USDA says reorg disfavors layoffs, predicts most employees will accept relocations

The Agriculture Department is confident its push to move more employees out of Washington and into five new hubs around the country will retain most staff and large-scale layoffs will not be necessary, a top official told lawmakers on Wednesday. 

The plan is not yet finalized and still subject to change, USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden repeatedly stressed to members of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, and the department is only now starting to solicit feedback from employees, stakeholders and lawmakers. Ultimately, Vaden said, the most significant goal of the reorganization is to build the next generation of leadership for USDA through the career ranks. 

USDA announced last week it would relocate 2,600 Washington-based employees to its five new hubs and consolidate dozens of offices. It will close one of its headquarters buildings and three additional offices in the Washington area. In the plan, Secretary Brooke Rollins said reductions in force would be utilized “if needed,” without specifying what would lead to their deployment. 

The reorganization plan “puts a thumb on the scale against future RIFs,” Vaden said, adding he would have to personally approve of any such layoffs. 

Asked after the hearing why he might decide they are necessary, the deputy secretary suggested it would depend on how many employees relocate and would likely only be a small number. 

“We won't know whether there might be onesies or twosies until the plan is finalized, but we have an intent that if an employee wants to relocate, we've got an office for them,” Vaden said. 

He added the department’s intention is any employee willing to move will keep their job. 

“It's hard for me to predict how many will,” Vaden said in response to Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. “Do I think 100% will say yes and relocate? No, senator, that will not be realistic for me to say that but I think a significant percent more than a majority will come.” 

Such an outcome would mark a departure from the more scaled back reorganization and relocation effort USDA attempted in President Trump’s first term.

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.

Vaden said the department is expecting better retention this time around—though in the previous iteration White House officials boasted that the relocation was an effective way to get federal employees to leave government. Locations with a cheaper cost of living will incentivize employees to remain with the department, the deputy secretary predicted. 

“We want people to come to USDA for a career, to start a family and to stay with us,” Vaden said, adding that “unfortunately, given the cost of living in the National Capital Region,” that is becoming increasingly difficult in Washington. 

Several Democratic senators questioned whether the reorganization was truly about better serving USDA employees and agricultural producers. 

“The concern I have is whether the reorganization plan is on the level, whether it's about empowering local communities or it's about decimating the already severely cut back workforce,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said. 

The department has already shed more than 15,000 employees from its initiative that allowed employees to sit on paid leave for several months before resigning. Vaden added that additional early retirement and buyout incentives may be offered as the reorganization is implemented. Employees who relocate will be entitled to have their expenses covered within federal limits. 

USDA’s new hubs will be located in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah. The locations generated some pushback from senators in both parties, who noted none of the top five agricultural states were chosen. Vaden said cost of living was the primary factor in making the selections and the locations would still place employees closer to agricultural states than Washington, D.C. 

He added that USDA is still open to changes regarding its reorganization, though the department is already moving forward with conversations with the General Services Administration on which federal properties may be available in its chosen locations. The department is still deciding which components to place in which areas, though Vaden suggested the Forest Service would have a heavy presence in Fort Collins. 

USDA will now begin engaging with employees to solicit their feedback on the plan, which Vaden said will happen primarily through the union. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents thousands of USDA staff, said in a letter to the agriculture committee on Wednesday that employees are not likely to relocate to the new hubs and asked Congress to pause implementation of the plan until lawmakers can review it and the union can negotiate. 

“Federal scientists, economists, and public health experts will not simply pick up and move at the snap of a finger,” Kelley said. “Losing the deep knowledge developed over the course of time participating in longstanding institutional teams and systems will be enormously costly in terms of both dollars and ability to carry out the department’s mission. This relocation plan will not ‘reposition’ these employees, it will drive them out of public service altogether.”

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the farmers in his state would not benefit from the proximity of USDA staff in Utah if they must all be newly hired. 

California farmers “would rather have the experience of the current USDA employees in Washington than an inexperienced group of new employees in Utah,” Schiff said. 

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said lawmakers may still wish to weigh in on the new hub locations and other aspects of the reorganization.

“It is something that ultimately this Congress has something to say about, both from an authorizing standpoint and certainly from an appropriation standpoint,” Hoeven said. 

Vaden defended the plan to close USDA offices by noting they represented just four of the 4,754 facilities from which department employees work. The buildings were nowhere near fully utilized, he added.