00:10Increasing government efficiency, reducing unnecessary spending.
00:14We're $37 trillion in debt.
00:16And we need to look after our hardworking farmers and producers or foresters.
00:23We've already lost 150,000 farms in the last few years, 25,000 farmers.
00:28Suicide rate is out the roof.
00:31We're losing.
00:34In the last profession I was in, you lose and you get your ass fired real quick.
00:40And we're losing.
00:41Our farmers are, I mean, they're in trouble.
00:44Even if they make a profit this year, we're still going to lose thousands of farms.
00:49And we're going to find out really how quick we're going to need farmers and producers when all this happens.
00:57So our buildings are falling apart.
01:03We're in debt.
01:05We need expensive repairs.
01:07Do we have any estimates how much money this is going to cost the federal government and American taxpayers, you know, through the USDA of moving people around?
01:16I know that we do have some good structures.
01:19But have we looked into any of that at all?
01:21We do have an estimate, Senator, regarding how much at a minimum we expect to save once costs are taken into account.
01:29And that's approximately $4 billion.
01:32How did we get to that number?
01:34We got to that number by looking into account the headcount reductions as a result of the deferred resignation program.
01:41Those alone will save the Department of Agriculture approximately $1.9 billion net.
01:47You mentioned the state of our buildings, and you are unfortunately correct, particularly when it comes to the national capital region.
01:54And you're looking at the four buildings that the Secretary's memorandum proposes to vacate.
01:59The value of the deferred maintenance on those buildings, the liability on USDA, is $2.2 billion, with a B, dollars.
02:09Hard to conceive, but that is the calculation when you add those four buildings together of how much maintenance they need to bring them up to modern standards.
02:19And so when you add those two sums together of expected savings, you're starting out with more than $4 billion.
02:27And that is before we take into account the lower cost of living for employees, the lower lease rates that we will have to pay in the five hubs.
02:37Of course, the full value of that we'll only know when the plan is finalized after consultation with Congress.
02:43But we start out at a baseline of $4 billion worth of savings.
02:48So you obviously did your due diligence on housing in some of these new locations.
02:54You feel good about that, about the amount that it will cut the cost of living for a lot of these young people, hopefully, that we get in the USDA?
03:04We do, Senator.
03:05As a matter of fact, if you take a look at the Federal Reserve Board's data, which, of course, as you know, they analyze large regions of the country, typically not necessarily individual states.
03:15Washington, D.C. falls into the Northeast region for the Federal Reserve Bank.
03:20According to the Federal Reserve, the average price of a home, the median price of a home in the Northeast region is more than $800,000.
03:30What, according to the Federal Reserve, is the median price of a home in the Midwest where we're sending many of our employees?
03:37It's less than half that.
03:39Yeah.
03:41Talking about the nutrition and sending more people back into the states to help with that.
03:49My future plans, obviously, is trying to get back into the state government and help in that area.
03:55Our error rates in a lot of our states are awful, absolutely awful, and we want to get ours down in the state of Alabama, too.
04:02Do you think this will help, be able to get error rates down to a point where we can survive, you know, and make sure we feed the right people and help the right people that need it, other than the people that are sitting on the couch and watching TV?
04:15I do, Senator.
04:16Senator, as I noted in response to an earlier question, of course, the Food and Nutrition Service, they'll have employees in Washington, D.C., in either the Whitten or Yates building going forward under the Secretary's plan.
04:27But as we shift more people into the field who are focused on the states and focused on the regions of the country that we serve, that means more people for individuals in Alabama and every other state to reach out to to help with technical assistance and whatever other advice and counsel that we can offer, best practices, what have you, to get those error rates down so that states can come into compliance with the new bill that Congress has passed.
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