USDA to relocate thousands of staff outside Washington, consolidate dozens of offices

The Agriculture Department will soon move thousands of employees out of the Washington area and consolidate dozens of offices, likely leading to significant further reductions to USDA’s already shrinking workforce. 

The department will utilize layoffs “if needed,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a memorandum accompanying the announcement, without specifying what circumstances would lead to their deployment. It will use mandatory reassignments, however, which can result in terminations if employees refuse them. USDA currently has 4,600 employees in the Washington area and is looking to shrink that number to 2,000. Just 10% of the department’s workforce is currently in the capital region. 

Rollins said USDA was not conducting a “large-scale workforce reduction,” but ensuring it can “afford its workforce” and this was part of a process of shrinking it. 

The department is standing up five regional hubs around the country that will house relocated employees, located in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Rollins boasted those areas have smaller locality pay adjustments than Washington. USDA will also maintain offices in Albuquerque and Minneapolis, but is slashing regional offices across the country and consolidating many support functions. 

Government Executive in April first reported on the relocations out of Washington, standing up of new hubs and reductions to regional staff. Existing regional employees will be re-located to hub location “to the greatest extent possible.” 

USDA did not specify what will happen to employees in consolidated or eliminated offices, noting only that the process would play out over the coming months and employees would learn more about relocations in the next month. It has already shed more than 15,000 employees from its initiative that allowed employees to sit on paid leave for several months before resigning. 

A spokesperson for the department declined to spell out any additional details on the timing of the changes or the fate of employees in consolidated offices, saying only that Thursday’s announcement was a “first step.” 

“Some aspects of the reorganization will be implemented over the coming months while other aspects will take more time to implement,” the spokesperson said. “We will be transparent on the progress and continue to provide updates to employees as we have them.”

As Government Executive previously reported, USDA is vacating the South Building—one of its two main headquarters buildings in Washington—as well as its Braddock Place facility in Alexandria, Virginia. It will eventually get rid of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and the George Washington Carver Center in Maryland.

Among the changes USDA will implement to its component agencies are: 

• The Agricultural Research Service will eliminate its area offices
• The National Agricultural Statistics Services will consolidate its 12 regional offices to five
• The Food and Nutrition Service will cut two of its seven regional offices and move those that remain to the hubs over the next two years
• The U.S. Forest Service is phasing out its nine regional offices and four of its five Research Stations, as Government Executive previously reported
• The Natural Resources Conservation Service will align to the new hubs

Employees focusing on communications, finance, budget, human resources, lease administration and grants will all be consolidated into a more streamlined structure, the department said. Among the entities that will be consolidated into others are the department’s civil rights office, the Freedom of Information Act office and Legislative Affairs functions.  

Rollins said in a video message to employees that they were all an important part of the USDA family, while acknowledging many of them will soon have to make difficult decisions. 

“We recognize each employee has unique circumstances to consider, and any decisions you pursue are personal and yours alone, but we stand ready to serve you, to help you through this process,” Rollins said, adding the changes would put employees closer to those the department serves while reducing their cost of living. 

One NRCS employee said some workers in the office Thursday were crying after the reorganization news came out, likening the new reality of potential reductions in force hinging on relocation acceptance and terminations to the Hunger Games. The deferred resignation program, the employee said, has already “turned the agency into Swiss cheese with vacancies from the local offices to the highest levels.” 

“We have not filled any of them and this reorganization will create more holes in that block of cheese,” the employee said. “The public, employees, agencies and environment will suffer.”

NRCS last week asked employees to voluntarily transfer into mission-critical positions it just incentivized employees to leave. 

An employee in a USDA budgeting office estimated the department will spend about $150,000 for each employee it relocates. Rollins suggested more separation incentives would be forthcoming, perhaps giving the department an offramp to push out employees who do not want to relocate without firing them. 

Such an outcome would save the department money in relocation costs and avoiding the severance payments that typically accompany layoffs. The budgeting employee suggested USDA knows most employees will not accept the relocations and the goal is to shed staff. 

“At the end of the day, they’re firing people,” the employee said. 

In 2019, the department relocated the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture to Kansas City, over the objections of employees and some lawmakers. Following the move, both agencies lost more than half of their staff, leading to a significant loss of productivity from which it took the agencies years to recover. Under President Biden, both agencies moved their headquarters back to Washington while maintaining their Kansas City offices.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents many USDA employees, said the moves were an attempt to "eliminate USDA workers and minimize their critical work." 

"D.C. is the center of our nation’s government for a reason, as it facilitates needed coordination between senior leadership and field offices and ensures agencies are at the seat of the table when decisions are made at the White House and in Congress," Kelley said. "This administration is moving at breakneck speed to slash the size of the federal government, often with little thought into the consequences this will have on the American people who rely on the services our members deliver."

An employee in the Agricultural Research Service, which is folding its area offices into its Office of National Programs, despite the area offices having more staff than ONP, said the farmers and producers USDA serves are not likely to approve of the changes. 

“I can’t imagine stakeholders are going to be happy,” the employee said.