The letter cited a GAO report on a previous relocation of USDA offices that “failed to consider critical costs and economic effects in its analysis of the costs and benefits," when only one third of personnel relocated. Image: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com
More than a dozen House Democrats active in civil service and agriculture issues have questioned the Agriculture Department’s reasons for a recently announced reorganization that would result in closing and consolidating some facilities in the national capital area and shifting several thousand employees to other, unannounced, locations outside that area.
“Given the Department’s lack of consultation with Congress to date regarding this reorganization plan, we are deeply concerned that this relocation, like many other reorganization efforts attempted by this administration, is being implemented without appropriate study of the costs and benefits to USDA or the American people,” they wrote to USDA Secretary Brooke L. Rollins.
“The Administration’s cuts to USDA’s workforce and upheaval caused by relocating offices and functions to other parts of the country could reduce USDA’s capacity to provide essential services and perform the research critical to the maintenance and safety of America’s agricultural sector,” they wrote.
That is “precisely what happened” during the first Trump administration when two USDA research agencies were moved out of the capital area to Kansas City, Mo., they wrote. The letter cited a GAO report concluding that the department “failed to consider critical costs and economic effects in its analysis of the costs and benefits” of that move, leading to reduced productivity when only about a third of affected employees relocated.
While Agriculture Department officials told a Senate hearing that they expect the majority of employees to remain in their jobs through upcoming moves and consolidations, that testimony “leaves significant areas of concern about USDA’s level of analysis or lack thereof into the impacts of the plan,” they wrote, asking for detailed information about the process that went into the decision.
Similar challenges have been raised against two other recently announced relocations: of FBI headquarters to another location in Washington, D.C. instead of to a previously approved new site in suburban Maryland; and of HUD headquarters staff to a suburban Virginia building that would displace NSF employees there to another undetermined location.
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