One report shows an average utilization rate on the low end of 7 percent for SSA and HUD, 9 percent for SBA and 11 percent for GSA and Agriculture. Image: CHRISTOPHER E ZIMMER/Shutterstock.com
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, has presented new data on office vacancy rates in the national capital area in calling for agencies to have more employees working onsite for more days a week and to shed unneeded space.
The figures are based largely a recent GAO report that has been the center of several congressional hearings making the same point, including most recently one in the House on the SSA, USAID and HHS. Ernst supplemented that with data received directly from agencies in her role as ranking Republican on the Senate small business committee.
The report also presents data differently than did the GAO — which grouped agencies within tiers — by showing average amount of available space the agencies used in sample weeks over January-March (which was before several administration calls to agencies to increase offsite work later in the year).
By that measure, it shows an average utilization rate on the low end of 7 percent for SSA and HUD, 9 percent for SBA and 11 percent for GSA and Agriculture. (However, it noted that the HUD and SBA buildings were being renovated, contributing to lowered rates). OPM was just above at 12 percent, a number that included onsite work by “non-agency staff”—the only agency where that factor was specifically included.
On the high end were State, 49 percent, Treasury, 40 percent, Commerce, 36 percent, and DHS and Justice, 31 percent. The rate for the largest department, DoD was 25 percent, although that number reflected a headquarters administrative building complex several miles from the Pentagon and not the Pentagon itself.
Meanwhile, the DoD authorization bill up for final voting in Congress this week would order a GAO report on use of remote work by federal agencies, in which the employee is not required to regularly report to an agency site. That is to include data on employees in that status and the impact on agency operations, office space usage and recruitment and retention.
In addition, the bill would order DoD to provide information to Congress on facility usage in the Washington, D.C. area and the status of building leases in the area.
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