Colorado agricultural leaders are expressing mixed feelings about the announcement July 24 of a reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the move in a memorandum sent out and posted online Friday afternoon. The memo announced sweeping changes in the department, including consolidating the agency’s 12 regional offices into five regional hubs and moving more than half of the 4,600 Washington, D.C., workers into the hub offices. One of those regional hubs will be in Fort Collins, Colo., but there’s no mention of whether the Denver regional office staff will be relocated to Fort Collins. A Denver USDA worker who asked not to be identified said there has been no further information about the future of the Denver office.
The memo claims that a massive reduction in force is not underway, but that more than 15,000 USDA workers have taken advantage of early retirement programs offered by the Trump administration…