‘Bloated, Expensive, Unsustainable’ USDA Reorganizing, Shrinking its Washington Presence

Calling USDA “a bloated, expensive and unsustainable organization,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins last week announced a reorganization of the Dept of Agriculture, including moving many employees and functions out of the Washington, D.C., area “to bring USDA closer to the people it serves while also providing a more affordable cost of living for USDA employees.”

Employees will be relocated in a phased way to USDA’s five hub locations:

• Raleigh, North Carolina
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Fort Collins, Colorado
• Salt Lake City, Utah

In addition to the relocations, there are three other “pillars” to the reorganization plan:

• Ensure the size of USDA’s workforce aligns with available financial resources and agricultural priorities
• Eliminate management layers and bureaucracy
• Consolidate redundant support functions

The July 24 memo said, “The Department currently has approximately 4,600 employees within the National Capital Region (NCR). This region has one of the highest costs of living in the country, 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.

“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.”

Despite all the changes, “all critical functions of the department will continue uninterrupted,” the memo said.

“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,” it concluded. “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.”