House Republicans plan to direct agencies to publicly post how many employees come to work in person in Washington, as lawmakers grow frustrated with federal telework policies.
House appropriators plan to include a directive calling for more telework transparency in the report accompanying their Labor-HHS-Education funding bill. Another provision would demand an accounting of Education Department and Health and Human Services employees who receive Washington-area locality pay — reflecting the Capitol’s high price of living — but don’t frequently work in office.
The demands would affect agencies under the largest nondefense spending bill for fiscal 2025. They also highlight Capitol Hill’s skepticism about federal employees working from home. Influential lawmakers in charge of agency budgets, including Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), have pressed agency officials for more information about telework policies recently.
Language of the directives, obtained by Bloomberg Government, would be included in the committee report that accompanies the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. The report by Appropriations Committee members, which has yet to be publicly released, adds context and congressional oversight requirements to the underlying bill, although it lacks the force of law.
“Excessive abuse of telework across the federal government must end,” the planned report language says. “For the average American showing up to work every day is a fact of life; they deserve a government that reflects that reality. Approvals for remote work should be made on an individual case by case basis and done only to serve the best interests of the program and the American public.”
The provision would direct all agencies funded under the bill to maintain a public, online accounting of all employees “physically utilizing” Washington-area agency space on a quarterly basis.
Another planned provision in the committee report would direct Education Department and Health and Human Services officials to send Congress an accounting of employees who receive Washington-area locality pay but haven’t reported to an in-person office in the Washington area more than one day a week for the past year.
The House’s Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill would cut billions in funds for health care and social programs. Republicans advanced the measure in a subcommittee markup Thursday and plan to hold a full committee markup July 10.
Aderholt has also pressed Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley for answers on office closures, highlighting broader congressional concern about federal in-office work. With O’Malley’s agency working through a backlog of claims, “we would hope you would agree that now is not the time to take a break,” Aderholt and Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ark.) wrote in a May 10 letter, asking questions about planned early office closures on May 10 and 24.
O’Malley said he allowed the early dismissal of employees in recognition of Public Service Recognition Week, he wrote in a May 14 response letter. He said officials had “already rescheduled and completed most of the appointments originally scheduled” for May 10.
The “biggest problem we face in this over-worked, under-staffed, and shrinking agency is our unsustainably high attrition rate,” O’Malley wrote.
Concern over telework has also prompted dueling Senate bills. A measure by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) (S. 3015) would require workers to come into the office at least twice per biweekly pay period, and would increase remote work availability for law enforcement and military spouses who have to move often with their partner. A measure by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.), which would require more transparency from federal agencies on telework policies, stalled after Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) offered an amendment to mandate that agencies monitor workers’ productivity.