As part of ongoing monitoring of the changes to America's evidence infrastructure, the Data Foundation has identified several critical developments since our March and April reports. Recent organizational shifts across federal agencies and private sector firms continue to affect both the workforce and operational capacity for data collection, analysis, and evaluation activities:
- Agency restructuring moving forward: Implementation of agency reduction in force (RIF) and Reorganization Plans are ongoing at some agencies, with more prepared for likely release in coming weeks.
- Leadership transition ongoing in key data positions: Key federal data and Evidence Act roles remain unfilled or occupied by acting officials across multiple agencies.
- Data systems undergoing operational changes, with some disruptions: Agencies programs and reporting processes for data infrastructure are experiencing partial or full suspension of operations, potentially impacting industries, financial markets, and public safety.
- Modernization efforts continue: Enhanced oversight processes, organizational streamlining, and open data expansion with 3,200+ new datasets on data.gov reflect ongoing changes in government operations and transparency initiatives.
- Enhanced contract approval processes affect project timelines: Federal contracting is experiencing longer time periods for reviews due to reduced capacity, changes in management of approvals, and reorganization or restructuring decisions. For example, at the Department of Commerce, which currently requires Secretary-level approval for large contracts, resulting in over 3,000 contracts affected.
- Private sector workforce reductions continue: Large federal contracting and data management companies issued layoff notices for thousands of employees in April and May under WARN Act requirements, with impacts particularly concentrated among firms providing data, technology, and evaluation services in the Washington region.
These key findings reflect the continuing evolution of federal evidence capacity and highlight the increasingly systemic nature of changes to America's data infrastructure. The Data Foundation will continue monitoring these developments through our SAFE-Track initiative to provide objective analysis of their impacts on government effectiveness and transparency.
