The majority of the roughly 15,100 USDA employees who accepted buyouts from the Trump administration worked outside the national capital region, ensuring that the department's downsizing will reverberate in communities across the country, according to deferred resignation program data obtained by Agri-Pulse.
It is difficult to ascertain how deeply buyout-driven losses have cut into the workforces of individual USDA agencies, in part due to a lack of accessible, up-to-date employment numbers. Still, when compared to Office of Personnel Management statistics from last September, the DRP data indicates some divisions — like Rural Development and the National Agricultural Statistics Service — may have seen their workforces shrink by more than 30%.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has said repeatedly she wants to bolster USDA's presence outside the Washington, D.C., region, but employee resignations are likely to leave the agency with holes to fill beyond the Beltway. Only about 2,200 of the roughly 15,100 workers who accepted buyouts were based in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The remaining 12,900 were collectively located in other states, according to the DRP data.
The Forest Service lost the most employees to buyouts, with more than 4,000 departing. The Natural Resources Conservation Service follows with losses of more than 2,400 staff. However, OPM data from last September indicates these losses likely comprise less than a quarter of both agencies' workforces.
While Rural Development has lost fewer workers in comparison — just over 1,500 — these departures mean its staff has likely been reduced by more than 32% based on OPM data. The National Agricultural Statistics Service lost 243, just over 30% of last September's workforce.
Those leaving include conservationists who help farmers draft plans to address natural resource challenges, rural housing specialists and researchers working to detect toxins in grain. The agency is now looking to hire new employees in some positions it sees as essential, like wildland firefighters, "front-liners" at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and field staff at the Farm Service Agency.
In response to an Agri-Pulse inquiry, a USDA spokesperson provided a statement that said, "President Biden and Secretary Vilsack left USDA in complete disarray, including hiring thousands of employees with no sustainable way to pay them. Under President Trump’s leadership, USDA is being transparent about plans to optimize and reduce our workforce and to return the department to a customer service focused, farmer first agency."
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On Jan. 28, an email with the subject line “Fork in the Road” landed in the inboxes of more than 2 million employees across the federal government, including staff of USDA. It came with an offer: Resign immediately and receive all pay and benefits until Sept. 30. Recipients were given until Feb. 6 to respond, though the deadline did not officially close until Feb. 12 amid court scrutiny.
The email also warned that if federal employees did not take the offer, the administration could not give them “full assurance” regarding the security of their positions or agencies.
Despite union leaders urging them not to take the initial offer, more than 3,800 at USDA did so, according to the DRP data. When the first round of the DRP was announced, the American Federation of Government Employees warned its members that “there is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way.”
As the result of a lawsuit by AFGE, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. on Feb. 6 directed the administration to keep the signup period open temporarily, but dissolved his order Feb. 12 after finding the plaintiffs had not established a likelihood of succeeding. Still, the case remains open.
Just one day after the end of the signup period for the DRP’s first round, the administration ramped up efforts to shrink the federal workforce. On Feb. 13, as many as 200,000 probationary employees across the government received emails informing them they were fired.
Then in March, two judges and the Merit Systems Protection Board ordered USDA to temporarily reinstate fired employees, although one decision was stayed by the Supreme Court and another by an appeals court. Affected employees were subsequently reinstated but faced the prospect of being fired again depending on the outcomes of court cases and potential reorganization.
When a second round of the deferred resignation program opened at USDA on April 17, the number of employees who chose to leave tripled from the time of the first offer. Amid pressure from looming reductions in force and fear of other potential workforce-slashing to come, a total of 11,298 took the second offer — known in the agency as "DRP 2.0."
Agreements for the two buyout offers look similar, with legal language added to the second noting that any obligations under the agreement are subject to the availability of appropriations and stipulating applicants waive age discrimination claims, according to copies viewed by Agri-Pulse.
Rollins, at an event in Nebraska last month, said the department doesn’t plan to offer another round of buyouts.
Staffing losses hit most USDA agencies
Employees across the USDA have taken buyout offers, though the losses vary by agency.
