Another sign of the times.
Nearly one-third of Farm Service Agency offices targeted for closure
By Jerry Hagstrom, CongressDailyPM
The Agriculture Department late Friday sent members of Congress a state-by-state chart showing that it plans to close 30.3 percent, or 713, of the 2,350 Farm Service Agency county offices in the 48 continental states.
These offices, which were created in the 1930s, certify farmers for farm programs and pay out farm subsidies and disaster payments. The number of offices to be closed was higher than the 655 listed in an internal USDA memo obtained by the Associated Press earlier this month. Revelations of that memo led the Senate last week to amend the fiscal 2006 Agriculture appropriations bill restricting the USDA's authority to close county offices.
The USDA sent the information on the number of offices the FSA wants to close to Capitol Hill only hours after Agriculture Secretary Johanns issued a news release that FSA Administrator Jim Little, a longtime civil servant, had resigned to work on hurricane relief efforts.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=32410&dcn=e_gvet
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