The Fleet Manager’s Guide to Complying with the DOGE Executive Order
Fleet managers across government agencies are facing new scrutiny under the President’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Cost Efficiency Initiative. With potentially fewer than 30 days to justify fleet-related expenses, it’s crucial to act swiftly to ensure compliance and continued funding. Fortunately, fleet management technology like FleetCommander can help agencies stay ahead by identifying waste, preventing fraud, and optimizing fleet utilization to reduce costs. This guide outlines the essential steps fleet managers must take to navigate the new Executive Order, justify expenses, and demonstrate the value of fleet technology investments in reducing federal spending. By following these strategies, fleet managers can ensure compliance while continuing to deliver efficient and cost-effective vehicle management solutions.
Within the next thirty days fleet managers must provide a justification for continuing to spend money on the essential components of their fleet operation - fleet staff, vehicles, and technology. If you are a fleet manager using the FleetCommander fleet management information system (FMIS), there’s great news! You’re ahead of the game with respect to implementing initiatives of the presidential Executive Order as you are already cutting costs and savings taxpayers money.
Thanks to FleetCommander, you are able to streamline the way you:
- Identify Waste – FleetCommander effortlessly captures value fleet utilization data, captures key data about each vehicle trip, and provides dashboards and reports needed to fulfill data requests from internal and external organizations.
- Prevent and Detect Fraud and Abuse – FleetCommander communicates and enforces your organization’s fleet policies to prevent fraud and abuse. Key system metrics in the form of automated alerts and reports provide insights to proactively identify areas of concern and quantify compliances of fleet drivers.
- Reduce Costs – Fleets cost money… a lot of money! FleetCommander helps you maximize utilization of the fleet so that you can do more with less. Every passenger and light duty vehicle is costing you ~$5,000 annually. Let FleetCommander help you size your fleet as your staffing needs shrink or grow.
Even if you are doing everything effectively and efficiently within your fleet, you’ll need to be able to share your metrics and comply with the executive order in a very specific manner. Always coordinate your needs with your agency’s DOGE Team Lead. In advance of meeting with your Lead, here’s what you need to do to navigate the Executive Order dated February 26, 2025:
- Determine if your fleet or department has a reporting requirement
- Be Prepared with Your “Justification” of Fleet Expenses
- Quantify How Your Fleet Technology Investment Reduces Overall Federal Spending
- Be Prepared for Contract Renewals and Approvals
- Stay On Top of DOGE Reporting Requirements
- Start Preparing for Travel for Vendor Visits or Conferences Now
We'll examine each of these steps relative to the Executive Order below:
- Determine if your fleet or department has a reporting requirement.
Per the Executive Order:
(d) “Covered contracts and grants” means discretionary spending through Federal contracts, grants, loans, and related instruments, but excludes direct assistance to individuals; expenditures related to immigration enforcement, law enforcement, the military, public safety, and the intelligence community; and other critical, acute, or emergency spending, as determined by the relevant Agency Head. Notification shall be made to the agency’s DOGE Team Lead”.
There are a limited number of contracts, grants, loans, and related instruments that are not subject to new reporting requirements. Most outlay of money will be subject to the DOGE requirements.
ACTION: Confirm with your agency’s DOGE Team Lead whether you have new contracting and reporting requirements or whether you may be excluded.
- Be Prepared with Your “Justification” of Fleet Expenses
Per the Executive Order:
“Sec. 3. Cutting Costs to Save Taxpayers Money. (a ) Contract and Grant Justification. Each Agency Head shall, with assistance as requested from the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, build a centralized technological system within the agency to seamlessly record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to each of the agency’s covered contracts and grants, along with a brief, written justification for each payment submitted by the agency employee who approved the payment. This system shall include a mechanism for the Agency Head to pause and rapidly review any payment for which the approving employee has not submitted a brief, written justification within the technological system.”
You will be required to justify your expenses. As noted in the Executive Order, any payments must be accompanied by a “brief, written justification for each payment”. As with many things in life, you only have one time to make a great first impression. Make sure you are teed up with a clearly written justification that includes verifiable metrics regarding cutting costs and saving taxpayers money.
ACTION: Draft your justification for any fleet-related expenses now. Your justification should succinctly address the cost-cutting and taxpayer-saving benefits of your proposed justification. An example might look like this:
The subject fleet technology cuts costs by eliminating unneeded fleet assets, automatically capturing metrics to support analysis of waste, fraud & abuse, and streamlining (through automation) manually intensive processes. Taxpayers realize a cost-savings on average of more than $5,000 per vehicle annually in perpetuity for each vehicle eliminated from the fleet.
