Usda Consolidation Adds Jobs At Spokane Offices Agency Closing Colville Outpost As Part Of Nationwide Overhaul

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Oct. 1 will bring a handful of employees to Spokane and close a Colville satellite office as part of its national reorganization plan, officials said Wednesday.

Under a law passed last year, the mammoth federal agency is disbanding the old Farmers Home Administration and transferring farm loans and some employees to a new umbrella organization, the Farm Service Agency.

Others will remain with Rural Economic and Community Development, a separate USDA agency that makes or guarantees loans to rural homeowners, businesses and municipalities.

The change will add eight employees to the Spokane County and state FSA offices in Spokane. Six are coming from the state Farmer’s Home office in Wenatchee; two from a Colville satellite office that closed Friday, said LeRoy Debes, community service manager for RECD in Spokane.

“This should improve customer service and lead to savings,” he said.

The Spokane-area office services 300 single-family housing loans valued at $11.7 million, and 140 farm loans valued at $21.6 million, Debes said.

In North Idaho, about 58 farm loan accounts will be transferred from Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene to an FSA office in Lewiston. However, the Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene RECD offices, which service about 700 rural home and business loans, will remain open, said community development manager Jeff Beeman.

The changes reflect a three-year national reorganization plan that Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said Wednesday is 20 percent complete. Nearly 900 of a proposed 1,120 offices have yet to be closed.

“The federal government is getting smaller. But no, we won’t be put out of business,” Glickman told USDA employees in a satellite broadcast.

The reorganization gives the RECD Spokane-area office, 222 N. Havana, authority to make rural home loans to customers in Spokane, Lincoln, Whitman, Pend Oreille, Stevens and Ferry counties.

The Spokane Farm Service Agency office will make farm loans in those counties, as well as Asotin.

, DataTimes