More than 4,000 workers left the Forest Service, with more than 3,200 of these taking DRP 2.0. This represents just over 10% of the roughly 39,000 who worked at the agency last September based on OPM data.
NRCS, meanwhile, lost just over 2,400 workers to DRPs, representing more than 20% of the roughly 11,600 employees employed there at the end of the last fiscal year. Rural Development lost more than 1,500 employees, which accounts for 32% of its September workforce.
Over 1,300 APHIS employees took buyout offers, leaving the agency with a 15% smaller workforce than last fall. More than 1,200 at the Agricultural Research Service accepted DRP offers, or more than 17% of its workforce from last September.
When accounting for staff of both the Farm Service Agency and its county committees, more than 1,100 employees have taken buyouts. Rollins told senators last month that she does not intend to close any FSA offices and that USDA is looking to bring back employees of that agency and APHIS.
“Those were all deferred resignations,” Rollins told lawmakers of the 15,000 total employees that left USDA. “None of those people were fired. So if they want to come back and they were in a key position, then we would love to have that conversation.”
Still, some employees have faced confusion over whether they can return after accepting buyouts. According to court documents, one USDA employee resigned through the first DRP offer, only to be told she was ineligible, eligible, and then ineligible again. A USDA spokesperson said some APHIS and FSIS employees were barred from participating in the DRP's second round after being deemed essential.
Just over 550 people at the Food Safety and Inspection Service have taken the buyout, which accounts for roughly 6% of the agency’s September 2024 workforce. Paula Schelling Soldner, an FSIS employee who left the agency in recent months, said in a court filing that the agency is “severely understaffed,” forcing many inspectors to take on twice or three times as many inspections as they typically do. Some have to work up to 12 hours per day, she said.
"The inspectors try their best to ensure that the plants are operating in a sanitary way and complying with safety regulations,” Soldner said. "But with such tight time constraints, their inspections simply cannot be as thorough as they usually are. That increases the risk that meat, poultry, and egg products are not safe or properly labeled.”
DRP impacts range across states
When compared to other states individually, the District of Columbia has the highest DRP acceptance rate, with Maryland following. Eight-hundred-and-eighty-six D.C.-based employees have taken one of the two offers, which is the case for 809 Maryland-based workers.
California has seen 775 USDA employees take one of the offers, making it the state that has lost the third-most USDA employees to DRPs. Of these, 378 worked for the Forest Service.
Colorado lost 710 workers to the buyouts, with 283 from the Forest Service, 101 from APHIS and 94 from NRCS. In Texas, 624 employees took buyouts, with 127 based at NRCS and 90 at FSA.
Missouri lost 598 employees to buyouts, with 197 based in Rural Development and 97 in NRCS.
In Virginia 506 took the buyout, as did 500 in New Mexico, 486 in Oregon, 455 in Montana, 412 in Florida and 400 in Georgia.
Some 373 USDA employees in Minnesota accepted buyouts, including 10 in the Risk Management Agency. That represents more than 70% of the state's RMA workforce from last September.
Connecticut is losing 49 total USDA employees. Eight of these worked for Rural Development, representing around 66% of that agency's presence in the state based on OPM numbers from last fall.
Fourteen Rural Development staff are among 150 USDA employees leaving in Wyoming. These employees represent more than half of the state's Rural Development workforce from September.
Around two weeks ago, a package of grain disease antibodies landed on the dock of an ARS facility in Peoria, Illinois. But research leaders at the facility had no idea what to do with it since the scientist who had intended to use the samples had chosen to resign. The package was thrown away, said Ethan Roberts, a physical science technician at the lab and president of AFGE Local 3247.
Work on some of the lab’s other projects have also ended due to worker departures, Roberts said. Many probationary employees who were initially fired and then brought back under court orders have accepted the second DRP offer, he added.
“We lost a lot of friends and a lot of colleagues,” Roberts said. “The hardest was the new people. These people were our future and after the probationary firings, they got out of here and I don’t blame them.”
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