By Ryan Hanrahan
Government Executive’s Eric Katz reported that “the Agriculture Department on Thursday announced additional relocation plans for employees as part of its larger reorganization, including a new center for food inspectors in Iowa and a second attempt at sending research staff to Kansas City.”
“The Food Safety Inspection Service will send out two-thirds of its headquarters staff currently based in Washington, the agency said, to a newly stood up National Food Safety Center in Urbandale, Iowa, a new Science Center in Athens, Ga., or other locations,” Katz reported. “The Iowa facility will become FSIS’ largest office with 200 people and USDA said the changes will move staff ‘closer to the agricultural and food production systems that FSIS regulates.'”
“The department’s Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture, meanwhile, will once again relocate employees to Kansas City. It also did so in President Trump’s first term, though President Biden subsequently moved the agencies’ headquarters back to Washington while keeping the Kansas City offices open,” Katz reported. “This time around, ERS and NIFA will move employees out of the capital region to Kansas City and bring other employees who have since been shifted to other locations back to that hub.”
“Following the 2019 moves, both agencies lost more than half of their staff, leading to a significant decline in productivity from which it took the agencies years to recover,” Katz reported. “The latest USDA reorganization plan received overwhelmingly negative feedback during the public comment period from lawmakers, employees and local governments on the larger USDA reorganization, as well in meetings the department held with tribal governments.”
“The reshaping of those components is part of a larger USDA reorganization that will see 2,600 employees shifted from the capital region into new regional hubs around the country,” Katz reported. “In addition to Kansas City, those hubs will be in Salt Lake City, Raleigh, N.C.; Fort Collins, Colo., and Indianapolis. The department previously announced it would move its U.S. Forest Service headquarters, and 260 employees, to Salt Lake City.”
Source : illinois.edu