by Sara Wyant and Philip Brasher
"If you keep nickel and diming salaries and expenses and operating expenses, eventually you are going to see less timely service, despite the best efforts of the people working here,” Vilsack said in a response to a question about conservation funding at the North American Agricultural Journalists meeting. “After several years of this, enough is enough.”
He noted that, with passage of the new farm bill, “we are talking about thousands of people with new programs and significantly new responsibilities.”
Vilsack said that, when he took over the agency in 2009, there were about 105,000 people working for USDA. Now there are around 85,000 -- even though that number will increase this summer as the Forest Service makes temporary hires in preparation for fire season.
The secretary said he appreciated the fiscal “environment that we are in” but hopes that Congress will rethink the cutbacks it has placed on his agency.
“We are one of only one or two departments that have faced steady decline (in operating budgets),” Vilsack said. “I think Congress needs to be sensitive here and not expect only USDA to shoulder the burden…...There needs to be a little equity.”
For fiscal year 2016, USDA has requested $25 billion in discretionary budget authority, which covers operational expenses among other things. That figure is about $1 billion above 2015 but down from $27 billion in FY 2010, according to a USDA budget summary. Most of the department’s budget is mandated by Congress to pay for outlays including crop insurance, nutrition assistance programs, farm commodity and trade programs and a number of conservation programs.
"Even with the estimated increase in overall USDA staffing between 2014 and 2015, total department staffing would remain about 6 percent below 2010 levels, while the department has delivered record levels of service,” a USDA spokesman said in an email.
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