Rollins Blasts GAO Review     11/09 15:50

   Ag Secretary Calls GAO Review of USDA Reorganization Partisan

   The GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, on Monday released a report 
examining USDA's plans to reorganize several agencies, including relocating 
thousands of staff to regional offices around the country. The report also 
broke down the 18,000-person decline in USDA employees, about 20% of the 
department's workforce, since the beginning of the Trump administration.

Chris Clayton
Farm Business Editor

   OMAHA (DTN) -- Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins lashed out at the 
Government Accountability Office (GAO) for scrutinizing USDA's reorganization 
plan, calling the GAO's report partisan, politicized and incomplete, while the 
GAO said USDA repeatedly failed to provide information needed to evaluate the 
reorganization plan's costs and effects on services. 

   The GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, on Monday released a report 
examining USDA's plans to reorganize several agencies, including relocating 
thousands of staff to regional offices around the country. The report also 
broke down the 18,000-person decline in USDA employees, about 20% of the 
department's workforce, since the beginning of the Trump administration. 

   In USDA's comments back to the GAO, Rollins told the acting U.S. Comptroller 
General that the GAO can examine USDA's reorganization, "but it does not get to 
define the objective through veiled partisan shenanigans meant to maintain the 
status quo and ignore the realities facing USDA's mission today."

   The GAO report had been requested by the ranking members of the House and 
Senate Agriculture Committees, both of whom are Democrats. 

   The status of USDA's reorganization plans remains tied up in federal court. 
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California last month 
granted a motion to halt the reorganization under a case led by the American 
Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO. The union argues that 
reorganization plans are prohibited by congressional appropriation laws. USDA 
and the Justice Department immediately appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit 
Court of Appeals. A hearing on the appeal is set for Dec. 10.

   The GAO said inspectors asked USDA six times over eight months for details 
on USDA's analysis or planning before announcing a department-wide 
reorganization, but USDA did not provide those details. 

   "Thus, Congress and the public do not have information on the extent to 
which USDA examined issues such as how the reorganization could impact service 
delivery, the economic effects of the reorganization, or how to safeguard 
taxpayers' dollars in disposing of property through the reorganization."

   USDA's public affairs office did not respond to questions from DTN about the 
GAO report being released.

   Rollins' letter to the comptroller makes the case the last "holistic" USDA 
reorganization occurred in 1994. She cited changes in agriculture, trade, food 
assistance, technology and other issues that have occurred in the three decades 
since then. "Simply, the world the Department (USDA) operates in today is 
vastly different than the world of 1994."

   COSTS AND STAFFING

   Rollins also pointed to budget and staffing costs at the U.S. Forest 
Service, which has been an ongoing challenge due to rising costs for wildfires 
over the past decade. Since January 2025, the Forest Service has seen 10,253 
people leave the agency, though 4,832 people have been hired, a net decline of 
5,421 employees, or nearly 12% of its workforce.

   Those Forest Service cuts were an issue in a Montana congressional race 
where former Forest Service firefighter Sam Forstag, a Democrat and union 
leader, flipped the congressional seat in last week's election. Forstag had 
criticized federal job cuts that left firefighters in Montana and other western 
states without jobs or health insurance.

   USDA criticized the GAO for questioning USDA's economic analysis, but the 
GAO said USDA had provided no such analysis for review.

   "Because USDA has not shared information about its analysis of the benefits 
and costs of its decision to reorganize, if it performed such analysis, 
Congress and the public cannot evaluate how these factors influenced USDA's 
decisions and choices," the GAO stated.

   Rollins said the GAO was criticizing USDA for not using an economic analysis 
the watchdog favored. "One does not need a special Washington-bred calculator 
to realize expenses and salaries cannot be paid or that it is inefficient to 
keep aging buildings that sit empty."

   Rollins' letter stated that Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden had testified 
before the Senate Agriculture Committee and discussed the reorganization in a 
closed-door roundtable with members of the House Agriculture Committee. 

   Rollins called on GAO to review documents "in the public domain" to examine 
the reorganization. The GAO continued to maintain USDA's actions and decisions 
don't provide any analysis about how reorganization could impact service 
delivery or the economic impacts of the moves and office closures.

   The GAO's analysis showed USDA had eliminated roughly 18,000 employees from 
January 2025 through March 2026, or about 20% of all staff. Rural Development 
and the Food and Nutrition Administration had the biggest decreases in the 
percentage of their workforces.

   The plans call for relocating at least 2,600 of USDA's 4,600 headquarters 
and Washington, D.C., regional staff to five hub locations and other cities 
nationally.

   The GAO also raised the question about what happens to USDA real estate and 
other equipment.

   BUILDINGS AND RESEARCH

   Rollins challenged the report's scope and portrayal of events surrounding 
her reorganization announcement in July 2025. 

   "The report lays bare a politicized review of the Department's 
reorganization, made clear by the portrayal of events leading up to my 
memorandum and select events after."

   Rollins criticized the GAO's draft report for not referencing the Utilizing 
Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies Act, dubbed the USE IT Act. That 
provision requires federal agencies to measure how much office space they use 
and reduce persistently underused space. The USE IT Act was part of the 2024 
Water Resources Development Act and was one of the last pieces of legislation 
signed into law by former President Joe Biden in January 2025.

   Rollins stated both the USDA headquarters building and the adjacent South 
Building were operating at less than 25% occupancy in July 2025, "far below the 
utilization rate required under the USE IT Act."

   Rollins also cited that the GAO didn't weigh in on the "financial 
challenges" that have beleaguered the Beltsville (Md.) Agricultural Research 
Center, known as BARC. Rollins stated BARC had declined because of decades of 
underfunding. Moving research projects to other locations "is about preserving 
research as opposed to letting it languish at a complex that is crumbling." 

   The GAO noted the review did not examine the conditions at any particular 
buildings or properties.

   National Public Radio (NPR) reported on the BARC closing last month. Teddi 
Mitchell, vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees 
local that covers BARC employees, said in the article that researchers at BARC 
were concerned about the status of their projects as well as the need to 
transfer expensive equipment elsewhere. Mitchell said there had been millions 
of dollars spent over the past five years to renovate BARC. Now, some 
renovations have been halted.

   In a report last year, USDA's Office of Inspector General also cited that 
the agency cut 20,306 staff from its payrolls in the first six months of the 
Trump administration. 

   See, "Trump Administration Dramatically Reduced USDA Staffing, OIG Report 
Highlights,"

   
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2025/12/22/trump-administr
ation-dramatically

   Also see, "Age Catches Up to USDA South Building," 
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2026/04/28/new-deal-icon-a
ging-infrastructure

   The full GAO report: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-27-108734

   Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

   Follow him on social platform X @ChrisClaytonDTN




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