U.S. Department of Agriculture: Status of Closing and Consolidating
County Offices (Testimony, 07/29/98, GAO/T-RCED-98-250).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the status of the
Department of Agriculture's (USDA) consolidation and closure of its
county offices for three of its field-based organizations--the Farm
Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the
Rural Development mission area, focusing on: (1) the data reported by
USDA to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on
consolidating field offices, particularly the reasons for
inconsistencies in the Department's reported progress in reorganizing
these offices; and (2) a comparision of the Department's most recently
reported reorganization data with the data GAO obtained directly from
the Department's state agency offices in 10 states.

GAO noted that: (1) as of March 1998, USDA had made substantial progress
in meeting its 1994 goals, although it is more than a year behind
schedule in completing its closures and consolidations; (2) USDA has
reduced the number of county offices by 21 percent, from about 7,375 in
1994 to about 5,800; (3) this reduction exceeded USDA's own target of 15
percent; (4) during this same period, USDA reduced the number of county
locations by about 30 percent, from about 3,760 to about 2,700, and
expects to reach its goal of 2,555 locations by the end of 1998; (5)
USDA had planned to complete all closures and consolidations by the end
of 1997; (6) inconsistencies in USDA's reporting of its results to
Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry over the last 4
years stem from: (a) differences in which states and territories have
been included in reports; (b) changes in reorganization plans; and (c)
differences in reporting the types of field offices included in
reorganization reports; (7) GAO's limited review of recently reported
reorganization data found some differences between USDA's reports and
the statistics on office closures and consolidations that GAO obtained
directly from 10 states; and (8) however, in most cases, the differences
were not significant.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-98-250
     TITLE:  U.S. Department of Agriculture: Status of Closing and 
             Consolidating County Offices
      DATE:  07/29/98
   SUBJECT:  Reporting requirements
             Federal agency reorganization
             Federal downsizing
             Reductions in force
             Centralization

             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Before the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, U.S. 
Senate

For Release
on Delivery
Expected at
9:00 a.m.  EDT
Wednesday
July 29, 1998

U.S.  DEPARMENT OF AGRICULTURE -
STATUS OF CLOSING AND
CONSOLIDATING COUNTY OFFICES

Statement of Lawrence J.  Dyckman,
Director, Food and Agriculture Issues,
Resources, Community, and Economic
Development Division

GAO/T-RCED-98-250

GAO/RCED-98-250T


(150077)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  FAC -
  FSA -
  NFAC -
  NRCS -
  RD -
  USDA -

============================================================ Chapter 0

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

We are pleased to be here today to discuss the status of the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture's (USDA) consolidation and closure of its
county offices for three of its field-based organizations--the Farm
Service Agency (FSA), the Natural Resources Conservation Service
(NRCS), and the Rural Development (RD) mission area.  These offices,
known as county office service centers, currently account for about
30,000 employees, or about 27 percent of USDA employees across the
United States and its territories.  At your request, we examined
USDA's progress in meeting the reorganization goals of reducing the
number of county offices for all three agencies to about 6,300 and
reducing the number of county office locations--facilities that
include from one to three offices--to about 2,555.  As you know, USDA
established these goals in 1994, in response to legislation requiring
it to streamline the Department.  As you also requested, we examined
the data reported by USDA to this Committee on consolidating field
offices, particularly the reasons for inconsistencies in the
Department's reported progress in reorganizing these offices. 
Finally, as requested, to further determine the accuracy of USDA's
data, we compared the Department's most recently reported
reorganization data with the data that we obtained directly from the
Department's state agency offices in 10 states. 

In summary, as of March 1998, USDA had made substantial progress in
meeting its 1994 goals, although it is more than a year behind
schedule in completing its closures and consolidations.  USDA has
reduced the number of county offices by 21 percent, from about 7,375
in 1994 to about 5,800.  This reduction exceeded USDA's own target of
15 percent.  During this same period, USDA reduced the number of
county locations by about 30 percent, from about 3,760 to about
2,700, and expects to reach its goal of 2,555 locations by the end of
1998.  USDA had planned to complete all closures and consolidations
by the end of 1997. 

Inconsistencies in USDA's reporting of its results to this Committee
over the last 4 years stem from (1) differences in which states and
territories have been included in reports, (2) changes in
reorganization plans, and (3) differences in reporting the types of
field offices included in reorganization reports. 

Finally, our limited review of recently reported reorganization data
found some differences between USDA's reports and the statistics on
office closures and consolidations that we obtained directly from 10
states.  However, in most cases, the differences were not
significant. 


   BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1

The Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture
Reorganization Act of 1994 (P.L.  103-354, Oct.  13, 1994) directed
the Secretary of Agriculture to streamline and reorganize USDA to
achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness, and economies in its
organization and management of programs and activities.  In response
to the act, USDA reconfigured and consolidated the program
responsibilities of its seven mission areas and reduced the total
number of USDA agencies and offices from 43 to 29.  It also reduced
its overall staff years from about 129,500 in 1993 to about 110,000
by the end of 1997.  About two-thirds, or 13,400, of these reductions
were made in field offices.  The Department plans to reduce staffing
by another 3,000 by the end of fiscal year 1999. 

A key aspect of this reorganization was the closure and consolidation
of county offices delivering services across the country.  In
December 1994, USDA had about 7,375 FSA, NRCS, and RD offices in
about 3,760 locations in the United States and its territories.  Most
agency offices were located with at least one other agency office. 
The Department's goals for consolidating county offices were to
reduce the number of field offices to about 6,300 and the number of
office locations to around 2,555.  Furthermore, USDA expected each
remaining office to be a one-stop shopping service center--a single
location that would provide customer access for all farm,
conservation, and rural development services. 

The three agencies with offices in county office service
centers--FSA, NRCS, and RD--serve a broad base of customers.  FSA
serves farmers at the local level by administering a variety of farm
commodity, farm loan, conservation, and emergency assistance
programs.  NRCS serves farmers and other private, nonfederal land
owners in rural and nonrural areas by providing technical assistance
in planning the use and protection of soil, water, and related
resources.  RD, which includes the Rural Housing Service, the Rural
Business- Cooperative Service, and the Rural Utilities Service,
serves rural communities by providing loans and other financial
assistance for projects that create jobs and provide services,
housing, and utilities. 

In addition to county office service centers, FSA, NRCS, and RD have
about 150 state offices and hundreds of other field offices.  The
state offices--generally one for each agency in each state--provide
administrative support for all of the agency's offices in the state
and coordinate the delivery of agency programs within the state.  The
other field offices--area, regional, and special project
offices--provide management and technical support below the state
level.  Most of these offices are staffed by NRCS soil and
conservation specialists, who deal with specific technical
conservation and resource issues. 

Overall responsibility for obtaining and reporting information on
county office closures and consolidations rests with USDA's National
Food and Agriculture Council (NFAC)--which includes the Administrator
of FSA, the Chief of NRCS, and the Deputy Undersecretary for Rural
Development.  NFAC relies on each agency's state office to maintain
and report these data through the state's Food and Agriculture
Council (FAC). 

In preparation for our testimony today, we reviewed USDA's goals,
directives, and reports, including the most recent report USDA
provided to this Committee, dated March 18, 1998.  We discussed
USDA's progress in meeting the 1994 reorganization goals and
reporting issues with USDA officials.  We compared the data that we
requested from FSA, NRCS, and RD officials in 10 states with similar
data provided to the Committee by USDA.  We also visited USDA
officials in three states to discuss changes in county office
locations and the reporting of their data.  State offices were
selected to obtain geographic representation and a mixture of states
where the agencies state offices are collocated and not collocated. 
USDA's reports and our analysis distinguish between offices that
represent individual agencies and locations that serve as facilities
for one to three offices.  We conducted our review in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards in June and July
1998. 

Over the past 13 months, we have issued several reports addressing
different aspects of USDA's reorganization.  These reports are listed
in appendix I. 


   USDA HAS MADE SUBSTANTIAL
   PROGRESS IN CLOSING AND
   CONSOLIDATING COUNTY OFFICES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2

USDA reports show that since December 1994, the Department has closed
about 1,500 FSA, NRCS, and RD county offices, reducing the total
number from 7,375 to about 5,800 and exceeding the Secretary's
original goal of reducing the number of offices to about 6,300. 
During this same period, USDA reports show that it reduced the number
of county office locations by more than 1,000, from 3,760 to about
2,700.  These reductions fell somewhat short of the Secretary's goal
of reducing the number of county office locations to 2,555 by
December 31, 1997.  According to USDA officials, the Department did
not complete all planned closures and consolidations by the end of
1997 because (1) it was unable to acquire all needed office space in
a timely manner and (2) some states were reluctant to move too
quickly, knowing that additional cuts might be made in FSA as a
result of a contracted study that is to be completed in October 1998. 
The final closures and consolidations needed to reach the Secretary's
goals for office locations are currently scheduled to be completed by
December 1998. 

Table 1 summarizes changes in the number of county offices by agency
and total locations since 1994. 



