Many USDA workers to quit as research agencies move to Kansas City: 'The brain drain we all feared'

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Science

Many USDA workers to quit as research agencies move to Kansas City: ‘The brain drain we all feared’

By Ben Guarino
July 18 at 10:57 AM

Two research agencies at the Agriculture Department will uproot from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City in the fall. But many staffers have decided to give up their jobs rather than move, prompting concerns of hollowed-out offices unable to adequately fund or inform agricultural science.

About two-thirds of the USDA employees declined their reassignments, according to a tally the department released Tuesday. Ninety-nine of 171 employees at the Economic Research Service, an influential federal statistical agency, will not move. At the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which manages a $1.7 billion portfolio in scientific funding, 151 of 224 employees declined to relocate.

Jack Payne, University of Florida’s vice president for agriculture and natural resources, warned that the hemorrhage of employees will devastate ERS and NIFA. “This is the brain drain we all feared, possibly a destruction of the agencies,” Payne said.

Workers who agreed to move must do so by Sept. 30, although USDA has not established permanent office space and has not said whether the agencies will be located on the Missouri or Kansas side of the Kansas City area. Workers who were asked to move but declined “will be separated by adverse action procedures,” per letters the employees received in June.
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Ben Guarino is a reporter for The Washington Post’s Science section. He joined The Post in 2016. Follow https://twitter.com/bbguari

[Botany]

1. Trump is working to destroy America from the inside in order to pay off Putin

Besides who needs food and or farmers?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I'm reminded of how airlines used to periodically relocate

their reservations centers during the 1970s and 80s. Perhaps they still do so, I'm just no longer in the loop to know such things. Even though all current employees were always guaranteed a job in the new city, the vast majority of them didn't move. I think there was one relocation in which exactly one employee moved. It's a great way to save money because now you hire all new employees who are at the bottom of the pay scale. And management doesn't give a flying fuck that experience might possibly matter in that job.

Same thing going on here. But more dangerously, the new employees will be hand-picked to go along with the awfulness of the current administration.

[Rebl2]

3. Kansas City

area is a great place to live. Cost of living is lower here, but it’s ridiculous they want to move the Ag department here.

[Skittles]

4. this is exactly what Trump INC wants