I have to say, I love the DOGE group and the job they are doing working to make America wealthy again at the Department of Government Efficiency. Hi there, Ken Baxter again coming to you from sunny Las Vegas, Nevada.
I knew there was excessive bloat, waste and inefficiency in our government systems, but this one left me shaking my head in disbelief. In a village in Butler County, Pennsylvania, there is a former limestone mine, (yes, a mine) some 230 feet underground where, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) stores their employee records. Incredibly, the record keeping in the Iron Mountain mine is all manual, millions of sheets of paper, stored in over 26,000 file cabinets; filled with manila folders. They say the environment has just the right temperature and humidity to preserve such important data. It also takes 700 people to operate this facility.
The Office Of Personnel Management Office - Boyers,cv vc Pennsylvania
When you see the ordinary office building on a rural Pennsylvania highway nobody would guess the operation they have below the surface. The discovery came as DOGE began reviewing departmental staffing, searching for ways to streamline the 3,000,000 federal work force. They learned that retirement from the Federal Government is a lengthly process, sometimes up to six month or more. It makes a person wonder; why are all these files not digital? In a world where EVERYONE’S personal data, from medical records, financial history, etc were converted to easily searchable databases here is this trove of personnel documents, and probably others tucked away for safe keeping…in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Just a short drive to the city of Butler, location of the assassination attempt of Donald Trump in July of 2024. Weird.
This is a shared space, designed for vital records and artifacts including Hollywood Masters of original films. The OPM has an office at the mine site with a huge parking lot. The video below explains a lot but leaves even more questions.
Elon discovered that only 10,000 retirement applications can be processed in any month and may take up to 6 months to complete each request. The related documents must be retrieved and assembled from one of the 26,000 file cabinets and miles of files. What makes these documents so important that they are stored in a climate controlled environment and treated as national artifacts. There must be other files here as well, wouldn’t you think?