Pentagon clips civilian employees’ credit cards in line with DOGE cuts

The Defense Department effectively barred civilian employees from traveling or making taxpayer-funded purchases, according to new memos. 

The spending limit on government-issued travel and purchase cards for federal civilian employees was reduced to $1, according to instructions posted on the Defense Department’s website.

“DoD civilian employees must cancel all future non-exempted official travel reservations, and those currently on non-exempted travel must return to their respective permanent duty stations as soon as feasible,” the memo states.

Civilian employee travel that directly supports military operations or a permanent change in station is exempted, according to one memo. 

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A parallel memo effectively froze civilian credit cards used to purchase anything from office supplies to items priced up to $10,000. 

It came after a Feb. 26 executive order from President Donald Trump that activated the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cost-saving efforts to make “government employees accountable to the public.” It stipulated that agencies would need to submit reports to justify travel needs for government employees. 

“Once an agency’s system is in place, the Agency Head shall prohibit agency employees from engaging in federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless the travel-approving official has submitted a brief, written justification for the federally funded travel within such system,” the order stated. 

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It also called for agency credit cards to be frozen for 30 days except for the use of funds for “disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations or other critical services as determined by the Agency Head.”

The restrictions come as the Pentagon is firing 5,400 civilian employees still in their probationary period and instituting a hiring freeze to reduce 5-8% of the 764,000-member civilian workforce. 

The Pentagon, in coordination with DOGE, identified an initial $80 million in wasteful spending, according to chief spokesperson Sean Parnell.  Most of the funds were related to DEI and climate initiatives. 

It’s a small fraction of the agency’s $840 billion budget, but DOGE efforts just began in recent weeks. The Pentagon last week initiated a review of its contracting practices and demanded agencies build a central system for contracts, grants and other expenditures.

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“My staff and I are presently conducting this review to determine where we might achieve efficiencies to save American taxpayers’ money while executing contracting operations in support of our nation’s defense,” John Tenaglia, the Pentagon’s principal director of defense pricing, contracting and acquisition policy, wrote in a memo last week. 

“Per the EO, Components are directed to forgo issuing new contracting officer warrant appointments to DoD civilian staff members until March 28, 2025, the duration of the review period.”