Fate of Salem IRS office uncertain after DOGE claims to cancel lease 

The future of the Salem office of the Internal Revenue Service is unclear after a federal cost-cutting program led by Elon Musk listed the agency’s rented office on its website of terminated contracts.

The IRS rents a 9,733 square foot office suite on the third floor of a privately-owned building at 1660 Oak St. S.E. which also houses several state government offices.

Employees there on Friday said they could not discuss the office’s future with a reporter and feared losing their jobs. One was crying.

The uncertainty comes as millions of Americans are filing taxes. 

Kelsey Oran, the principal broker at Hancock Real Estate, the Salem firm which represents the building’s owners, said Friday afternoon that she had been preparing to put the suite on the market before receiving word from the property management firm which oversees the building that the lease cancellation was a mistake.

Oran said she spoke to a representative from Portland-based Deering Management Group.

A broker with Deering Management Group did not immediately respond to a voicemail requesting information on the matter from Salem Reporter.

Oran said she was not privy to any conversations between the property owners and the federal government. 

The building is owned by Salem firm Shires Properties LLC, whose owners referred questions to Hancock Real Estate.

IRS employees answering the agency’s media line Friday said they didn’t have information about the office’s closure. The agency didn’t respond to emailed questions about whether the office was closing. 

As of early 2024, the IRS had 35 employees in Marion County, according to Patrick O’Connor, a regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department.

The turmoil comes as Musk’s initiative, called the Department of Government Efficiency, has rapidly slashed federal jobs and terminated contracts and leases, including firing over 6,000 IRS employees, according to the New York Times. 

DOGE’s work has rolled out in an often chaotic fashion, leaving the federal workforce and the public scrambling for answers.

Salem had 457 federal jobs in 2023, O’Connor said. Nearly 300 of those were with the U.S. Postal Service, and about 120 with the Department of Veterans Affairs, he said. Several federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, maintain smaller offices in Salem.

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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