DOGE once targeted more than a dozen KY offices for closure. Few are shutting down
In its first several months, the Trump administration’s newly-created Department of Government Efficiency tried to shrink the government by slashing the federal workforce, yanking contracts and closing offices.
Kentucky was not spared.
At one point, at least 15 Kentucky federal offices were slated for closure, according to DOGE, then headed by billionaire Elon Musk. Musk later left DOGE in a spectacular and well-publicized fall out with President Donald Trump in part due to the unpopularity of many of DOGE’s tactics.
Some of the offices included on DOGE’s site were seven U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration offices, two Social Security offices, a U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, a U.S. Farm Services agency, a Small Business Administration office, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration office and an office connected with the Kentucky Geological Survey.
But those cost savings and proposed Kentucky office closures have all but disappeared from the DOGE website as of July 29. Now just five offices are listed for closure -- at least two had already been slated to shutter prior to DOGE’s inception.
The DOGE list does include addresses. All the lease terminations or modifications for the offices were in late February.
Those offices still slated for closure include:
- Mine Safety and Health Administration office in Beaver Dam
- Mine Safety and health Administration office in Prestonsburg
- Small Business Administration office in Lexington
- Social Security Administration in Hazard
- Office of the Secretary in Louisville (DOGE does not specify which agency)
Social Security office already slated for closure
In late February, the DOGE website listed 45 Social Security offices across the country including a hearing office in Hazard and an office in Campbellsville.
The Campbellsville Social Security and dozens of other Social Security offices were spared from closure after outcry from the public and many Senators and Congressmen.
The Hazard office will be closed. However, it was vacant prior to appearing on DOGE’s list.
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, whose district includes Hazard, told the Herald-Leader in February the office in Hazard was once an appeals hearing office. Those appeals for Social Security disability and other types of social security cases are now conducted largely online, and a separate office was no longer needed. Rogers said the office was no longer open and had been slated for closure before it was listed on the DOGE website.
Mine Safety offices largely spared
Two offices still listed for lease terminations on DOGE’s website include MSHA offices in Beaver Dam and Prestonsburg.
It’s not clear why those offices were axed while others were spared.
It’s also not clear if the termination of those leases are moving forward. There is still staff in the Prestonsburg MSHA office. A woman who answered the phone referred media questions to the Barbourville MSHA office.
Beaver Dam’s office has a voice mail message that encourages people to call back during normal business hours and also includes a phone number for the Madisonville MSHA office.
Officials with the federal mining agency in Washington D.C., Barbourville and Madisonville did not return emails and phone calls asking for more information.
Steve Earle, of the United Mine Workers of America District 12, which includes Kentucky, said it’s possible federal officials closed the Beaver Dam office because there are no mines operating in Ohio County.
Earle said he and the United Mine Workers have struggled to get information on why some MSHA offices are still slated for closure and others remain open.
The United Mine Workers, one of the largest mining unions, and environmental and mine safety advocacy groups pushed hard for those MSHA offices to remain open after they appeared on DOGE’s lease termination list in March.
In June, officials with the U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees MSHA, said the 34 offices listed for closure on the DOGE website would remain open.
Kentucky offices listed for closure in March and were spared include Madisonville, Barbourville, London, Hazard and Harlan.
Among other duties, “MSHA is required to inspect each underground mine four times a year and each surface mine twice a year for health and safety compliance. Certain mines with high levels of explosive or toxic gases are inspected more often. Inspections are also conducted in response to complaints of hazardous conditions,” according to its website.
Also once on DOGE’s list for lease termination was the Lexington office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. It’s also now absent from the list. That office oversees reclamation of former surface mines, among other duties. It is the only surface mining office in Kentucky.
SBA office closure in Lexington
Another offices that closed prior to the Trump administration and DOGE’s creation is a Lexington office of the Small Business Administration. According to phone and other public records, that office closed sometime in 2021.
An administrator with the SBA office in Louisville confirmed Louisville has been the sole SBA office in Kentucky for more than four years.
