LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas is scheduled to lose 16 U.S. Department of Agriculture offices among 259 to be lopped nationally in a cost-savings effort by the federal agency.
Ten Farm Service Agency offices in the state are included in the proposal. Rural Development offices in five counties are on the list of potential USDA offices to close. The Natural Resources Conservation Service soil survey office in Little Rock is also scheduled to be shuttered.
The $150 million a year in expected savings is a small part of the $3 billion, or 12 percent, that Congress has cut during the past two years from the USDA’s operational budget.
Before the closings are finalized, there will be a public comment period and hearings in each of the affected counties.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a conference call Tuesday that he expected more cuts in programs such as food stamps and farm subsidies, in addition to further operational cuts as Congress considers the farm bill this spring.
He introduced what the USDA is calling a “Blueprint for Stronger Service” on Monday at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting in Hawaii.
Faced with the budget cuts, Vilsack said, he considered layoffs and mass furloughs to save personnel expenses. Instead, he said “comprehensive” reductions to office locations would save money but still allow department workers to serve farmers and other clients better than a reduction in force.
USDA spokesman Matt Herrick said there are 14 full-time employees at the five Rural Development offices that may close. He said all those employees would be offered positions in other counties.
Rural Development offices aid counties trying to get grants offered by the Agriculture Department.
The USDA “acknowledges that some of the folks are going to see longer commutes or asked to fill another position [within USDA], or face other changes that will disrupt there lives,” Herrick said. “But we hope very few, or none, of the people will leave because of the closings.”
Izard County Judge David Sherrell said that before the announcement he had been planning to meet with the county’s Rural Development office employees to discuss a few programs, but “not anymore, it looks like,” he said.
He added that he would be gathering information before deciding whether to make a public comment challenging the decision.
“I am going to ask some folks about this and see what is going on,” he said.
The six employees at the Natural Resource Conservation office in Little Rock will be offered positions in other states, or offered early retirement packages, Herrick said.
The office in Little Rock serves the entire state. If it closes, farmers would have to send their soil samples they want tested to offices in Texas, West Virginia or Alabama, Herrick said.
The decision to close that office should have minimal effect, said J. Randy Young, executive director of the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission.
“It’ll be one of the things we’ll be assessing in the coming days,” he said, adding that he could also submit a comment when the time comes.
Linda Newkirk, state executive director of the Farm Service Agency, said the 10 agency offices to be shuttered have only one or two employees each and that all would be offered positions in nearby counties. In all, there are 15 full-time agency employees in the 10 counties.
The Farm Service Agency provides farmers low-interest loans, disaster aid and subsidies when market prices are poor. There are more than 75,000 producers in the state that use the agency’s 61 offices.
The decision to close the Farm Service Agency office in Faulkner County didn’t sit well with Joe Thrash, who farms rice, cotton and soybeans.
“That will be quite a bit of trouble for us in Faulkner County,” Thrash, who is also president of the county’s Farm Bureau, said from the annual conference in Hawaii on Tuesday. “That office there is already servicing two counties, Perry and Faulkner. I guess they’ll assign us to a different county, which will put quite a burden on us for travel and scheduling appointment times.”
However, Newkirk said that farmers could choose which Farm Service Agency office they wanted to work with to cut down on travel time. There would be an agency office within 20 miles of each of the closed offices, she said.
Newkirk said Arkansas was not treated unfairly.
“I’ve been concerned about this and have asked lots of questions,” she said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I don’t think the state [was slighted].”
She said that in 2007 and 2008 other states’ Farm Service Agency offices were consolidated, but that only the Saline County agency office closed then. Thirteen agency offices in Arkansas were consolidated in 1995. Before that, there was an agency office in each of the state’s 75 counties. The latest round of closures would leave 51.
The plan drew the ire of several in the Arkansas delegation.
In 2005, when the USDA planned to shutter 713 Farm Service Agency offices, including 22 in Arkansas, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor successfully co-sponsored legislation to put the closures on hold so the agency could do cost-benefit studies.
On Tuesday, Pryor, a Democrat from Arkansas, said he had not studied the agency’s plan, but said that his office would likely weigh in during the public comment period to better understand the criteria used to determine which offices were selected for shutdown.
“I appreciate the USDA trying to stretch every dollar it can, but at the same time, I want to make certain all these closures are justified,” Pryor said.
U.S. Sen. John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican, said he was concerned that more offices were to be closed in Arkansas than nearly all other states.
Only Tennessee, with 18 Farm Service Agency closures, would exceed Arkansas, followed by Texas with 15. Tennessee would be lose nine agency offices and nine Rural Development offices.
“On the surface, there’s a concern that Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas seem to have born the brunt” of the closures, Boozman said. “The people of Arkansas are willing to sacrifice and do our part, but we are not willing to sacrifice more than other agricultural areas of the country.”
Rep. Rick Crawford, a Jonesboro Republican who serves on the House Agriculture Committee, noted that about one in ten of the closures are in Arkansas.
“The Obama administration cannot hope to cure all our budget woes on the backs of rural Americans,” he said. “We cannot sit back and let national bureaucrats harm our state’s rural communities.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/11/2012