                                Table 1
                
                Changes in the Number of County Offices
                  and Locations, December 1994 Through
                               March 1998

Agency                           Dec. 1994    March 1998        Change
----------------------------  ------------  ------------  ------------
Number of offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FSA                                  2,773         2,432          -341
NRCS                                 2,942         2,542          -400
RD                                   1,627           815          -812
======================================================================
Total offices reported by            7,342         5,789        -1,553
 USDA
U.S. territories\a                      33            34            +1
======================================================================
Total                                7,375         5,823        -1,552

Number of locations
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FSA only                               398            \b            \b
NRCS only                              549            \b            \b
RD only                                330            \b            \b
FSA/NRCS                             1,160            \b            \b
FSA/RD                                  57            \b            \b
NRCS/RD                                 75            \b            \b
FSA/RD/NRCS                          1,158            \b            \b
======================================================================
Total locations reported by          3,727         2,703        -1,024
 USDA
U.S. territories\a                      33            20           -13
======================================================================
Total                                3,760         2,723        -1,037
----------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Territories include the countries in the Pacific Basin, the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S.  Virgin Islands.  The 1998
data for the territories are actual numbers as of June 1998. 

\b USDA was unable to provide summary data in this format as of March
1998.  Accordingly, an analysis of changes between 1994 and 1998 is
not provided. 

Source:  GAO's analysis of USDA's data. 

As the table shows, RD experienced the largest reduction in offices,
going from 1,627 offices in 1994 to about 815 offices in 1998.  Most
remaining county office locations will include both FSA and NRCS
offices.  However, only about a third of the office locations will
have RD offices. 

As we have reported previously,\1 USDA's county office closings and
consolidations represent significant progress towards accomplishing
the Secretary's overall goals for reorganizing and streamlining the
Department.  However, the extent to which these changes will save
money or improve the efficiency of departmental operations is still
unclear because USDA's assessment of measurable benefits to date have
focused only on estimating savings stemming from staff reductions and
not from other administrative savings or program efficiencies. 


--------------------
\1 U.S.  Department of Agriculture:  Update on Reorganization and
Streamlining Efforts (GAO/RCED-97-186R, June 24, 1997); and U.S. 
Department of Agriculture:  Status of USDA's Reorganization
(GAO/RCED-98-109R, Mar.  19, 1998). 


   REPORTING INCONSISTENCIES HAVE
   CREATED SOME CONFUSION ABOUT
   PROGRESS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3

The data that USDA has provided on county office closings and
consolidations over the last 4 years, including the data in reports
to this Committee, have been inconsistent and have led to some
confusion about the extent of progress actually achieved and future
plans.  There are three primary reasons for these inconsistencies: 
(1) some states and territories were not included in some reports,
(2) reorganization plans changed, and (3) different types of field
offices have been included in different reorganization reports. 

First, with regard to the states and territories included in its
reports, in December 1994, USDA reported that it had 3,704 county
office locations.  However, this number included only office
locations in the contiguous 48 states, not Alaska and Hawaii, and the
U.S.  territories, including those in the Pacific Basin, the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S.  Virgin Islands.  In 1995,
when NFAC took responsibility for coordinating and reporting data on
county office consolidations, it modified the report to include
Alaska and Hawaii, and it reported it had 3,727 county office
locations--23 more than USDA reported in December 1994.  And finally,
some USDA reports included the 33 office locations in the Pacific
Basin, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, increasing the number of
locations to 3,760, as of December 1994. 

Not including some states and territories in some of its reports also
affected USDA's reporting of offices planned to remain after
consolidation.  For example, in December 1994, USDA reported that it
planned to have 2,536 office locations open after consolidation was
completed.  However, this number did not include office locations in
Alaska and Hawaii.  Once the estimates covered all 50 states, the
number of locations expected to remain open increased to 2,547. 
USDA's current plan to retain 2,555 county office locations does not
include 18 planned county office locations for the U.S.  territories. 

Second, changes in the Department's reorganization plans led to
inconsistencies in the reported data, causing some confusion about
which offices would remain after streamlining was completed.  For
example, USDA adjusted its reorganization plan in 1996 to account for
the downsizing and restructuring of the RD mission area.  This change
resulted in closing about 400 offices that were not part of the
original reorganization plan.  At the same time, however, some RD
offices that were area offices were designated as USDA service
centers, slightly increasing the number of planned stand-alone RD
service center offices.  These changes were precipitated by RD's
implementation of its new Dedicated Loan Origination and Servicing
System in October 1997.  This new system allows the agency to provide
loans for single-family housing in rural areas through a centralized
loan origination and servicing center, and it requires fewer field
offices. 

USDA has also changed the data reported to this Committee to a lesser
degree because of changes it made to the reorganization plans in
response to requests from its state agency offices.  For example, a
reduced budget may have required a state agency director to
reconsider how many offices to keep open and where to locate them. 
The state FAC, with the approval of NFAC, may change the mix of
offices planned for closure on the basis of changed budgetary or
program delivery needs within the state.  However, according to the
executive officer of NFAC, these changes have had a greater effect on
where offices are located within a state than on how many office
locations there are within a state.  Our review of the number of
locations scheduled to remain open in each state for 1997 and 1998
showed minor differences between the two reports for 19 of the 50
states and no differences for the other 31 states.  However, overall,
the total number of locations reported to remain open changed by only
one. 

