USDA to decentralize and relocate DC workforce
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced plans to relocate more than half of its 4,600 employees currently based in the Washington,D.C. area to regional offices across the country. This move aims to reduce costs by shifting workers to more affordable locations, allowing the agency to pay according to the federal pay scale. The USDA will close three buildings in D.C. and reconsider the use of three others due to high maintenance expenses and underutilization. Employees will be moved to five hubs in Raleigh, NC; kansas City, MO; Indianapolis, IN; Fort Collins, CO; and Salt Lake City, UT. The relocation is intended to bring workers closer to their customers and improve service quality. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins emphasized that this reorganization supports efforts to decentralize federal services and reduce government size, aligning with the Trump administration’s goals. The USDA is also reducing its workforce as part of this restructuring, despite previously receiving increased funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, noting that expansion had not resulted in improved services.
USDA to decentralize and relocate DC workforce
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced plans on Thursday to relocate thousands of workers from Washington, D.C., and close several buildings in the capital.
More than half of the 4,600 USDA employees working in the National Capital Region will be relocated to regional offices. By relocating employees to more affordable areas, the agency will be able to pay them less, in accordance with the federal pay scale.
Three buildings will be shuttered in Washington, D.C., and another three will have their use revisited in the future. The USDA said these buildings were costly to maintain and underutilized, with one requiring $1.3 billion in maintenance while only 1,900 employees occupied it.
The agency also said bringing workers closer to their customers and consolidating support functions will improve the quality of service. The employees will be relocated to five hubs: Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said, “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.”
The USDA has also been working to reduce its workforce. The agency employs over 108,000 employees, and 15,364 have chosen voluntary, elected deferred registration. These employees will leave on Sept. 30.
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The cuts come after the agency received record-high funding in recent years from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. The agency said on Thursday that the recent expansion of the USDA has “occurred without any tangible increase in service to USDA’s core constituencies across the agricultural sector.”
The USDA’s reorganization aligns with the Trump administration’s broader vision to relocate federal employees out of Washington, D.C., and dramatically decrease the size of the government’s workforce.
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