USDA staffing cuts and office consolidations are raising bipartisan concerns in Congress – sparking objections to what some criticize as haphazard layoffs by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
USDA currently is sorting through employees who submitted their requests for a Deferred Resignation Program that would pay them potentially through the end of September – but terminate their employment.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins provided an update on the situation during a media briefing at the Grand Farm Innovation campus, near Wheatland on Tuesday.
“We have already accepted and put on probation a significant number of employees. We’ll keep rolling out those plans in the coming weeks. The ultimate planning and reorganization should be finished in terms of at least the announcement by early to mid May. So we’re getting really close to the final plans and then of course we’ll spend some time implementing.”
Recent reports by website Government Executive indicated that staffing levels at USDA could be cut by nearly ten percent starting in late April or early May, or some 9,000 workers.
Remaining workers would be relocated from the National Capital Region to three hubs around the country. The locations for those new offices have not yet been determined, but the shakeup will impact thousands of headquarters staff. USDA is expected to offload one of its two Washington headquarters buildings, according to two employees familiar with the matter.
Rollins said the Department of Agriculture is “looking at how to be much more efficient with current day technology.”
“But also how to preserve that relationship that we do believe is important. And of the hundreds and hundreds of farmers that I have spoken to since I took this job and doing a lot of round tables like we did earlier today at North Dakota State, one of the most important messages they send us is that interface with the FSA and with those on-the-ground employees, is really, really important. So we are going line by line, office by office, and there will be offices that need more staff that can’t do the job that they’re called to do because they’ve got thousands of farmers that are relying on them. And at the same time, there will be offices – by the way, one in every county in America – there will be offices that perhaps are overstaffed.”
For clarification, there is not a USDA office in every county of the U.S., although USDA does strive to have a strong presence in rural states. Many counties have their own USDA Service Center, but a single office may serve multiple counties, especially in areas with lower population densities. An office location near you can be found at USDA’s Office Locator.
Rollins said the goal of realignment at the Department of Agriculture “is to put farmers and ranchers first.”
“And while it is difficult and we’ve got a huge challenge ahead of us, I believe so strongly that as we are realigning USDA and other agencies, but for me USDA, and as we are finding where the fat, the bureaucracy, the layers are that are no longer necessary, that now allows us to pivot to what is really important, which is serving those farmers, and those ranchers.”
Rollins visited the Grand Farm Innovation Campus to participate in a technology demonstration showcasing the latest advancements in autonomous and precision agriculture. The visit was hosted by U.S. Senator John Hoeven, who extended the invitation to Secretary Rollins during her confirmation hearing earlier this year.
[This article was edited at 1:42PM, April 25th, to provide reader clarification on the Secretary’s comment regarding USDA office locations]
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