Move government out of D.C.--thoughts?

[Moxie]

 

I know nothing. I saw this video and thought it was interesting.

[Butter]

I've been saying that for a long time, but for slightly different reasons.  It would save the federal government a whole heck of a lot of money over time because of the locality pay.  There was one agency that move to TN or somewhere near there several years ago and the warnings were dire that it would just increased the cost of living where they went.  That didn't happen.  All that happened was the government saved money (well, and a bunch of people had to move).  When we moved to San Antonio, Jamie took a huge pay cut because SA is "rest of country" so he lost the extra money paid to people who live in the DC Metro area.  Of course Texas doesn't have state income tax and the COL is way lower here so while he was paid a lot less, we had a lot more money left over.  Also, I think it would simply make sense to have sub-agencies like Customs and Border Protection closer to the actual border (the agents are spread all over, but the support is, for the most part, centralized in DC for no real reason).

[KungFuPanda]

I wonder what the real savings would be? The federal government can't move into abandoned buildings. They'd rebuild and that's very expensive. Then they'd pay to move everybody. At this point a move is more costly and they're building buildings in today's market, not using the ones they already own. They might enjoy a decade of salary savings in the new locale before THAT area builds up and gets more expensive. Is that even long enough to pay for construction? Didn't Atlanta used to solicit people and businesses to move to their nice, affordable city?

 

If a family move is always more expensive than you anticipate, what must a government move look like?

 

I wouldn't fight the attempt. I'd be fine with people moving away from this part of the country. It's built up a lot in the last decade. Do Midwesterners even WANT the lifestyle changes that come with living D.C. adjacent?

[ChocolateReignRemix]

I wonder what the real savings would be? The federal government can't move into abandoned buildings. They'd rebuild and that's very expensive. Then they'd pay to move everybody. At this point a move is more costly and they're building buildings in today's market, not using the ones they already own. They might enjoy a decade of salary savings in the new locale before THAT area builds up and gets more expensive. Is that even long enough to pay for construction? Didn't Atlanta used to solicit people and businesses to move to their nice, affordable city?

 

If a family move is always more expensive than you anticipate, what must a government move look like?

 

I wouldn't fight the attempt. I'd be fine with people moving away from this part of the country. It's built up a lot in the last decade. Do Midwesterners even WANT the lifestyle changes that come with living D.C. adjacent?

 

Atlanta is a very affordable major city.  It also has one of the larger concentrations of federal employees outside of DC.

 

[MEmama]

The provincial government DH previously worked for "decentralized" and moved some of their offices to a different city than the capital. The idea was to "spread the wealth" throughout the impoverished province. It didn't work so well as 1. People didn't want to move to a poorer, less educated area, 2. It proved difficult to find the right skilled employees in the new area, 3. Everyone wasted tons of time travelling back and forth to the capital town where most government business was still handled. A few years later they moved the department back.

 

I think this country has much bigger issues than relocating our federal government. I hadn't heard the idea before, but it strikes me as a distraction thought at best.

[HomeAgain]

It would be interesting if they could move on to already Federal land (like an old army/AF post) and have DC absorbed into VA and MD.  Have it a "work only" site that is open to the public, but all monuments and museums somewhere else.

 

I doubt it would ever happen, though.

[Butter]

I wonder what the real savings would be? The federal government can't move into abandoned buildings. They'd rebuild and that's very expensive. Then they'd pay to move everybody. At this point a move is more costly and they're building buildings in today's market, not using the ones they already own. They might enjoy a decade of salary savings in the new locale before THAT area builds up and gets more expensive. Is that even long enough to pay for construction? Didn't Atlanta used to solicit people and businesses to move to their nice, affordable city?

 

If a family move is always more expensive than you anticipate, what must a government move look like?

 

I wouldn't fight the attempt. I'd be fine with people moving away from this part of the country. It's built up a lot in the last decade. Do Midwesterners even WANT the lifestyle changes that come with living D.C. adjacent?

 

Actually, you are incorrect on some of these points.  The tangible savings is in locality pay (just look at DC locality pay vs. rest of country - GS pay scale is available on-line), cost of maintaining offices including lower utility costs, and the intangible, but still important, is happiness/lower stress of employees.  It's actually quite interesting those who live in DC with horrendous commutes vs. those who don't.  Strangely, there would also be a bit in retirement savings.  Retirement is based on "high 3."  In lower locality pay areas, the high 3 is lower and so actual retirement $ would be slightly lower.  Most people don't stay in the DC area to retire so needing the higher amount of retirement because of COL is not an issue.

 

The federal government can, in fact, move into abandoned buildings and do all the time.  Just recently DHS headquarters moved into the abandoned St. Elizabeth's hospital campus/buildings in DC.  A USCIS office just took over an old retail store in a strip mall a few miles from me in San Antonio.  My husband has been involved in getting new locations set up many, many times and the majority of the time they are abandoned/empty buildings that were not government-related to begin with.  They build them out to suit what is needed, just like any company does when they take over a location.  It is not super expensive to modify an old building, especially in places where COL, so also cost of labor and supplies, is lower than the DC area.  They don't fully rebuild and they almost never build from the ground up.

 

Paying to move everyone is the real cost.  Because of that, the savings wouldn't be obvious for several years.

 

Bits of the federal government are constantly moving offices.  It's kind of nuts.  This is moving around the DC area mostly since they where most of them are.  Most of those moves are into buildings they didn't already own, are not building, etc.  So that argument actually doesn't hold water.  It's already happening.