Finally, inconsistencies in reports have occurred because field
locations other than service centers have been included in some
reports.  For example, USDA's March 1998 report to this Committee on
consolidating county office service centers includes detailed
information on other field offices--such as area, district, regional,
and other special project offices--that the agencies may use to carry
out their management and technical responsibilities.  According to
USDA officials, these offices are not set up to directly serve the
public and therefore are not considered service centers.  These other
field offices were not included in the service center consolidation
plans. 


   DATA FOR 10 STATES ARE
   GENERALLY CONSISTENT WITH
   USDA'S REPORTS TO THE COMMITTEE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4

Data reported to us from 10 states were generally consistent with the
data USDA provided to this Committee.  However, for more than half of
the 10 states, the data USDA submitted to this Committee in March
1998 differed from the data that we obtained directly from FSA, NRCS,
and RD state offices.  While the differences, in most cases, are not
great enough to raise questions about the validity of the reported
progress on consolidating and streamlining, they do raise questions
about the precision of the data being accumulated and reported by
USDA.  The differences appear to be primarily caused by inconsistent
reporting to USDA by its state offices. 

Table 2 compares the number of offices and locations as of March
1998, as reported to the Committee by USDA and as reported directly
to us by the three state agencies in 10 states. 



                                Table 2
                
                     USDA and State Agency-Reported
                Information on County Offices and County
                 Office Locations for 10 States, as of
                               March 1998

                        As reported by  As reported to
                             USDA            GAO          Difference
                        --------------  --------------  --------------
                        Office  Locati  Office  Locati  Office  Locati
State                        s     ons       s     ons       s     ons
----------------------  ------  ------  ------  ------  ------  ------
Georgia                    192      95     199     101      +7      +6
Kansas                     218     104     218     104       0       0
Missouri                   239     100     239     100       0       0
New Mexico                  85      39      75      35     -10      -4
North Carolina             204      85     206      86      +2      +1
Oklahoma                   154      82     158      84      +4      +2
South Dakota               137      65     131      62      -6      -3
Texas                      467     224     455     224     -12       0
Virginia                   149      79     128      68     -21     -11
Washington                  73      35      73      35       0       0
======================================================================
Total                    1,918     908   1,882     899     -36      -9
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As the table shows, there was a difference in the reported number of
offices for 7 of the 10 states and a difference in the reported
number of locations for 6 of the 10 states.  In most cases, the
numerical difference was small relative to the total number of
offices or locations in the state.  However, for Virginia and New
Mexico, the difference in the number of offices and locations
reported by USDA and the number reported by the states to us was
about 10 percent.  The difference for Virginia occurred because USDA
double- counted some offices and locations in its reports to the
Committee--including both the current address and the proposed new
address in the report for several counties.  For New Mexico, the
difference was caused primarily by RD's reporting to USDA that
temporary space was permanent offices.  In reviewing the data, we
also noted instances where the reported address of a location in a
county was different between the two reports. 

USDA's state and headquarters officials said that many of the
problems in reporting were caused because of weaknesses in the
methods used to obtain and report this information.  For example,
until recently, NFAC had obtained most of its updated information on
office closures manually from USDA's state agency staff.  Generally,
NFAC sent each state FAC the most recent hard-copy submission of data
and asked the office to update it.  These data may have been reported
inconsistently for various reasons--including different types of
offices, using different reporting periods, or accounting for ongoing
changes differently.  State officials told us that one of the
problems in providing consistent information was the lack of guidance
on the types of offices that should be included in the report. 
According to the executive officer of NFAC, NFAC's first attempt to
automate the reporting process in 1997 was not successful because of
programming problems.  For example, computer instructions were
sometimes difficult to understand, and the program did not include
needed edit-checks to ensure accuracy.  On July 6, 1998, NFAC
implemented a new automated system to obtain and report information
on office consolidations.  The Department believes this new system
will increase the accuracy of its reports. 


-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1

Mr.  Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement.  We will be
happy to respond to any questions you may have. 

Appendix I RELATED GAO PRODUCTS

Farm Programs:  Service to Farmers Will Likely Change as Farm Service
Agency Continues to Reduce Staff and Close Offices (GAO/RCED-98-136,
May 1, 1998). 

Farm Programs:  Administrative Requirements Reduced and Further
Program Delivery Changes Possible (GAO/RCED-98-98, Apr.  20, 1998). 

U.S.  Department of Agriculture:  Status of USDA's Reorganization
(GAO/RCED-98-109R, Mar.  19, 1998). 

Farm Programs:  Impact of the 1996 Farm Act on County Office Workload
(GAO/RCED-97-214, Aug.  19, 1997). 

U.S.  Department of Agriculture:  Update on Reorganization and
Streamlining Efforts (GAO/RCED-97-186R, June 24, 1997). 


*** End of document. ***