GAO Laboring Mightily to Reform Agriculture Dept. : Bureaucracy: Congressional watchdog may have bitten off more than it can chew with huge agency mired in inertia, work-force problems.

Congressional watchdogs continue to nip at the Agriculture Department in hopes the creaky old agency will modernize itself before the 20th Century ends.

But the structure and inertia of USDA are formidable. Attempts have been made for 45 years--largely unsuccessful--to streamline departmental field structure and management.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has been studying USDA organization and departmental inhibitions for at least two years. A preliminary report was issued in December.

Formal responses to GAO’s analysis will be sought from departmental agencies and Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter when the final report is ready later in the year.

Meanwhile, the GAO has followed up its initial review with a supplemental report to Yeutter about the need for improved work-force planning in his department. Such planning should be mandatory, the GAO said.

At its simplest, work-force planning means getting the right people in the right jobs, now and over the long haul. The object is to deliver government services to the public, efficiently and economically.

The problems involve 36 agencies that carry out the department’s policies and programs. In 1988, the GAO said, those functions cost taxpayers more than $44 billion and required the services of 110,000 full-time employees in more than 15,000 places around the world.

“USDA agencies are experiencing problems recruiting highly skilled workers, providing adequate training to employees, developing effective managers, and managing a culturally diverse work force,” the latest report said. “These problems are longstanding, pervasive and will likely continue given present trends in USDA and in the federal government.”

The growing importance of food safety, water quality and biotechnology requires more scientists in USDA’s work force. Yet a shortage of scientists generally, as well as competition from the private sector, put USDA at a disadvantage.

Moreover, the report said, agencies within USDA “sometimes find themselves competing against each other for people from the same job occupations, a condition which is counterproductive from a departmental standpoint.”

Another inhibitor has been the lack of a departmental recruiting program. Each USDA agency goes its own way and generally does not refer unneeded applicants to other agencies.

However, the report noted that the department’s Office of Personnel has recently contracted to develop a videotape for recruiting new employees.

“As the agricultural economy becomes more consumer-driven than production-oriented, USDA needs employees with backgrounds in marketing management to supplement the skills of their other employees trained in the agricultural sciences,” the report said.

When the GAO looked at employee training, there were many indications of “poorly or inadequately trained staff” in a number of areas. Also, the report cited “continuing problems in achieving and maintaining an ethnically diverse work force” of women and minorities.

A major GAO complaint is that department agencies generally address only a single year’s needs to patch up a problem when long-range remedies are in order. This has been apparent in the Farmers Home Administration and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, for example.