The party is officially over for USDA!

So GAO's testimony on civil rights went well yesterday. I was told at the end of the hearing, the Chairman told the USDA Assistant Secretary that her words were weak and then gave her a thorough lecture!

If you want to read the GAO testimony you can click here (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08755t.pdf).

Ben Evans from the AP was the person who broke the story that we got kicked out of USDA. He has been following us for a while.

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USDA lags on discrimination complaints
By BEN EVANS – 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department has issued misleading and inaccurate reports about discrimination complaints and still can't say how many minority applicants are getting federal farm assistance, according to a federal audit.

Suggesting that some of the misinformation was intentional, the report said the department's civil rights office claimed last July that it had cut a 2004 backlog of nearly 700 unresolved complaints when officials "were well aware" that the caseload would actually grow to nearly 900.
The agency's failure to manage the complaints — despite similar findings in previous audits — raises questions about whether USDA takes them seriously, the report said.

"For decades, USDA has been the focus of federal inquiries into allegations of discrimination against minorities and women," the Government Accountability Office's director of natural resources and environment, Lisa Shames, told a House Oversight subcommittee Wednesday. "Such resistance to improve its management system calls into question USDA's commitment to more efficiently and effectively address discrimination complaints."

The report notes that one class-action lawsuit has already cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion and that an assistant secretary for civil rights office was established in 2003 to better handle complaints. The office had a budget of $24 million in 2007.

Yet USDA has no standardized method for tracking minority participation in programs such as government loans and disaster assistance, despite a law requiring such data.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, also noted unusual difficulties in getting information for the audit, citing repeated delays and incomplete information.

Most notably, the GAO earlier this year received reports that USDA civil rights officials were possibly destroying documents and manipulating data. In February, when auditors tried to question staffers about those reports, USDA manager told employees not to speak with them and ordered the auditors to leave USDA offices.

The GAO said it ultimately did not find evidence that its work was intentionally undermined. But the complaints did turn up other problems, including several unrelated allegations that GAO said it would refer to the Justice Department and to the USDA inspector general.

Black farmers have long complained that they have been consistently denied loans, grants and other assistance by a "good old boy" network of local USDA field offices.

In 1999, the government settled a class-action lawsuit from black farmers, agreeing to pay $50,000 plus tax benefits to those who could show they faced discrimination. About 15,400 claims were awarded damages, and the government has paid $972 million in compensation.

The farm bill that Congress is voting on this week would reopen the case and allow thousands more farmers who missed a filing deadline to seek compensation.

Margo McKay, an assistant secretary for civil rights at USDA, disputed the findings at Wednesday's hearing and said the office has made significant progress in addressing complaints.

"The problems of backlog case inventory and case processing times have been many years in the making," she said. "The system we have now is a vast improvement over anything we've ever had in the past."