 

Those agencies that have already moved out of DC more than a decade ago are still paying lower locality pay than DC Metro.  The COL in those areas have NOT increased dramatically (any faster than anywhere else).  The dire warnings were there, but what actually happened is different.  Most of the places those agencies moved are still mostly not federal government.  It would be different if, say, they wanted to move the entire federal government to Cincinnati.  Then I would expect the COL to increase dramatically.  When sending agencies to various places thereby keeping the economy mixed rather than government-focused, experience has showed us that the COL just doesn't skyrocket at all.

 

Atlanta's locality pay is quite a bit lower than DC Metro (though higher than rest of US; their percentage is pretty much in the middle).  Boston is almost as high as DC Metro as is Chicago, Sacramento, San Diego, and Hartford CT.  The only localities higher than DC Metro currently are Houston Texas, New York City, San Jose, and Los Angeles.  Alaska is also right about exactly the same as DC, but I wouldn't expect Alaska would even be considered as a location to move to.  Obviously, they'd have to be sure they were moving to areas that were not already high COL (without the government even having a large presence), but most of the country is cheaper, some much cheaper, and already have quite a few government employees.

 

Government moves happen *all the time.*  Most are not very far.  They have whole groups within agencies dedicated just to moving locations.

 

The idea is not to have the federal government move en masse to one spot.  That WOULD increase COL and change everything in that area.  The idea is that agencies move to various locations around the country.  Spread it out.  One agency or one part of an agency is unlikely to change things in an area very much.  There's a LOT of government spread around San Antonio but you'd never know it.  Unlike the DC area (which is where we lived before my husband opted to move here, btw; I was born and raised in MD) where everything is very federal government-centric, cities that have a lot of federal employees/subagencies spread around also have other industries.  It's not all about supporting the government.  It was actually quite a change moving somewhere where the majority of people *don't* support the government in some way.

[Mothersweets]

I think it's a great idea. 

[KungFuPanda]

It would be nice if it worked. Personally, I'd be up for a change. I just don't see some of the more sensitive/secure agencies being able to just relocate to a different building. Also, the labor pool here is a bit fluid. It's not unusual for these people to have meetings in 2-3 different agencies in a single week and some meetings never get bounced off a satellite. Contractors routinely hop from one government entity to the next and many would opt to change jobs to avoid moving their school-aged kids.

 

I know people who have been daydreaming about relocating for years, but it seems that even when branch offices are set up, they never fully relocate the Mother Ship or the career advancements that are tied to it.

[Daria]

Most of the civil servants and contractors I know are married to people who work in the private sector, or at a different agency.  I think the government would lose a lot of people, and thus a lot of specialized skills and knowledge if they did this, because people would choose not to split up their families.

 

 

[MommyLiberty5013]

No. All the international embassies are there. It would jolt the system too much not just to the U.S..

[Butter]

I just don't see some of the more sensitive/secure agencies being able to just relocate to a different building.

 

They do it very, very often already, actually... including to states outside of DC Metro (for example, the NSA just took over an abandoned mall here).

[JumpyTheFrog]

I'd like to see private companies spread out inside of clustering in overpriced, overcrowded cities.

[Guest]

Most of the civil servants and contractors I know are married to people who work in the private sector, or at a different agency. I think the government would lose a lot of people, and thus a lot of specialized skills and knowledge if they did this, because people would choose not to split up their families.

I don't know that I buy that there are so many employees with "specialized skills". I imagine lots of the jobs are simply support staff. It would breathe a lot of life into Detroit to move a bunch of administrative jobs to that area.

[KungFuPanda]

Most of the civil servants and contractors I know are married to people who work in the private sector, or at a different agency. I think the government would lose a lot of people, and thus a lot of specialized skills and knowledge if they did this, because people would choose not to split up their families.

I don't think people understand how much the federal government relies on contractors. I think the government itself has trouble assigning an accurate number to these in-between professionals. They're not getting an itemized "location pay," but they're generally paid at a higher rate that is not on the GS charts because they're not considered "government employees." These people can have a weird combination of skill sets that might be concentrated in this area, but would be unusual elsewhere. It's not uncommon for them to outnumber "employees" in a government office and confound budget projections.

 

I DO hope I'm being overly pessimistic and volunteer as tribute to move to a land with the same opportunities for my kids that leaves more money in my pocket. My daughter is in college, so I don't have to factor her as much, but I still have a son with some specialized medical needs and I know that care for kids with his diagnosis is very much a geographic lottery. I think the phase of my life that benefitted from endless day-trip field trips is past and I could happily go land-locked for a while. I'm a grow-where-you're-planted girl anyway and would need far less convincing than most.

[KungFuPanda]

They do it very, very often already, actually... including to states outside of DC Metro (for example, the NSA just took over an abandoned mall here).

True, but that's just expanding and adding a satellite office as a support. That's nothing like moving the agency..

[Daria]

I don't know that I buy that there are so many employees with "specialized skills". I imagine lots of the jobs are simply support staff. It would breathe a lot of life into Detroit to move a bunch of administrative jobs to that area.

 

Sure, there are plenty of jobs without specialized skills as well, but you can't move the security guards, without moving the diplomats.  You can't move the janitors without moving the people whose offices they're cleaning.  You can't move the paralegals without moving the lawyers who specialize in specific kinds of laws.  

[Reefgazer]

It would just transport the shit and the expense to a different area.   And then there is the small matter of needing to be near a highly educated workforce.

Edited July 16, 2017 by reefgazer