Restructuring NRCS in Kentucky

Updated 08/05/2008

PURPOSE:

Kentucky is proposing to reduce our Service Centers from 95 to 54, a reduction of 41 offices. The purpose of the reorganization plan is twofold:

1) To reduce the cost of the leasing space for offices where workload is low. We are consolidating anywhere from two (2) to eight (8) counties to be serviced from one geographically designated Service Center.

2) To shift personnel to better serve the offices with a heavy workload, so that we can be more efficient and productive, to better serve our customers.

In order to utilize the efficiency of the staff year, we are reassigning the employees to locations where they can better meet the needs and mission of the agency.

In this process, we have made a concerted effort not to adversely impact any employee. This is important because Kentucky is in a budget deficit and does not have funds available to relocate employees nor do we want to create an extreme morale problem at a time when our farmbill workload is at its highest.

We will allow vacancy announcements, natural attrition, and voluntary reassignments to realign surplus employees. As an employee vacates a position the position will be evaluated against workload and the position moved to a higher workload location, if warranted. Kentucky has been working toward this objective for the past two years

Every employee will have a position at the same grade level; however may have a longer commuting distance. All employees were left within their commuting area. We utilized the Chamber of Commerce in some of the locations to determine if the commute was a normal pattern of commute. The Yahoo!® map web site was also used to determine the mileage and the time it would take to arrive at a destination. Documentation is attached.

The Kentucky Division of Conservation (DOC) has made a verbal commitment to the agency that they plan to have an office in every county. Therefore DOC will pay for office space in Counties that we are vacating. We intend to designate the District provided office space as a delivery point in the USDA Office Information Profile (OIP) database. Where applicable, some employees may be reassigned but physically report to one of these delivery points, and as required commute to a Service Center to support workload requirements for other counties assigned to the Service Center. Assignments will be based on the employee’s excess workload capacity, as defined by the workload analysis, which will be updated annually.

TEAMWORK CONCEPT:

We are also looking at the team approach. Kentucky intends to evaluate the teamwork approach implemented by Indiana. A trip is already planned to visit with key personnel in Indiana the first week in March 2007. Based on this fact finding trip, Kentucky will design teams to gain workload efficiencies in Kentucky. In general we anticipate assigning designated personnel within large clusters of counties to work part time on teams that will be assigned selected workload within a designated geographical area. Kentucky is already using teams to target WRP, CREP and CSP workload with success.

When implemented, an underutilized employee may be assigned to a team, to accomplish farmbill workload such as EQIP, WHIP, CSP, WRP, CREP/CRP etc. in high workload locations within their assigned area, or may be detailed to another area as workload requirements dictate.

CIVIL RIGHTS IMPACT ANALYSIS:

Kentucky has a current staffing plan of 245 personnel (232 FT; 7 PT and 6 vacancies). The vacancies are currently unfunded due to our budget deficit. Of the 239 personnel that are currently on board, 51 personnel (21%) will be reassigned from one location to another. All reassignments are within the employees commuting area, therefore there is no adverse impact to any of our employees. We realize that we are over staffed in Area 3. As vacancies occur in Area 3 we will reassign the position to a higher workload Area such as Area 1.

BACKGROUND:

In January 2006 NRCS set out to develop a restructuring plan. The intent was to gain efficiency, by consolidating personnel and at the same time reducing our cost by reducing our office space. Next to personnel expenditures, our leasing cost for office space is our single largest annual expenditure, currently $1.7M. Reducing office space must be timed to coordinate all the locations affected. For example three single Service Centers that are being combined into one Service Center may have significantly different dates that their leases are scheduled to expire. It is our intent to terminate as few leases as possible. We will extend leases as required to get all the locations to coincide with a similar expiration date. We will advertise, based on the correct timing. Terminating a few leases early may be unavoidable; however we will minimize the practice to the extent possible.

This is a critical point, because this plan was coordinated with the other USDA agencies. We are currently co-located in all locations in Kentucky. Coordinating each office leasing arrangement at the same time is necessary to avoid unnecessary financial expense to any one agency. Sharing space reduces the cost for all involved. When one agency reduces personnel from a location, the shared cost for those remaining increases. If space can’t conveniently be returned to the lease holder because it’s in the center of a building for example, often those remaining must absorb the cost. It is our commitment to avoid causing hardship to one another. By implementing on the same time schedule, space can be eliminated and/or personnel relocated more efficiently and with manageable cost.

PROPOSED SERVICE CENTERS:

The 54 offices that remain were based on a combination of factors; workload being the greatest and the second consideration was coordination with FSA and RD to co-locate to the extent possible. Lower workload counties were attached to adjoining higher workload counties. We initiated a detailed workload analysis in January 2006, which we continued to build upon over the summer months and finalized with the Activity Based Costing (ABC) workload data call in October 2006. From this data we have quantified the workload and have evaluated the staffing shortfalls and excesses in all of our current 95 Service Centers.

The initiative to gain efficiency quickly turned to the necessity to reduce cost with the FY07 budget shortfall. Kentucky is currently facing a $1.2 M budget shortfall for 2007.

The Plan is expected to take two - three years to completely implement, based on the leasing dates. The Districts have been advised that they will need to cover 100% of the space they currently occupy, effective April 1, 2007. This will provide NRCS with more flexibility to implement the plan on a realistic time schedule, since savings to NRCS will be immediate. We expect to be reimbursed $350K between the period April 1, 2007 and September 30, 2007. We have also asked the Districts to cover the cost of NRCS space if possible. Two Districts (Jefferson County and Harlan County Conservation Districts) have already made the transition and are paying the lease cost (space and utilities) in those two locations. Districts need time to make the transition. Some have the ability to pay now, others need time to work with their fiscal courts to secure the funding in their budgets.

The necessity to implement the plan can not be overstated. It comes down to Personnel versus “BRICKS AND MORTAR”. Kentucky currently spends $1.7M on office space annually. Kentucky has a strong partnership, which supports the restructuring plan.

The partnership support along with the USDA sister agency support has been gained by working closely with each entity. We expect that coordination, and the existing cooperation of each entity to help us weather the potential political fallout as the plan becomes public. The State Conservationist (STC) has briefed NRCS employees to make them aware that a restructuring plan is in process. The STC has also briefed the Director, Kentucky Division of Conservation (DOC); the nine members of the Kentucky Soil and Water Conservation Commission; and the nine members of the The Kentucky Association of Conservation Districts (KACD). All 121 Conservation District Boards have been briefed. On January 29, 2007, The STC discussed the restructuring plan in open forum via a teleconference call with approximately 50% of the Conservation District Boards and NACD representatives participating in the call, and the remaining 50% were briefed on February 12, 2007. Congressional Notifications were made March 14-15, 2007.

The STC briefed NRCS employees, Conservation Districts and the Soil and Water Conservation Commission at various meetings in March. The plan will be presented to remaining Conservation District Area meetings by March 31, 2007

Our personnel are our most valuable resource. The reorganization plan will allow Kentucky to maintain our current number of employees, and thus the technical assistance to our customers, by reducing the cost of leasing space in 41 locations.

Click here for Executive Summary

Click here for map of the consolidated counties and offices

Click here for Workload Analysis

Click here for Workload Analysis Maps

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