USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins recently announced a reorganization plan, with much of the federal workforce expected to be relocated from the Washington, D.C. area.
The reorganization plan consists of four key components: 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; and 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,” the department said in a press release, “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 (NCR). This Region has one of the highest costs of living in the country, with a federal salary locality rate of 33.94%. 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 its South Building and two other DC-based facilities and return them to the General Services Administration, which largely manages the federal government’s real estate portfolio. “These buildings have a backlog of costly deferred maintenance and currently are occupied below the minimum set by law,” USDA said. “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 in which it plans to relocate employees and departmental functions are Raleigh, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Fort Collins, and Salt Lake City.
USDA’s memorandum can be found here.
