ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — Ronald Sutton is a Vietnam Veteran who has called Elizabeth City home his entire life.
"All my life, I was born in 1950," said Sutton.
I met Ronald as he was leaving the Social Security Administration Building, a place he frequently visits for services.
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"Certain information I get from the Veterans Administration, they'd ask for certain things, and I had to get information from here for my social security, things like that. So it's convenient for me to come here, than go online," said Sutton.
The Elizabeth City location was included on a list from the Department of Government Efficiency or "DOGE," for potentially being a part of the continued cuts across the federal government. News that made its way around Elizabeth City on Friday, as many we spoke with said it's an asset to their community.
“I just hope they don’t close it, I really do. Because, it’s going to put a lot of people at a disadvantage," said Sutton.
The future of the location is unclear, but for now it is operating business as usual.
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We reached out to the Social Security Administration and General Services Administration and their responses are below:
"Acting Administrator Ehikian’s vision for GSA includes reducing our deferred maintenance liabilities, supporting the return to office of federal employees, and taking advantage of a stronger private/government partnership in managing the workforce of the future.
GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization. A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases. To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space. In many cases this will allow us to increase space utilization and obtain improved terms," said a GSA spokesperson.
"We are working with GSA to review our leases and ensure they are used efficiently. Most of the leases we are not renewing are for small remote hearing sites that are co-located with other Federal space. As the majority of our hearings are held virtually, we no longer need as many in-person hearings locations. In fact, in FY24, twenty percent of these offices held no in-person hearings. Other offices are non-public facing, being consolidated into nearby locations, or we had planned to close. Social Security continuously monitors and evaluates the use of our office space to maximize efficiency for the American taxpayer," said an SSA spokesperson.
