DOGE receipts for SBA fall billions short of administrator’s cost-savings claim
The head of the Small Business Administration told lawmakers last week that the agency has saved billions of dollars thanks to terminated contracts in partnership with the Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE’s publicly posted data, however, accounts for just a fraction of that cost-savings claim.
Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee on Wednesday, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agency “canceled wasteful contracts for total cost savings of more than $3 billion. I’m proud that we’re working alongside the DOGE team, who are not partisans, but patriots and business leaders who care deeply about the financial future of this great nation.”
A FedScoop review of DOGE’s “wall of receipts,” however, found 61 terminated contracts at the SBA for a total cost savings of $22 million. The last update to the contracts portion of DOGE’s website was made May 23. The SBA’s fiscal year 2025 budget request was $971 million. The agency faces a 33% cut in FY 2026.
The vast majority of DOGE’s contract cancellations at the SBA occurred in February. Most of those agreements were categorized as “micro purchases,” meaning a value below $25,000. Contracts at that level are not required to be entered into the Federal Procurement Data System. DOGE’s website provides links to FPDS pages for contracts that it has terminated.
DOGE has canceled six SBA contracts since February, including four on May 23. Among those post-February cancellations were a deal with FedWriters Inc. to provide digital signage and graphic design support, an agreement with MSM Technology for support on the implementation of the Evidence Act, and a pact with The Water Council for scientific and technical consulting services. The FedWriters contract, canceled March 5, saved over $13,000, the MSM Technology deal, canceled April 9, saved more than $456,000, and the Water Council agreement, canceled May 23, saved nearly $2 million, according to DOGE’s website.
DOGE’s publicly posted data accounts for eight contract terminations that exceed $1 million in cost savings. The biggest-ticket item was a deal with the IT solutions provider GovSmart Inc. Scrapping the cloud provider contract for a Salesforce license that DOGE said “enabled RER Solutions” saved the SBA more than $4.7 million, according to the Elon Musk-backed group.
DOGE has also reported cost-cutting at the SBA through the termination of leases for regional offices in 23 cities across the country. Those cancellations total $4.2 million in cost savings, the data shows.
It’s unclear what could account for the discrepancy between Loeffler’s claim of $3 billion in cost savings via canceled contracts and DOGE’s own data showing $22 million in cuts. Musk has promised “maximum transparency” for all DOGE actions, but the group has recanted some of its supposed savings following media scrutiny.
In a similar case, FedScoop last week wrote about a $71 million gap between what the Securities and Exchange Commission claimed DOGE had saved the agency ($90 million) and what the tech group reported online ($18.9) million. When DOGE updated its wall of receipts three days after the $90 million figure was stated at a House Appropriations hearing, the claimed cost savings jumped to $183.8 million, more than double what SEC Chair Paul Atkins reported to Congress.
The SBA press office did not respond to multiple FedScoop requests for comment on the more than $2.9 billion chasm in cost-savings figures.
Though Loeffler, a former Republican senator from Georgia, was eager to tout DOGE’s involvement at the SBA in her opening remarks during last week’s hearing, she dodged a question from Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the subcommittee’s ranking member, about her characterization of the group as “nonpartisan.”
“Look, our DOGE team is a group of young men who are supporting our efforts, and I call the shots at the SBA,” she said. “I appreciate the support I’ve gotten in terms of some of the quantitative work that I wanted done in analyzing the financial and operational metrics.”
When asked by Reed if DOGE has access to the data of American small businesses, Loeffler said her team complies “with all the laws that apply to all small businesses,” and that they are “active and current employees” of the SBA.
Madison Alder contributed to this story.
