USDA to reorganize, send employees in D.C. to other cities

Published 8:45 am Monday, July 28, 2025

The USDA will reduce the number of employees working in Washington, D.C., vacate three buildings and consolidate regional offices, a reorganization that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said will cut costs and bring the department closer to farmers.

The department has nearly 100,000 employees nationwide and about 4,600 work in the D.C. area. The USDA plans to reduce the D.C. workforce to about 2,000 employees by moving workers to department hubs in Kansas City, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Raleigh and Fort Collins, Colo.

“It has always been (President Trump’s) vision to drain the swamp out of Washington, D.C. — and we are delivering on that promise,” Rollins said in a media post July 25.

Governors and federal lawmakers in states that will get an influx of USDA employees praised the reorganization.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said the plan was “half-baked” and that she would call for an oversight hearing. “This will decimate research, etc., just as farmers are walloped by tariffs,” she said on social media.

The USDA’s workforce has grown by 8% and employee salaries have increased by 14.5% over the past four years, but with no improvement in service to constituents, according to a USDA statement.

The USDA does not plan a large cut in the workforce, but will continue to seek to shrink payrolls through programs that lower the retirement age or pay employees to resign, Rollins said in a memo. So far this year, 15,364 USDA employees have opted for buyouts.

The USDA did not offer a timeline for relocating employees, vacating buildings or merging offices, though it indicated some of the changes will take place over several years.

The USDA said it considered the existing concentration of department employees and the cost of living in selecting the five hub cities.

Federal employees receive cost-of-living bonuses on top of their base salaries. The bonus in D.C. is nearly 34%, compared to 19% in Kansas City, 22% in Raleigh, 18% in Indianapolis, 17% in Salt Lake City and 30% in Fort Collins.

The USDA will retain its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and keep two other buildings there. The three buildings it will vacate are underused and need repairs, according to the department.

One of the buildings, the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, will be vacated over several years to avoid disrupting research programs, the department said.

The USDA has 29 agencies and more than 4,500 offices nationwide. Other points in the reorganization plan include:

• The Agriculture Research Service will eliminate area offices.

• The National Agricultural Statistics Service will consolidate its 12 regions into five over several years.

• The Food and Nutrition Service will reduce its number of regions from seven to five.

• The Natural Resources Conservation Service will align its regions with the five USDA hub cities.