THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040399
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Norfolk will lose its district office of the U.S. Customs Service as part of a sweeping reorganization of the agency, but the loss is in name only.
Intended to improve service at ports of entry across the nation, the restructuring should not affect customs' employment or greatly change its daily activities in Hampton Roads. The customs service collects tariffs and inspects imports.
Dennis H. Murphy, Norfolk district director for the Customs Service, said service at the port will not suffer as a result of the changes.
Local shipping agents and port officials were cautiously optimistic that that will be the case. And some expressed hope that it may lead to improvements.
``It's really too early to get the full flavor of it,'' said Robert T. Ford, regional general manager of the shipping line Maersk Inc. ``It doesn't look like it's going to have much impact on the day-to-day customs operation.''
The reorganization sweeps aside the customs service's 30-year-old structure of district and regional offices, eliminating those management layers and pushing decision-making to the local level at the 301 ports of entry nationwide.
``Port directors will have greater power to resolve issues, whereas before issues would have to percolate up through the district and regional levels and pass through many hands before being settled,'' said Steve Duchesne, customs spokesman in Washington.
``If that's the case, we certainly should get our decisions more quickly,'' said Meade Stone Jr. of W.M. Stone Inc., a Norfolk customs-house broker. ``I look at it as a more positive situation for the port.''
The customs service will establish five Strategic Trade Centers to handle major international trade issues and 20 Customs Management Centers to handle internal administrative issues for the ports of entry. Norfolk will not be a home to either type.
Internal functions such as budgets, personnel and policy oversight, which had been handled through the district offices, will now be handled at a management center. Such a center in
Atlanta will handle such back-office work for Customs in the port of Hampton Roads.
While some administrative positions could be eliminated, people in those positions are likely to be redirected to front-line duties, Murphy said. Most, or all, of the staff will remain in Norfolk, he said.
Customs employs nearly 70 in Hampton Roads. In addition to the port, the Hampton Roads district office oversees the ports of Richmond and Charleston, W.Va.
The port of Hampton Roads, the second-biggest East Coast port after New York in general cargo, generated $303.7 million of revenue for the federal government through customs, Duchesne said.
The restructuring stems from Vice President Al Gore's program to reinvent government. As part of the plan, 600 of Customs' 1,800 jobs in Washington will be moved to offices in the field. by CNB