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The Justice Department is still a good place to work, but it fell — just barely — out of the top 10 list in the vast federal bureaucracy.

So says the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan research organization that asks thousands of federal workers questions about how well their skills match the agency’s mission statement, agency management and leadership and the balance between work and family life.

This year, the DOJ ranked No. 11 among big federal agencies, with a score of 68.3 out of a possible 100, down from its No. 9 posting and a score of 69.3 a year ago (see Main Justice’s report from 2010). The General Services Administration ranked No. 10 this year. But the DOJ’s decline is consistent with an across-the-board dip in federal worker morale.

For the second year in a row, the DOJ’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division ranked “happiest,” if that’s the right word, with a score of 81.5.  The Office of Justice Programs, whose mission is “to provide federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, improve the criminal and juvenile justice systems, increase knowledge about crime and related issues and assist crime victims,” ranked last among DOJ agencies, at 57.6, down only slightly from a year ago.

The Washington Post said worries over money, leadership and Republican efforts to cut budgets have all contributed to an decline in overall satisfaction among federal workers. In fact, The Post said, federal workers’ job satisfaction is down for the first time in four years.

“We’re learning to do more with a lot less,” John Reynolds, a management analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency, told The Post. “But that’s consistent across the country, not just in government.” Morale went up at only 31 of the 308 federal agencies, bureaus, departments and offices in the survey, The Post noted.

Workers in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation were happiest, with an overall 85.9 rating, up from 79.2 a year ago.  Maybe that’s reassuring, since the FDIC’s mission is to maintain stability and public confidence in the banks.