USDA agencies to consolidate state-level offices

The Agriculture Department Friday announced that state-level offices of three of its agencies will be consolidated over the next three years.

The consolidation will affect employees in 25 states and Puerto Rico who work for the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and USDA's rural development operations. Each of those operations currently maintain separate offices in each of the states. No jobs will be cut, but some employees will have to move.

"This is an effort to streamline bureaucracy," said USDA spokeswoman Mary Beth Schultheis. "We are saving the taxpayers money by streamlining, but still offering the same services we did before."

USDA estimates that the consolidations will save the department $8.9 million in facility and services costs over the next eight years.

State-level offices in the other 25 states are already co-located. County offices are not affected by the announcement, though USDA is trying to improve coordination among the agencies at the county level through an effort to get local offices to work together using information technology.

Some affected employees won't have to move. In Arizona, for example, all three agencies' state-level offices are in Phoenix. But in Texas, 73 employees presently stationed in College Station will have to move to Temple, Texas, which is about 90 miles away.