by Harold Hutchison
Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst on Thursday unveiled a scathing report on the impact of telework on the federal government, citing numerous abuses and failures resulting from the practice’s widespread operate.
President-elect Donald Trump named Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy co-chairs DOGE, November 12. Ernst’s 60-page book report presented findings from Ernst’s investigations into telework since it sent a letter to 24 government agencies in August 2023 requesting a review issues engaged in remote work and was fired during a meeting attended by Musk and Ramaswamy.
“If federal workers can’t be found at their desks, where exactly are they?” the report asked earlier, before noting the effects of being absent from the office.
Ernst has complained to multiple senior Biden administration officials about his absence from the office, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and revealed performance problems with agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“Federal workers hang out at the beach and in bubble baths, but not in office buildings,” Ernst told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Even members of President Biden’s cabinet said they were working on the fly while being out of the office and unreachable. Unlike Biden’s bureaucrats, I will be very busy making Washington work for taxpayers.”
Ernst has previously expressed concerns about the vacancy rate in federal office buildings, noticing that the Department of Transportation used less than 15% of the office space at its Washington headquarters. In the report, Ernst described how the shift to telework delayed the response to a complaint about conditions at a baby formula factory that led to a recall of the plant after contaminated formula killed nine babies.
“A whistleblower complaint detailing safety concerns at an infant formula factory was delivered to FDA in October 2021.” – we read in the report. However, “staffing issues in the mailroom due to Covid-19,” namely employees working remotely, “prevented paper copies from reaching FDA senior management until February, when the facility was closed.”
“The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reviewing the backlog of food facility inspections caused by Covid-19 era policies. Results are expected to be published in 2025.” – adds the report. “Thousands of pharmaceutical plants producing antibiotics, cancer therapies and other drugs have also not been inspected since before the pandemic. The Associated Press reports that the FDA “has begun using video and other online tools to remotely assess plants during Covid-19, although this does not equate to a physical inspection.” Even with remote inspections, almost 40 percent fewer inspections are now being conducted than before the pandemic.”
Ernst’s report describes the problems associated with teleworking local salaryan adjustment to the basic salary of civilian employees in the federal government, intended to provide federal employees with compensation comparable to private sector employees in a given area of the country. The report indicated that as many as 68% of employees were receiving incorrect local wages.
“Many U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees were also caught fraudulently collecting local wages in Washington while living elsewhere,” the report said. “One senior USAID employee resided in Florida throughout her employment, but used an office supply store in Virginia for work-related correspondence to fraudulently collect local D.C. wages. Despite being required to report to the USAID office in Washington, D.C. twice each pay period, her supervisor allowed her to break her telework agreement.
The report also detailed how a Department of Housing and Urban Development employee was arrested for DUI while allegedly on the job, and how a Social Security Administration employee started a home inspection business on government time.
The report also identified problems relating to a huge extent empty office buildings results from the general authorization for remote work, which, depending on the agency, covered as many as 90% of employees. The report found that in addition to wasting taxpayers’ money, the vacant building created an unsafe environment.
” [Public Buildings Reform Board] adds: “In addition to high costs, other concerns associated with low utilization include environmental and health impacts,” the report says. “The per capita carbon emissions from heating and cooling almost empty buildings, not to mention energy costs, are indefensible. Buildings that are significantly underutilized can also pose health risks to their occupants, as GSA recently discovered with Legionella outbreaks in many of its buildings when water stagnated in plumbing due to underutilization.”
“Legionella is a bacterium that can cause Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia with a mortality rate of 33% in children and up to 80% in at-risk adults,” the report continues. “Although most healthy people exposed to the bacteria do not become ill, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that ‘there is no known safe level or type of Legionella’.”
On August 28, Ernst wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging the agency to take emergency action letter sent to EPA Administrator Michael Regan regarding contaminants that have accumulated in the drinking water of federal buildings left unoccupied by the shift to remote work.
Ernst introduced the Stopping Unproductive Work From Home Problems Act (SHOW).in September 2023 as part of a legislative package to stop the “administrative state”.
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Harold Hutchison is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
