As a federal employee I have several suggestions for consolidating agencies, reducing the number of employees, and ending wasteful spending.
Having agencies which do basically the same work could be combined. Several agencies have similar goals as state agencies. These agencies have duplicated positions.
Mandate workers who do not need to be in the office to work from home. Have a centralized office with clerical staff from each agency to assist the public, and multiple conference rooms to be utilized by all agencies. We showed in 2 years we could perform our duties at remote locations. Also, in more remote locations the best candidates for jobs are either not applying or turning jobs down because they don’t want to move. Closing rental spaces will save the government billions yearly.
There are agencies (Bureau of Indian Affairs) who do not perform their job duties. There are tons of acres of land which has gone out of Indian status through probate, which their employees refuse to notify the state/federal government of so this property can be taxed. Their reasoning is because “they work for the Indians, not the government .”
I have worked projects where instead of revamping roads to widen them during a construction period, it is decided a new road (which crosses wetlands) needs to be constructed, “because it’s a straight shot”.
I have more examples and more suggestions and would like to discuss them in more detail with anyone on staff if they are interested.