don’t know,” Higgins said. “It’s very stressful. We just don’t know.”
About 30% of Pennsylvania’s budget is from federal dollars, and Higgins said state and federal dollars constitute 39% of the county’s budget.
“So it’s quite significant for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and for all the counties in Pennsylvania, all 67 of them, most of whom are not in as good a financial shape as Centre County government is,” Higgins said. “So it’s pretty stressful right now and we’re just trying to see what happens.”
