Some USDA RIF plans take shape as department warns employees of major cuts

The Agriculture Department is warning its employees it will soon identify “duplicative” or “redundant” functions to eliminate, including through the closure of offices throughout the Washington region. 

The changes will result in widespread layoffs across the department of nearly 100,000 employees, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a message to staff on Tuesday, who issued the cautionary note to encourage workers to voluntarily leave government. Like several other agencies in recent days, USDA reopened the window to take paid leave through September before separating from federal service. The so-called “deferred resignation program” was first offered to virtually all federal employees in February and around 75,000 workers accepted the deal. 

In the coming weeks, USDA will be “optimizing and reducing the size of the workforce to become more efficient,” Rollins said. She made clear the department cannot offer “full assurance regarding which positions will remain—or where they will be located—after USDA’s restructuring.” 

The elimination of duplicative functions will focus on business support roles, the secretary said, and eliminating “unnecessary management layers.” The department will relocate employees away from Washington to be “closer to the farmers, ranchers, foresters and consumers we serve,” she added. 

That will lead to closing department facilities to minimize its footprint in the capital region, as well as some other parts of the country. 

Some of the layoff plans have begun to take shape. According to a source briefed on the matter, the U.S. Forest Service is planning to consolidate its nine regional offices into as few as three. USFS' research team, which focuses on priorities such as new tools to model fire risk, markets, forest restoration and water and employs around 1,500 people, is expected to face cuts. The agency’s five Research Stations are slated to be pared back. The nation’s 154 National Forests are expected to be consolidated and the plan is to move the Wildland Fire division into another part of the government. USFS’ Washington headquarters is slated to be “hollowed out,” the source said. 

Rollins noted the upcoming RIFs in reopening the window for the deferred resignations, or DRP, which employees have until April 8 to accept. Employees who accept the offer will be placed on paid administrative leave between April 15 and April 30. Those eligible can also accept an early retirement incentive. 

Not all employees will be eligible for the DRP offer. At the Forest Service, for example, warranted law enforcement officials, mobile radio telecommunications and electronics technicians and specialists and firefighters at the General Schedule-10 level and below cannot take it. 

One USDA employee told Government Executive she will accept the offer to get closer to retirement eligibility—and because she wants out of an administration that is constantly creating threats that linger over her head. 

“I can’t stand another four years of this mental roller coaster,” the employee said. “It’s just all too much, reading and hearing about people getting RIF emails after hours and then they can’t even get back into buildings to get their personal belongings.”

The employee was also optimistic some good will come of her decision. 

“I’d like to hope that my leaving will save one other younger person from getting RIF’d,” she said. 

A union official at USDA said he has heard from a far larger pool of employees who plan to accept the offer this time around. His group has not received any communication from the department on its RIF plans. 

USDA joins the General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Defense and Energy in offering a second round of DRP. Several unions led by the American Federation of Government Employees have renewed their challenge of the program, suggesting the administration should have issued new regulations to implement it.