Agriculture Department to Move Most Remaining Washington Workers Out of City

New York Times

3 days ago

The Agriculture Department will move most of its Washington-based employees outside the nation's capital, the agency announced Thursday.
Brooke L. Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said in a memo that the agency would keep no more than 2,000 of the 4,600 members of its current Washington work force at offices in the area, instead spreading employees across five regional hubs. The memo also outlined plans to consolidate or eliminate local offices for subagencies focused on research, statistics, nutrition, forestry and conservation.
'President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the Beltway and into great American cities across the country,' Ms. Rollins said in a statement.
The vast majority of Agriculture Department employees already work outside the Washington area, spread across the country to assist farmers, conduct research and inspect animal and plant health. The agency's headquarters, though, are on the National Mall and house offices focused on civil rights, congressional relations and watchdog functions in addition to support staff.
Ms. Rollins noted that more than 15,000 Agriculture Department employees — about 15 percent of the department's work force of about 100,000 — had taken buyouts. The consolidations and relocations will almost certainly lead to more exits. When the Agriculture Department moved two research agencies from Washington to Kansas City in 2019, each lost more than half of its staff before eventually recovering, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The hubs will be Raleigh, N.C.; Kansas City, Mo.; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colo.; and Salt Lake City — all cities that already have regional offices.
According to the memo, the Agriculture Department will also vacate, over the course of several years, the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center — a 115 year-old facility in Maryland that has contributed to improving the shelf life of butter, developing pesticides and creating new varieties of vegetables and fruits.
The American Federation of Government Employees, a union of federal employees, criticized the move.
'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,' Everett Kelley, the union's president, said in a statement.