Hundreds of USDA employees to be removed from their jobs in September

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This is from yesterday evening and therefore too old for LBN.

Science

Hundreds of USDA employees to be removed from their jobs in September

By Ben Guarino
August 7 at 6:41 PM

The Agriculture Department is preparing to issue hundreds of termination letters to employees who have not agreed to move from the District of Columbia to Kansas City. The notices, arriving sooner than some workers and their supporters expected, will accelerate a controversial relocation process that has already stripped two USDA agencies of key research staff.

Last summer, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced he would relocate the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which manages a $1.7 billion portfolio of scientific grants, and the Economic Research Service, an influential federal statistical agency. The agencies rent office space in Southwest Washington near the waterfront. ... In June 2019, Perdue declared the Kansas City region as the site of the new offices. USDA’s cost-benefit analysis suggests the move will save taxpayers $300 million over 15 years. The department has not said whether the employees will work in Kansas or Missouri; instead, it has set aside temporary office space for staff in its Beacon Complex in Missouri.

On June 13, USDA sent reassignment letters giving workers until 11:59 p.m. on July 15 to respond. Those who declined or who did not respond would lose their jobs, the letter warned. ... The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, the union that represents the agencies, requested an extension for the deadline. Given the 900-mile distance from Washington to Kansas City and the uncertainty around which state to move to, the union considered 30 days insufficient time for employees to make a commitment.

In a phone call with Sen. Christopher Van Hollen (D-Md.) on July 14, Perdue told the senator the deadline would be extended until Sept. 30, according to the senator’s description of the call. ... Two days later, Van Hollen and 18 other Democratic members of Congress wrote a letter to Perdue to confirm the Sept. 30 deadline. Also that day, USDA announced that 250 USDA employees, two-thirds of those reassigned, declined to relocate and would lose their jobs. ... Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney recently praised the USDA attrition as a way to “drain the swamp.”
....

Ben Guarino is a reporter for The Washington Post’s Science section. He joined The Post in 2016. Follow https://twitter.com/bbguari

[Iliyah]

1. Bad move . .

plus the white nationalist administration and cabinet members want to destroy the Union and weed out as many POC employees.

[KPN]

2. tRump is cleaning the swamp ... of regulatory

capabilities of the federal government to the best of his ability by directly attacking the federal workforce. His attacks on the moral and ultimately livelihoods of dedicated civil servants dwarf those of Reagan.

Edit: Oh my, just went back and reread the post. I am thunderstruck by Mulvaney’s bald-faced “praise” of USDA for its efforts to “drain the swamp”. tRump is doing the same thing with Interior, most notably the Bureau of Land Management in an attack on public ownership of our national public lands.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Hundreds Of Federal Employees May Soon Be Out Of A Job As USDA Plans To Relocate Agencies

AUG 8, 2:19 PM

Hundreds Of Federal Employees May Soon Be Out Of A Job As USDA Plans To Relocate Agencies
Natalie Delgadillo

Hundreds of employees working at two federal agencies stand to lose their jobs next month if they decline to move to Kansas City by the end of September. ... Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced controversial plans last year to relocate two United States Department of Agriculture agencies that currently have headquarters in Navy Yard. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service manage scientific grants and research on agriculture and economics, respectively.

In June, the department announced it had chosen Kansas City as the agencies’ new home base and gave workers a mid-July deadline to decide if they would relocate. Only 37 percent agreed to move; the remaining 250 employees turned down the offer. Now, the Washington Post reports that the Agriculture Department is preparing to issue termination notices “sooner than some workers and their supporters expected.”

Some federal lawmakers have been staunchly opposed to the move, and asked USDA to grant employees more time to decide whether they would accept the relocation. ... The USDA declined to do so. But in a statement to the Post, it said “we have continuously maintained that employees have until the report date to amend their decision which may include changing from a no to a yes. We are actively working with employees so they can make the decision in a timely manner to ensure they are able to take advantage of all available resources. The mandatory report date for relocating employees in Kansas City is Sept. 30, 2019.”
....

While the USDA has done a cost-benefit analysis that indicated the relocation would save $300 million over a 15-year period, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has also explicitly celebrated the move as a means to “drain the swamp.” ... “It’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker. I know that because a lot of them work for me, and I’ve tried,” Mulvaney said in a keynote speech at a Republican gala in South Carolina. “By simply saying to people, ‘You know what, we’re going to take you outside the bubble, outside the Beltway, outside this liberal haven of Washington, D.C., and move you out in the real part of the country,’ and they quit—what a wonderful way to sort of streamline government, and do what we haven’t been able to do for a long time.”

Meanwhile, the Office of the Inspector General released a report this month finding that the relocation may violate the 2018 appropriations bill, which holds that the USDA must get Congressional approval before spending money on the move. The department paid accounting firm Ernst & Young $340,000 without the proper Congressional permission, per the report. ... These agencies won’t be the only ones to undergo a relocation out of the District. On July 16, the Department of the Interior notified Congress that it plans to move hundreds of positions in the Bureau of Land Management out west. Only 60 of the approximately 400 employees currently based in D.C. will be left here by the time relocations are finished at the end of 2020.

[dalton99a]

4. +1