The Washington Sun’s Tyler Spence and Gavin J. Quinton reported that “the Agriculture Department did not show that it analyzed how its sweeping reorganization would affect the economy, public services or taxpayer dollars before officials ordered thousands of employees to relocate across the country, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday.”
“According to GAO auditors, the Trump administration ignored six requests over the past year to explain the math behind Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ July 2025 plan to relocate some 2,600 USDA jobs from Washington, D.C., to hubs across the country,” Spence and Quinton reported. “‘Without such analysis, it’s not clear if USDA’s plans were based on leading practices, like strategic workforce planning, that would better position the agency to address possible effects,’ the report reads.”
Agri-Pulse’s Steve Davies reported that “in a response to GAO’s draft report, included in the final report, Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins called the review ‘politicized’ and said GAO had ignored ‘basic realities’ such as underutilized buildings and the state of the ‘crumbling’ Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland.”
“She also said recent hiring actions have brought USDA’s employee total to 93,674. The report did not take into account 2026 hiring actions but noted that the number of personnel at USDA had fallen from 91,000 in December 2024 to 73,000 in March 2026,” Davies reported. “The report, however, said the department had not provided analysis informing specific reorganization decisions.”
Civil Eats’ Lisa Held reported that “the USDA first announced its reorganization in July 2025, prompting questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The agency quickly began reducing the size of its staff and began assigning employees to new office locations this summer. In October, a judge directed the agency to halt the efforts until a lawsuit brought by unions is resolved, although Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has suggested they’re continuing to move forward.”
“Throughout the process, the top Democrats on the Senate and House agriculture committees, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Representative Angie Craig (D-Minnesota), have been demanding more information,” Held reported. “The GAO produced the new report at their request.”
Ag Secretary Rollins Pushes Back on GAO Report
Government Executive’s Jory Heckman reported that “Rollins told GAO that the last major USDA reorganization took place in 1994, and that ‘the world the Department operates in today is vastly different’ more than 30 years later.”
“‘While I have long appreciated the work of the Comptroller General to audit and evaluate use of taxpayer resources, I write with concern that GAO proposes releasing a report that fails to tell the American people and Members of Congress the unadulterated story of the Department’s reorganization,’ she said,” according to Heckman’s reporting.
Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported that “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,” Clayton reported. “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.”
