An amendment reflects concerns about employees receiving higher locality pay rates associated with an official workstation that they are not really working from. Image: igordabari/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Senate has added language to a spending bill requiring greater reporting on rates of telework and on steps agencies have taken to assure that employees who now work offsite mostly or nearly exclusively are receiving the locality pay rates applying there.
While the amendment applies only to departments and agencies—VA, HUD, Agriculture, Transportation and related agencies—funded by the bill, its passage on a voice vote opens the way for similar language as other spending bills come before the Senate.
The amendment in part reflects concerns often raised by members of Congress about employees receiving higher locality pay rates associated with a city zone when they are now working where rates are lower. The language requires agencies to assess how many employees are in that situation, report on what if anything they have done previously to make such an assessment, and assess the potential cost savings from paying those employees at the rate applying where they work.
It also reflects skepticism about offsite work raised in settings including House hearings by requiring agencies to show what they have done and what they plan to do to ensure oversight and quality control of offsite work.
And in light of a recent GAO report on high rates of unused space in federal headquarters buildings, it requires reporting on typical onsite attendance rates in proportion to the total workforce and “any guidance, initiatives, or other incentives in effect to entice” more employees to work onsite and for more often.
Passage of the amendment represents the most sweeping effort to date by the Democratic-controlled Senate on continued high rates of offsite work, although it does not go as far as bills passed by the Republican-controlled House.
Several spending bills passed there recently also require greater reporting on offsite work by the agencies they fund, and a separate bill passed there early in the year would go further by requiring offsite work to be rolled back to pre-pandemic levels and increased only when an agency could make a business case for it. Similar language is in a spending bill the House has not yet taken up, covering general government issues.
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