One of the lesser known functions to be rolled into the Department of Homeland Security was the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s port inspectors. Charged with inspecting people and things entering the country to prevent foreign pests and diseases from entering the country, Agriculture and Quarantine Inspection was formerly under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But many agriculture inspectors believe the service has become less effective since they were merged into DHS’s Customs and Border Protection, according to a recent survey.

The survey, given by the Government Accountability Office to CBP agriculture specialists, asked two open-ended questions: “What is going well with respect to your work as an agriculture specialist?” and “What would you like to see changed or improved with respect to your work as an agriculture specialist?”

“This question generated a total of 185 pages of comments — roughly 4 times more than that generated by the responses to our question on what is going well,” GAO’s report (PDF) on the survey findings said. “Further, ‘Nothing is going well’ was the second most frequent response to the question on what is going well.”

Since the DHS merger, survey participants said that agriculture inspections and interceptions have declined and cited trouble establishing good working relationships with CBP management. Participants said that agriculture inspection wasn’t believed to be a priority, that coordination with USDA was made difficult by bureaucratic process, and that training, equipment and supplies were inadequate to the task.

“Mergers the size of DHS take time, and not everyone will agree on a personal level that we have reached the optimum level of job satisfaction and performance,” said CBP spokeswoman Erlinda Byrd, in an e-mail.

But CBP is committed to the agriculture program, and “supports positive performance, training development and delivery and successful management,” Byrd said.

The survey was conducted during September and October and consisted of 31 multiple-choice questions as well as the two open-ended questions. It went out to 827 of CBP’s roughly 1,800 specialists, and got a 76 percent response rate. — Government Executive

GAO noted that morale issues such as these were to be expected in any agency merger.

Morale has been an ongoing problem in the Department of Homeland Security, with virtually every agency in the department reporting unusually low morale since the department’s creation in 2003.