They have become remote and professional.
Just 6% of federal employees are “in person full time,” while nearly a third of federal employees are working remotely full time, a sharp change from pre-pandemic times. A report from Sen. Joni Ernst’s office found that only 3% telework every day.
Ernst (R-Iowa), who has long campaigned against increasing federal work in remote areas, asked Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) co-directors Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy during the period that he The company plans to reveal the results of a one-and-a-half-year investigation conducted at its office. They visited the Capitol on Thursday.
“The nation’s capital is a ghost town, with an average occupancy rate of 12 (percent) in government buildings,” Ernst wrote in the shocking report. “If federal employees aren’t at their desks, where are they?”
Musk highlighted Ernst’s report ahead of a meeting with lawmakers to brainstorm ways to rein in federal bureaucracy.
“Excluding security and maintenance personnel, the number of government employees who report to work in person and work 40 hours a week is close to 1%,” he wrote on the X Platform. “Hardly anyone.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) also highlighted the report’s findings during a meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy.
“It’s unreasonable and it’s not something the American people will support,” Johnson told reporters.
“And one of the first things we’re going to see is a demand from the new administration, and all of us in Congress, for federal employees to return to their seats.”
The Iowa Republican particularly blasted President Biden’s tendency to abandon the White House for his home in Delaware and vacations with wealthy donors.
“President Biden is leading by example. Over the past three and a half years, he has been away from the Oval Office for 532 days, which is about 40% of the time he was expected to be in the Oval Office.” she scolded.
Her office, in collaboration with Open the Books, a nonprofit that advocates for government transparency for taxpayers, claims the Biden administration redacted the work locations of “more than 281,000 rank-and-file federal employees.” I am doing it.
According to her report, the cost of leasing and maintaining federal buildings and the tabs that keep them open is about $15.7 billion a year.
Meanwhile, her report said the government has ownership of approximately 7,697 vacant buildings and 2,265 vacant buildings, with costs of approximately $15 million to lease and maintain underutilized space. It is said that it is taking place.
A blow to government services
State Sen. Hawkeye concluded that “taxpayers are being defrauded,” and argued that voters are frustrated by the lack of action from various government agencies, including the Social Security Administration and the Food and Drug Administration.
The report rattled off several anecdotes to explain the federal government’s incompetence.
She cited the example of how an FDA whistleblower report warning that infant formula was infested with bacteria went unread for months, ultimately leading to a national shortage in 2022.
Another example cited in the report is that the director of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Atlanta took a photo of himself “working” while taking a bubble bath, sparking outrage at the time.
“If you don’t think this is a big deal, then what is the big deal? Is it a big deal that veterans die?” one of his colleagues later became furious, according to the report.
“He was one of the few people reporting to the office in Washington, D.C., and contractors made comments to him about the whereabouts of government employees,” lamented one federal employee, according to the report.
unfair salary increase
To further her argument that taxpayers are being “ripped off,” Ernst cited research showing that some federal employees benefit from higher wages from localities where they don’t actually work. Quoted.
“My audit found that between 23(%) and 68(%) of employees working from home at some agencies received incorrect locality allowances to increase their pay.” says her report. “Some employees live more than 3,000 miles from the office, and one ‘temporary’ teleworker received a higher local salary for nearly a decade.”
According to a study by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, more than 25% of federal teleworkers routinely live more than 80 miles from their workplace.
“Government pay is determined, in part, by the location of an employee’s official workplace. There are 58 local pay zones, and base salaries for federal employees are adjusted to take into account their respective cost of living,” the report says. states.
trade union resistance
Ernst accused federal employee unions of blocking efforts to require workers to report to the workplace.
Last year, the Biden administration required government agencies to “significantly increase meaningful in-person work.”
But the report details that some union leaders ignored it.
Tony Reardon, national president of the Treasury Staff Union, said at the time: “The government’s new guidance on working conditions in agencies will override the collective bargaining agreements in force in the agencies where we represent frontline workers. It’s not something I’ll do.”
“This means that for the vast majority of our members, access to telework (which varies by agency and role) will remain the same.”
solution
To rectify this situation, Ernst has distributed federal employees across the country, implemented a “use it or lose it” approach to federal property, tied remote work permissions to performance, and established virtual private networks. He proposed monitoring the location based on the location. .
Last month, Ernst was announced as chair of the Senate DOGE caucus. The group will work with a non-governmental organization of the same name led by Musk and Ramaswamy to bring down government bloat and inefficiency.
On Thursday, the Senate DOGE caucus will hold its first meeting to coincide with Musk and Ramaswamy’s visit to the Capitol.
