Proposed Closing Of Four Ftc Regional Offices PDF Download

In June 1998, FTC Commissioners approved a proposal to restructure FTC's regional operations to include (1) reconfiguring the 10 existing regional offices to 8 offices in 7 regions; (2) closing the Boston and Denver regional offices and shifting responsibility for the states covered by those offices to other regional offices; (3) merging the management and administration of the 2 California offices (Los Angeles and San Francisco) under 1 director, located in San Francisco; (4) allowing all staff in the closing offices to transfer to other offices; (5) transferring the 33 staff positions from the 2 closing regions to other regional offices and headquarters; and (6) focusing FTC's regional work on competition or antitrust matters in 3 proposed regional antitrust centers-most probably located in San Francisco, Cleveland, and New York City-with the other regions continuing to perform this work only on a limited basis. FTC suspended plans to implement its restructuring proposal, pending the completion of this report. FTC's proposed regions and their corresponding offices would be the Northeast Region (New York City), East Central Region (Cleveland), Southeast Region (Atlanta), Midwest Region (Chicago), Southwest Region (Dallas), Northwest Region (Seattle), and Western Region (San Francisco and Los Angeles). Figures 1.1 and 1.2 in appendix I show FTC's current and proposed regional structures. As agreed, the objectives of this report are to provide information on (1) FTC's rationale for proposing the regional restructuring, (2) the process FTC followed in developing its restructuring proposal, (3) factors FTC used and could have used in deciding how to restructure, (4) other options to the proposed restructuring identified in prior FTC studies or by Boston and Denver regional officials, and (5) the views of selected stakeholders regarding the impact the proposed restructuring could have in the areas covered by the Boston and Denver regional offices.