Workers at Agriculture Dept. Bend Gore’s Ear During Visit

WASHINGTON —  Vice President Al Gore, continuing his series of visits to the various government agencies, got caught up in some office politics Wednesday at the Agriculture Department.

Several employees of the government’s third-largest civilian agency told Gore that they were stifled by mid-level managers and ignored by political appointees.

“We spend an awful lot of time in oversight of lower levels,” one employee told Gore. “It takes a lot of middle managers to do that.”

“If we could put those resources into delivering programs in the field, we wouldn’t need to audit ourselves because we wouldn’t have the problems caused by a lack of training, resources and lack of staffing in the field,” the worker said.

Said another: “I spent nine years in the field in three states and five different offices. I don’t think I was ever in an office that was fully staffed and had regulations training on time. And I never really felt prepared to be doing what I knew I was going to be audited on three months later.”

Other employees complained about racial discrimination, wasteful purchases and a lack of protection for people who complain about problems in the department.

Gore, who is involved in a project aimed at improving the government, promised that the new Administration would listen to rank-and-file employees.

“The best source of ideas we’re going to tap into is you,” the vice president said.

It was Gore’s second agency visit as part of his National Performance Review of the government. President Clinton had announced the six-month project last month to examine every federal agency and expenditure.

The meeting was beamed to several locations around the nation so that many of the department’s 124,000 employees could listen.