Also, use whichever of the items below applies:
Total cost-savings using this solution over the past ___ years has saved our organization in excess of $____ million dollars. Greater savings are forecasted during the procurement period.
The anticipated cost-savings over the procurement period are expected to exceed $_____. Savings are anticipated to be realized by eliminating as many as ___ vehicles, avoiding $____ in labor through automation of vehicle management, auditing, and management functions.
- Quantify How Your Fleet Technology Investment Reduces Overall Federal Spending
Per the Executive Order:
(b) Review of Covered Contracts and Grants. Each Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, shall review all existing covered contracts and grants and, where appropriate and consistent with applicable law, terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall Federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies of my Administration. This process shall commence immediately and shall prioritize the review of funds disbursed under covered contracts and grants to educational institutions and foreign entities for waste, fraud, and abuse. Each Agency Head shall complete this review within 30 days of the date of this order.
To be clear, existing contracts will come under intense scrutiny. In order to avoid your critical fleet management tools from being eliminated or scaled back, prepare now. Attempt to document any cost avoidance and cost reductions in a verifiable and succinct manner.
ACTION: Calculate and estimate the cost avoidance to be realized by continuing to fund and use your existing fleet technology. An example might look like this:
In the event that the subject fleet technology is not retained, costs are anticipated to increase by $______ over the next fiscal year in order to continue to provide critical services to taxpayers. Increased costs are a direct result of the elimination of technology that enables fleet assets to be used more efficiently thereby requiring more vehicles to be purchased and managed. Additionally, to fulfill requests for data to support fleet billing & chargebacks or future waste, fraud, and abuse, additional staff will be required to manually collect and collate data and generate reports.
- Be Prepared for Contract Renewals and Approvals
Per the Executive Order:
(i) Following the review specified in subsection (c) of this section, and prior to entering into new contracts, each Agency Head shall, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, issue guidance on signing new contracts or modifying existing contracts to promote Government efficiency and the policies of my Administration. The Agency Head may approve new contracts prior to the issuance of such guidance on a case-by-case basis.
As we’ve learned from our friends and colleagues in the federal sector, guidelines and rules are very fluid. It’s important you stay up to date.
ACTION: Proactively reach out to your DOGE Team Lead to understand their new guidance related to getting procurement actions approved in a way that supports Government efficiency and the policies of the Administration.
- Stay On Top of DOGE Reporting Requirements
Per the Executive Order:
(ii) Each DOGE Team Lead shall provide the Administrator with a monthly informational report on contracting activities. As soon as an agency’s contract and grant justification process described in subsection (a) of this section is established, this report shall include all payment justifications provided pursuant to that process, to the extent consistent with law.
Your DOGE Team Lead is under a lot of pressure and being asked to provide information monthly in order to confirm with requirements.
ACTION: Proactively reach out to your DOGE Team Lead to understand any monthly reporting requirements you may have for your current contracts and grants or for any upcoming renewals or new contracts.
- Start Preparing for Travel for Vendor Visits or Conferences Now
Per the Executive Order:
(e) Non-Essential Travel Justification. Each Agency Head shall, with assistance from the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, build a technological system within each agency that centrally records approval for federally funded travel for conferences and other non-essential purposes. Once an agency’s system is in place, the Agency Head shall prohibit agency employees from engaging in federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless the travel-approving official has submitted a brief, written justification for the federally funded travel within such system. Each DOGE Team Lead shall, to the extent consistent with law, provide the Administrator with a monthly informational report listing each agency’s justifications for non-essential travel. Such justifications shall be posted publicly unless prohibited by law or unless the Agency Head grants an exemption from this requirement.
Travel must be justified in writing in advance, approved, and ultimately posted for public inspection and consumption. You’ll need to prepare for critical travel to meet with vendors, attend industry trade shows, and more.
ACTION: Proactively make a list of all anticipated travel. For each travel item, write up a justification. Remember, in your justification, the Administration’s initiative is looking to “cut costs” and “save taxpayers money”. Accordingly, your justification should include those terms and should include verifiable, cost-saving metrics. An example of travel justification may look like this:
Travel to the ________ fleet conference is requested to experience a hands-on demonstration of ________ products and services that have been approved by our DOGE Team Lead. By traveling to a single site in which multiple vendors can demonstrate products, we realize cost-savings for the tax payers by avoiding travel to each vendor separately. The cost of $________ is a savings of more than $_____ anticipated should we travel to each potential vendor site.
We wish all in the fleet community the best of luck as they navigate these new policies and procedures. If you have successes to share, or if the team at Agile Fleet, Inc. can help in any way, please contact us.
