Evanston woman says her contract is among DOGE website errors

The Trump administration's effort to shrink the size of the federal government and enact cost savings has been chronicled online for weeks.

Overseeing that effort is the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, whose website has a recent history of errors.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that some of the largest discrepancies and inaccuracies associated with the website were either altered or scrubbed entirely, including that the DOGE website "erased or altered more than 1,000 contracts it had claimed to cancel."

Among the largest claims that disappeared, per a New York Times report, included a $1.9 billion savings that DOGE claimed it achieved by canceling an Internal Revenue Service contract for tech help. The paper also reported the contract was actually canceled in November, while Joe Biden was president.  

Another DOGE claim of $133 million in savings was tied to a U.S Agency for International Development contract which had been canceled earlier last year, according to a LinkedIn post by the contractor, which the newspaper first reported and NBC 5 Investigates reviewed.

As of Friday, the DOGE website claimed to save taxpayers an estimated $105 billion through a series of contract cancellations, asset sales, grant cancellations and layoffs, among other actions.

NBC 5 Investigates could not immediately verify all those reported savings based on the information available through the DOGE's website.

Nancy Segal, an Evanston woman who has worked for more than 50 years as both a federal government employee and more recently a federal contractor, says DOGE is taking credit for $367,000 in cost savings for a contract she held with the Small Business Administration.

Segal told NBC 5 Investigates the contract for human resource-related executive training was not renewed in September at her choosing.

The decision to not renew the contract, Segal says, happened more than a month before Donald Trump was re-elected.

The DOGE website is still claiming credit for the cost savings from the contract at more than $367,000.

In an interview this week with NBC 5 Investigates, Segal re-affirmed that it was her decision to end that contract months ago – not DOGE.

"Correct," she replied when asked if the cost savings claimed on the DOGE website were inaccurate.

NBC 5 Investigates reached out to the White House on Thursday and again Friday asking for comment on what direction it has given DOGE to address discrepancies and inaccuracies.

NBC 5 Investigative Reporter Bennett Haeberle was asked to provide specific examples, which he did. We are still waiting on an official White House response.

During an appearance inside the Oval Office late last month, Elon Musk told reporters that "… we will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we do make a mistake, we will fix it very quickly."

An NBC 5 Investigates review of the federal procurement website shows Segal has held dozen of contracts with various federal agencies dating back decades. Segal says her company, Solutions for the Workplace, in part provides executive training for employees who hope to ascend to the highest level of federal agencies.

Segal also told NBC 5 Investigates she was contacted in the past three weeks by two federal agencies to let her know that two contracts she held with FEMA and the Department of Agriculture would be canceled.

"Well, as a small business owner, that's going to have an effect on my business and my employees in terms of the public at large as employees – in terms of [the] public at large – as employees are removed from federal service and services are diminished, that impacts communities at a very granular level," she said. "It's a disappointment. It's going to have an impact, all of those kinds of things. To me, the broader impact that worries me more is the employees and the programs they support for the public."

The Trump administration cutbacks, she said, has threatened the future of her business.

"Yes, of course I'm worried about the future of my business. Absolutely," Segal said. "Not doing those [trainings] is certainly going to have an impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of managers across government."

NBC News reported Friday that some of President Trump's cabinet secretaries challenged Elon Musk over his approach to cuts in their departments during a contentious meeting in the White House on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the exchanges.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy both pushed back on Musk specifically for firing their employees without any consideration for whether letting them go was a good idea in terms of maintaining quality and critical staff, these people said.

Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have rapidly moved forward with firings of federal employees and budget cuts at departments over the past six weeks, sometimes having to rehire workers who are seen as critical to agency functions.

A spokesperson for the State Department did not respond to a request for comment about Thursday's meeting.

A spokesperson for the Transportation Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Asked about the tense cabinet meeting, Trump said Friday, "Elon gets along great with Marco, and they're both doing a fantastic job. There is no clash."