Employee vacancies caused by the relocation of the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters to Colorado during the Trump administration hampered the agency’s ability to effectively manage millions of acres of public lands, according to a government watchdog.
The new Government Accountability report found those staff gaps “caused delays in creating or clarifying guidance or policy.” The greater reliance on employees who were detailed, or temporarily assigned, to the new headquarters from state offices also negatively affected operations, agency staff told GAO. In addition, the watchdog found that the agency didn’t do an adequate job of tracking that human resources data. ...