(A report by the Iowa Capital Dispatch) –  U-S Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins today (Thursday), announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to slash its presence in the Washington, D.C., area by sending employees to five regional hubs. The department wants to reduce its workforce in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia from 4,600 to less than 2,000 and add workers to regional offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City.

The department will also maintain administrative support locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Minneapolis and agency service centers in St. Louis; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Missoula, Montana, according to a memorandum signed by Rollins. The effort, which the memo said is expected to take years, will move the USDA geographically closer to its constituents of farmers, ranchers and foresters, Rollins said in a press release.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building in Washington, D.C., pictured on Dec. 18, 2017. (USDA photo by Preston Keres)

The USDA release also appealed to the plan’s cost efficiencies. By moving workers out of the expensive Washington, D.C. area, the department would avoid the extra pay workers in the region are entitled to, the department said. Federal workers are eligible for increased pay based on the cost of living in the city in which they’re employed.

Washington has among the highest rates, boosting pay for workers in that region by 33%. Other than Fort Collins, whose workers also earn more than 30% more than their base pay, the other hub cities range from 17% in Salt Lake City to 22% in Raleigh, according to the release. The plan includes vacating several D.C.-area office buildings that are overdue for large maintenance projects, the department said.

Each of USDA’s mission areas will still have a presence in the nation’s capital, according to the release. But the plan includes consolidating several functions into regional offices in an effort to “eliminate management layers and bureaucracy,” according to the memo.

The U.S. Forest Service, a key USDA agency, will phase out its nine regional offices primarily into a single location in Fort Collins. The agency will retain a small state office in Alaska and an Eastern office in Athens, Georgia, according to the memo. The Agriculture Research Service will also consolidate from 12 offices to the five regional hubs.

And a series of support functions would be centralized, according to the memo.