Ag Policy Blog

I got an email over the weekend from my congressman, an enthusiastic freshman, who is boasting that Congress, as a government agency, has cut its own budget. Other government agencies should do the same.

Since 2010, Congress has cuts its Members' Representational Allowance from $660 million a year to $554.3 million a year, a cut of about 16%. The Senate contingency costs have gone from $422 million to $390 million over that time. These figures come from a Congressional Research Service report last December. Congress should be commended for trimming back some of the fat.

Rep. David Young, a mild-mannered guy who represents Southwest Iowa, notes in his weekly report, "That is a big deal and unfortunately nowhere else in government have seen an agency offer to cuts its own budget or spending."

Well, sometimes a government agency jumps out and proposes cuts, changes, reforms, etc., only to learn that is the purview of Congress. Agency plans then tend to be quelled. Sometimes agencies propose cuts simply because they know Congress will immediately jump up and block them from doing it. This can almost translate into a game of reverse psychology.

Young serves on the House Appropriations Committee, which leads to the USDA appropriations bill approved last week by the committee. The bill, which also includes funding for FDA, works to reduce discretionary spending at USDA and FDA for fiscal year 2016 by about $175 million, or about 1%. It's also about $1.1 billion below the president's budget request, as stated by the committee news release last Wednesday.

A congressional appropriations bill also provides clarity about just how much Congress seeks to manage or micro-manage a department or agency. EPA is somewhat accustomed to this "rider" process.

The ag appropriations bill ensures USDA doesn't make any changes to close Farm Service Agency offices without prior notification or approval from the House and Senate Appropriations Committee. Nor can USDA permanently relocate employees in offices that run like one-person frontier outposts.

"No funds can be used to permanently relocate a county-based employee that would result in an office with two or fewer employees without prior notification and approval of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees."

USDA in 2013 floated the idea of closing as many as 250 FSA offices nationally. Lawmakers last year were concerned that this would translate into significant problems trying to implement one of the most complex farm bills in recent history. Many producers just don't have the computer resources to fill out the FSA forms on-line.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack noted at the time that there were at least 30 FSA offices nationally with no staff and another 111 offices with only one full-time or part-time employee. Then there were another 100 or so offices with only one employee that were within 30 miles of another FSA office. Vilsack pushed the need for consolidation, but said such changes would not come in 2014.

The final budget agreement that came last December put a moratorium on FSA office closures and directed USDA to spend $900,000 to hire an outside group to study office workloads. The status of that study is unknown.

USDA's plan to scale back FSA offices had an estimated budget savings of $80 million.

Proposals to cut FSA offices in the name of efficiency are not new. The George W. Bush administration proposed in 2005 to eliminate 713 FSA offices and reduce payroll by 655 positions. That proposal also led congressional appropriators to block USDA from making such office cuts.

The House Appropriations Committee also notes USDA has achieved $1.4 billion in savings through its own efforts to trim administrative costs. The appropriations committee, however, also pointed out that USDA's budget savings came because of funding limitations pushed by Congress.

House Appropriations Committee news release on the Fiscal Year 2016 Agriculture Appropriations Bill: http://appropriations.house.gov/…

USDA savings in Blueprint for Stronger Service: http://www.usda.gov/…

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