Seamlessly managed the government’s checkbook, overseeing payments of more than $6 trillion a year and spearheading important reforms while protecting the integrity of the federal financial system.
Each year, trillions of dollars flow through the federal government to ensure the delivery of vital services and the sound management of our nation’s finances.
For more than a decade, Dave Lebryk, the Treasury Department’s senior career official, oversaw some of the most essential operations of government, ensuring that millions of people, including over 70 million Social Security recipients and veterans, were paid each month. He also ensured that funds owed to the government were collected and that the financing operations of the government were executed flawlessly.
Hired into federal service as an intern in 1988, Lebryk’s most recent capacity as fiscal assistant secretary of the Treasury made him responsible for disbursing more than $6 trillion in 2024, including money to Social Security recipients, government employees and others, while ensuring that more than $5 trillion in tax collections and fees were handled properly.
In January, Dave stepped down from government after refusing to grant access to the sensitive payment system that tracks and administers these funds and contains confidential information on millions of Americans.
“Dave was widely recognized as the preeminent leader in the federal financial management community,” said Nellie Liang, who served as the Treasury’s undersecretary for domestic finance. “Dave’s job was to ensure that the government’s essential financial management operations—auctions, payments, collections, reporting and cash management—were handled properly.”
In addition to fulfilling these critical roles, Lebryk in recent years led three transformational efforts: improving transparency in how the government collects and spends money through the implementation of the Data Act; the delivery of 480 million stimulus payments to individuals, businesses and organizations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and the implementation of a government-wide fraud detection and prevention program that last year recovered a record $7 billion in fraud and improper payments, up from $652 million in fiscal 2023.
Lebryk also was the federal employee most responsible for keeping track of when the government would run out of money in the absence of congressional appropriations, making him a pivotal player in the frequent fights in Congress over the debt ceiling and threat of a government default.
“The plumbing of the financial system is something most Americans don’t think about, but they count on it to work seamlessly and with a minimum of risk,” said Janet Yellen, a former Treasury secretary and former chair of the Federal Reserve. “Dave made sure our country had a safe and secure payment system that served the country’s needs.”
Yellen said Lebryk was “deeply committed to public service, is an individual of the highest integrity and is someone who worked effectively over the years through Republican and Democratic administrations in a way that was utterly nonpolitical and that served the public interest.”
Lebryk said he always operated on the basic leadership principle of “do the right thing,” adding that he is most proud that during his tenure, “the fiscal services of the government—the payment and collection systems—were characterized by operational excellence.”