Updated June 17, 2025 at 3:50 PM EDT
David Lebryk chose a career in federal government and stuck with it for over three-decades.
Now he's among some of the unsung heroes to be celebrated when the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals are handed out by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service on June 17.
Lebryk was named federal employee of the year for his work as fiscal assistant secretary of the Treasury Department. He was accountable for about $6 trillion annually in disbursements covering Social Security, Medicare, federal salaries, grants and tax refunds.
He left that job in January, after resisting attempts by the Department of Government Efficiency to gain access to the payment system. The Trump administration later fought court battles over whether officials could pause payments or grant access to DOGE. The Supreme Court eventually granted access.
In a conversation with Morning Edition, Lebryk spoke to NPR's Steve Inskeep about his consequential role in government, his biggest highlight during his time at the Treasury and what prompted him to retire from his position.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Steve Inskeep: To what or to whom was your ultimate loyalty as a civil servant?
David Lebryk: I know when I took the oath of office, I swore an oath to the Constitution. And that was always really incredibly important to me all the way to the very end. It was very important to me that we took that seriously. Also given my background, I had a very strong and I continue to have a very strong passionate feeling about the importance of government and how it needs to serve people well.
Inskeep: What was your job in the final years?
Lebryk: So as fiscal assistant secretary, it's the senior career official at Treasury and this is one of those things where, you know, we prided ourselves on not being a household name. It's kind of like electricity. If it works, you don't really notice it. If It doesn't work, well then you notice it.
And for us, you know, because of the really important role that we played in terms of making payments, 70 to 75 million payments a month to beneficiaries, social security beneficiaries. And the financing of the government, which I think is really very important, is that Treasury bills, notes, and bonds are actually the foundation of not only funding the government, but they're the foundation of the economic worldwide economic system. You know, we've really prided ourselves on on time every time to making those payments.
Inskeep: Do I understand this correctly? The failure rate has to be absolutely zero.The United States can never bounce a check.
Lebryk: Correct.
Inskeep: Lebryk served under Democratic and Republican presidents. He served in the first Trump administration.and he says it was a good experience. In the second administration, he was briefly at the top of the department while waiting on a new secretary to be confirmed.
Lebryk: Probably the highlight of my career in some ways was serving in those eight days as acting secretary and deputy secretary. Character and leadership is really important and integrity in leadership is really important..And I know you sometimes have to make decisions that are not popular, but you have to sort of have integrity in what you're doing at all times.
Inskeep: So how did these 8 days, the highlight of your career, go?
Lebryk: So really, for the most part, quite well with the exception of two issues that I think were important which I became uncomfortable with. One was the stopping of payments and the second was providing access to our systems.
Inskeep: Who came to you? What did they ask for and how did they ask?
Lebryk: Well, I really don't want to get into that aspect of that detail of it, other than it was clear that there was an interest in stopping payments as well as providing access into the government systems.
Inskeep: What information is in the systems to which you refer?
Lebryk: In our systems we have an enormous amount of private information on people, bank account information, address Social Security number, a variety of other things. We protect that information by law. Secondly, whenever we grant access to someone, we only do it in a very limited basis. It's for sole purpose, and you have to have passed background checks and have had training to do that.
Inskeep: Granting that you don't want to get into every single detail, was the request made of you one that you considered to be unwise or illegal?
Lebryk: Both
Inskeep: Neither prudential, as they say, nor within the law.
Lebryk: Yes.
Inskeep: And so did you say, let me give you some advice about this, or did you say no?
Lebryk: Well, as acting secretary, I was ultimately responsible and accountable, so my answer was no.
Inskeep: I'm trying to recall news reports for the time. You retired, is that what was said?
Lebryk: Yes.
Inskeep: So, no one said you're fired?
Lebryk: No
Inskeep: But it was clear to you, you needed to go.
Lebryk: Yes.
Inskeep: Do you think your successors at the Treasury Department, because of the realities of making the payments, because of the realities of the law, ultimately will end up having to do things about as you were doing them before?
Lebryk: There's a really interesting thing that happens and I've seen over the course of my career is oftentimes a new administration will come in and not want to do what the old administration did and also think that, well, just the people who work in government really don't know what they're doing. Invariably, they leave saying how impressed they are with the professionalism and the capabilities of civil servants. And so I know civil servants right now, this is not an easy time, but the skills that civil servants have are needed.
Inskeep: Do you think officials in this administration even will come away appreciating the bureaucracy given that their opening position was civil servants are the enemy?
Lebryk: At the end of the day, you're going to own it. And at the end of the day, you have to be able to deliver.
Inskeep: Do you miss the job?
Lebryk: Frankly, I do on one level, but I'm also relieved I don't have to face these dilemmas on a daily basis.
Editor's note:
We asked the Treasury Department about David Lebryk's story.
The department asserts they are modernizing the payment system.
Without giving details, they assert Lebryk gives a "mischaracterization of the events at issue," and they also assert that in Lebryk's time, recommended reforms were "ignored."
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