DOJ Preliminary Reorganization Plan Centralizes Multiple Agency Functions

Anyone reading the news knows that federal agencies are undergoing major reorganization and reduction in force (RIF) measures in response to the Trump Administration’s priorities outlined in a February 11th executive order and February 26th OMB memo.

Accordingly, the Department of Justice issued an internal memo to agency components soliciting feedback on their own reorganization and RIF plans. In it, the memo requested responses by the components no later than April 2nd.

Elements of the initial plan include:

• Combining DEA and ATF
• Consolidating administrative functions such as HR, security, facilities, procurement, financial management, equal employee opportunity and IT functions at ATR, NSD and General Legal Activities to JMD
• Transferring the Office of Executive Secretariat to JMD
• Consolidating grantmaking functions at the Office of Justice Programs, Office on Violence Against Women, Community Oriented Policing Services, Access to Justice and the Office of Tribal Justice
• Eliminating field offices in major U.S. cities such as Chicago (ATF and CIV), San Fransico (ATF, ENRD and CIV), New York City, Raleigh (CIV), Denver, Seattle and Sacramento (ENRD)
• Transferring cyber functionalities at CCIPS to the NSD cyber unit
• Transferring INTERPOL Washington to USMS
• Eliminating the Community Relations Service
• Consolidating policy offices within DOJ litigating components into the Office of Legal Policy

Strategic themes that emerge from the preliminary plan include reducing real estate footprint and consolidating functions considered duplicative including administrative, policy, and litigation units into “main” DOJ components.

The internal memo does not describe the number of employees that will be impacted by the restructure, however, a Washington Post article cites an 8% reduction in force at DOJ and an estimated cost savings goal of $1.9B.

FY 2024 DOJ Spending

While DOJ’s reorganization and RIF plans are still in flight, it may be worth looking at recent spending at the department to garner a guess at how DOJ acquisition might change moving forward.

Obviously, the plan's major change is merging DEA and ATF, two key agency components of the department. According to GovWin’s DOJ Agency Profile page, DEA spent $677M on contract obligations in FY 2024 while ATF spent $334M. Collectively, DEA and ATF represented just over 2% of the $13.2B spent by DOJ in FY 2024.

The chart below shows a breakdown of the spending by the top 10 primary requirements across the entire department. Given workforce reductions and the preliminary reorganization’s plans to centralize certain functions, spending on professional services and operation and maintenance (O&M) of facilities will see the most decrease. However, determining the extent remains difficult.

Source: GovWin Agency Profiles

The plan makes no mention of changes to DOJ’s primary intelligence unit: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Nor does the plan mention any changes to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The FBI and BOP are the department’s two largest FY 2024 contract spenders at $2.6B and $1.9B respectively.

All things considered, contract spending at DOJ may not change drastically if the department sticks closely with its original reorganization plan and RIF estimates. However, continued contract cancellations across all DOJ components and efforts of efficiency under the new administration do not make that prediction certain.  

Agency Acronym Key:

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives	ATF
Antitrust Division	ATR
Civil Division	CIV
Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section	CCIPS
Drug Enforcement Administration	DEA
Environment and Natural Resources Division	ENRD
Justice Management Division	JMD
United States Marshals Service	USMS

For more on the movements of the new administration, refer to GovWin’s First 100 Days Resource Center.