The Agriculture Department is planning to relocate more than half of its Washington, D.C., workforce to regional hubs across the country, as part of agency reorganization plans released Thursday.
The USDA is also letting over 15,000 employees leave the agency later this year, after they accepted deferred resignation and early retirement offers.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said the agency is “not conducting a large-scale workforce reduction” of nonvoluntary layoffs. But in a memo, she wrote that “focused and limited reductions in force will be implemented only if needed.”
Rollins told staff in a video message that the department “will also be reducing some regional office management layers and consolidating duplicate functions.”
The department’s relocation plans are much broader in scope than what happened under the first Trump administration. In 2019, USDA sought to move several hundred employees in its research bureaus from the D.C. area to Kansas City, but most impacted employees chose to leave the agency, rather than relocate.
President Donald Trump, during his reelection campaign, said his administration would relocate as many as 100,000 federal employees out of D.C. and relocate them “to places filled with patriots who love America.”
USDA says the reorganization plan is meant to bring employees closer to the communities they serve, and will reduce spending on a workforce that grew by thousands of employees under the Biden administration, “with no sustainable way to pay them.” The department, in a press release, said the USDA workforce grew by 8% over the past four years, and that employees’ salaries increased by 14.5%.
Federal workforce data, however, shows USDA’s staffing in the national capital region decreased under the Biden administration. Between September 2020 and September 2024, USDA saw a net decrease of nearly 600 employees working in D.C., Virginia and Maryland.
USDA, during this same period, saw staffing increase in Kansas, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, Washington, North Carolina, Montana and Wisconsin.
“President Trump promised to realign federal spending, eliminate duplication and redundancy, and ensure all agencies are efficiently and effectively delivering services to our constituents,” Rollins told employees in a video message. “We are doing just that by moving our key offices’ services outside Washington D.C. to ensure that USDA is located closer to the people we serve.”
USDA, as part of its reorganization plans, will relocate thousands of D.C.-based employees to five hubs across the country, with lower locality pay rates.
- Raleigh, North Carolina (22.24%)
- Kansas City, Missouri (18.97%)
- Indianapolis, Indiana (18.15%)
- Fort Collins, Colorado (30.52%)
- Salt Lake City, Utah (17.06%)
The D.C. metro area 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,” USDA wrote.
Rollins wrote in her memo that USDA won’t relocate human resources employees clustered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. The department will also keep laboratories and critical service centers running in St. Louis, Missouri, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Missoula, Montana.
About 90% of USDA employees already work outside of the D.C. area. The department said it will carry out the relocation in phases. About 4,600 USDA employees currently work in the national capital region. USDA said it will “still hold functions for every mission area” in D.C., but no more than 2,000 employees will remain in the region.
A USDA employee told Federal News Network that career staff were not aware of the reorganization announcement until about 20 minutes before the press release went out to the public.
Rollins told employees in her video message that the reorganization “perhaps creates some personal disruption for you and your families,” but said USDA will “make sure this transition over the coming months is as smooth and as minimally disruptive as possible.”
“We recognize each employee has unique circumstances to consider and any decisions you pursue are personal and yours alone,” Rollins said. “But we stand ready to serve you, to help you through this process, and I sincerely hope you will consider staying part of our USDA team as we move into this exciting next chapter of this storied department.”
Under the first Trump administration, USDA tried moving hundreds of employees at its two research bureaus to Kansas City. But more than half of the employees at the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture who received relocation notices left the agency, rather than move to Kansas City.
The department also plans to vacate some of its underutilized D.C. area federal buildings and return them to the General Services Administration.
As part of the reorganization, the Forest Service, the Food and Nutrition Service, and the National Agricultural Statistics Service will cut the number of regional offices. The Agriculture Research Service will also eliminate all its regional offices under this plan.
USDA also plans to shut down the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center over several years “to avoid disruption of critical USDA research activities.”
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the center has been “the crown jewel of the agency’s award-winning research into improving our agricultural practices.”
“I’m concerned this reorganization is just the latest attempt to eliminate USDA workers and minimize their critical work,” Kelley said.
USDA said all critical functions will continue “uninterrupted.” The department said it has exceeded its hiring goals for federal firefighters and has exempted firefighting and public safety positions from a governmentwide hiring freeze that’s been extended to Oct. 15.
“These 52 position classifications carry out functions that are critical to the safety and security of the American people, our national forests, and the inspection and safety of the Nation’s agriculture and food supply system,” USDA wrote.
USDA said these positions will not be eliminated, but these “employees may be subject to relocation.”
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