09/28/05 No numbers yet on FSA closures for WA

Washington Ag September 28, 2005 A modernization plan for the Farm Service Agency that includes local county office closures and consolidations was presented to state FSA directors last week in Washington D.C. Jim Fitzgerald, Washington State FSA director isn't yet willing to say how many local offices in the state were targeted. He says the national FSA office hadn't used the most recent information from Washington and once that's corrected it will still take a few days before any public announcement. Fitzgerald: "What I need to do Bob, is one those numbers come back in, there are a lot of people to discuss and speak to internally. That means County Committees that may be in those affected counties. Staff within those counties. State Committee members. Other partner agencies where there may be co-location. There is a lot of ground work to be done before we certainly want to share the information on what our plan may, or may not look like." Fitzgerald does say that Washington is not going to be affected nearly as much as other parts of the country. He described the expected changes as minimal compared to elsewhere. FSA currently has 25 offices to cover Washington's 39 counties. I'm Bob Hoff.