Ag Secretary announces USDA reorganization, job relocation

DAILY Bites

• The Agriculture Secretary revealed plans to restructure the USDA, aiming to improve efficiency and responsiveness.
• A significant number of federal positions will be moved from Washington, D.C., to regional locations across the country.
• The shift is intended to decentralize operations and strengthen ties to agricultural communities and rural development efforts.

DAILY Discussion

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins has announced the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, refocusing its core operations to better align with its founding mission of supporting American farming, ranching, and forestry.

Over the last four years, USDA’s workforce grew by 8 percent, and employees’ salaries increased by 14.5 percent including hiring thousands of employees with no sustainable way to pay them. This all occurred without any tangible increase in service to USDA’s core constituencies across the agricultural sector. USDA’s footprint in the National Capital Region is underutilized and redundant, plagued by rampant overspending and decades of mismanagement and costly deferred maintenance.

According to a press release by the USDA, President Trump has made it clear government needs to be scrutinized, and after this thorough review of USDA, the results show a bloated, expensive, and unsustainable organization.

The release also notes that critical functions of the Department will continue uninterrupted. For example, we are at the height of fire season, and to date, have not only exceeded hiring goals, but have preserved the ability to continue to hire. Earlier this year, Secretary Rollins issued a Secretarial Memorandum exempting National Security and Public Safety positions from the federal hiring freeze. These 52 position classifications carry out functions that are critical to the safety and security of the American people, our national forests, and the inspection and safety of the Nation’s agriculture and food supply system. These positions will not be eliminated. However, employees may be subject to relocation.

“American agriculture feeds, clothes, and fuels this nation and the world, and it is long past time the Department better serve the great and patriotic farmers, ranchers, and producers we are mandated to support. President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country,” said Secretary Rollins. “We will do so through a transparent and common-sense process that preserves USDA’s critical health and public safety services the American public relies on. We will do right by the great American people who we serve and with respect to the thousands of hardworking USDA employees who so nobly serve their country.”

The reorganization consists of four pillars:

• Ensure the size of USDA’s workforce aligns with available financial resources and agricultural priorities
• Bring USDA closer to its customers
  Eliminate management layers and bureaucracy
• Consolidate redundant support functions
• To bring USDA closer to the people it serves while also providing a more affordable cost of living for USDA employees, USDA has developed a phased plan to relocate much of its Agency headquarters and NCR staff out of the Washington, D.C. area to five hub locations.

The Department currently has approximately 4,600 employees within the National Capital Region. This Region has one of the highest costs of living in the country, with a federal salary locality rate of 33.94 percent. In selecting its hub locations, USDA considered where existing concentrations of USDA employees are located and factored in the cost of living. Washington, D.C. will still hold functions for every mission area of USDA at the conclusion of this reorganization, but USDA expects no more than 2,000 employees will remain in the NCR.

USDA will vacate and return to the General Services Administration the South Building, Braddock Place, and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, and revisit utilization and functions in the USDA Whitten Building, Yates Building, and the National Agricultural Library. The George Washington Carver Center will also be utilized until space optimization activities are completed. These buildings have a backlog of costly deferred maintenance and currently are occupied below the minimum set by law. For example, the South Building has approximately $1.3 billion in deferred maintenance and has an average daily occupancy of less than 1,900 individuals for a building that can house over 6,000 employees.

USDA’s five hub locations and current Federal locality rates are:

• Raleigh, North Carolina (22.24%)
• Kansas City, Missouri (18.97%)
• Indianapolis, Indiana (18.15%)
• Fort Collins, Colorado (30.52%)
• Salt Lake City, Utah (17.06%)

This is only the first phase of a multi-month process. Over the next month and where applicable, USDA senior leadership will notify offices with more information on relocation to one of the regional hubs.

To make certain USDA can afford its workforce, this reorganization is another step of the Department’s process of reducing its workforce. Much of this reduction was through voluntary retirements and the Deferred Retirement Program, a completely voluntary tool. As of today, 15,364 individuals voluntarily elected deferred resignation.