The agency 18F completed a $1.6 million project in Wisconsin to help a state department more effectively perform one aspect of its mission.

By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT

A federal agency that helps other governmental departments increase their efficiency — which it attempted to do with Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development — joined the ranks of those gutted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The federal agency 18F was launched in 2014 with the intention of helping “government agencies to design, develop and buy digital services that improve the user experience of government,” according to a 2021 press release. 

“That group has been deleted,” Musk wrote in a Feb. 3 post on his social media platform X.

The relatively small agency, headquartered at 18th and F streets in Washington D.C., was a part of the Technology Transformation Services department of the Government Services Administration.

Its team of technologists, web designers and product managers helped reduce hiring times by 70% within the federal bureaucracy, as well as decreased the time needed to deploy software there, according to a self-report on 18F’s progress.

From 2021 to 2022, 18F partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development in a $1.6 million project to find and contract with a third party capable of modernizing the state’s unemployment insurance system.

On March 1, weeks after Musk’s X post, many 18F employees received an early morning email dismissing them from their posts, according to news reports.

Thomas Shedd, the deputy commissioner for the Technology Transformation Services, which governs 18F, reportedly sent the dismissal email.

The federal government announced Shedd’s appointment in January. Shedd, who is 28, worked as a mechanical engineer for eight years at Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company.

What 18F does

The department “helps agencies adopt best practices and modern tools from the private sector … resulting in more user-friendly websites and technologies that are accessible, secure, efficient, and meet people’s needs,” reads a 2024 release from the federal government celebrating 18F’s 10-year anniversary.  

As of March 2024, 18F had completed more than 450 projects for 34 federal agencies and also for the Executive Office of the President, the Library of Congress, and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Among its notable projects is Direct File, which gave many taxpayers a free, online tool to file taxes. Recent news reports indicate that DOGE may have shut that program down also.

In 2020, 18F also created a “De-risking Guide” to help improve how local, state and federal agencies manage their technology projects, which includes best practices for modern software development and how to work with a vendor to provide user-centered software. Most weblinks to the online guide are now disabled.

Cuts by DOGE costing millions, analysis says

After initially vowing to find $2 trillion in savings from the nearly $7 trillion spent by the federal government in the 2024 fiscal year, Musk downgraded that figure to $1 trillion. Now, as Musk prepares to reduce his government role, DOGE says it has cut $165 billion of federal spending, a fraction of Musk’s original pledge. Most of those spending cuts were to federal employees. And at least one analysis estimates those personnel cuts will actually cost the federal government $135 million as it absorbs the loss of workers and their productivity, has to rehire others, and has to cover the paid leave of thousands of workers.

Also, the DOGE-induced reduction of thousands of employees at the IRS could lead to the loss of billions in future tax revenue, according to a study from Yale University.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.