Remote worker vs. Teleworker: The IG found seven employees that had been overpaid or as long as 11 months because their new duty stations were not timely updated. Image: Khairil Azhar Junos/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Commerce Department should strengthen its monitoring of whether teleworkers are reporting to their official duty stations as often as required and whether offsite employees are being paid the correct locality rates, an inspector general report has said.
The report touches on issues often raised by Republicans on Capitol Hill who hold a skeptical view of telework—in which employees are to work onsite a certain number of days per pay period, varying by agency—and remote work, where there is no such requirement and the offsite location, typically the employee’s home, is the duty station.
Those GOP members have suggested that agencies are not ensuring that they have correctly designated the duty stations for locality pay—which is based on an employee’s duty station, not the place of residence—especially in cases where employees may have moved out of a higher-cost zone during the pandemic.
The IG, noting that locality pay “may vary significantly depending on the location of the duty station,” sampled 31 employees from various bureaus who had switched to remote work or full-time telework that effectively is remote work, to a location with a lower locality rate than that of the former location. It found that seven “did not have their duty stations updated timely” and had been overpaid for as long as 11 months, totaling $43,000.
“Bureaus do not have adequate controls in place to ensure changes in duty stations are initiated and processed in a timely manner . . . The bureaus also did not have adequate controls to identify and correct instances when the changes were not initiated or processed timely,” the report said.
In a further sample, the IG found that records could not demonstrate that two employees whose telework agreements called on them to report onsite at least twice per pay period had done so.
Said the report, “If employees are routinely not physically reporting to the office in accordance with their telework agreements, they may not be complying with those agreements. Furthermore, an employee who does not satisfy the twice-per-pay-period requirement and is not obtaining approvals for temporary exceptions is, according to the department’s telework and remote work plan, not a teleworker but a remote worker, which can affect the employee’s locality pay.”
Agency management agreed with recommendations for stronger controls to ensure that changes in duty stations are initiated and processed timely; to review duty station changes to determine if employees have received incorrect locality pay; and to regularly track whether teleworking employees are meeting their obligations to work onsite.
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