The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Inspector General agreed to audit the agency’s telework and remote work programs on Tuesday after Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa requested a review of the policies’ effects.
Ernst had called for federal agencies to review and address the wasteful effects of telework on August 28, 2023, including looking into employees receiving the same pay despite moving locations and the unnecessary funds spent on vacant office buildings, according to the initial request. The EPA announced the audit to not only assess telework performance but also to ensure “correct locality pay,” which reflects the cost of living in parts of the country, in a memo exclusively provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation by Ernst’s office.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on federal employees who telework:
“How many of these federal employees who get location-based pay … are teleworking from a lower-cost area? …It is fraud, folks. It’s fraud. So you federal employees that are out there: We’re coming after you.” pic.twitter.com/uHLePlwqsJ
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) September 6, 2023
“Our objective is to determine whether the EPA ensures employees are paid the correct locality pay in accordance with regulations and policy,” the memo states. “We plan to conduct work in the Office of Mission Support, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and in selected regional offices and program offices. We will use applicable generally accepted government auditing standards to conduct our audit. The anticipated benefits of this audit include improved operational efficiency for the Agency.”
Ernst previously called for a review of telework policies in an August 2023 letter sent to 24 government agencies seeking to look into alleged abuses, including employees not working required hours or attending meetings remotely in inappropriate situations. In the letter, Ernst cited a media account of a Department of Veterans’ Affairs employee who attended a staff meeting while taking a bubble bath.
Ernst also referenced a case involving an employee with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office who was paid $25,000 while abusing telework. The worker spent over 730 hours on a golf course or at happy hours instead of working, according to an August 2015 report by the inspector general’s office of the Commerce Department.
“The COVID-19 pandemic ended years ago, and we are still waiting for Biden’s bureaucrats to get out of the bubble bath and back into the office,” Ernst told the DCNF. “While I am glad Inspector General O’Donnell is looking into rampant locality pay and telework abuse, it should not take Congressional action and multiple investigations for federal employees to show up to work. Four years of teleworking turned Washington into a ghost town, contaminated the water kids are drinking in government daycares, and put taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars worth of empty buildings while bureaucrats are on permanent vacation hundreds of miles from their office. Enough is enough and accountability is coming.”
Ernst also urged the EPA to take emergency action in an August 28 letter sent to EPA Administrator Michael Regan about contaminants that built up in the drinking water of federal buildings left unoccupied by a shift to remote work.
“EPA does not comment on ongoing audits. However, as with all audits, the agency works with the Office of Inspector General to provide information as requested. With respect to the General Service Administration’s ongoing baseline water testing, EPA leadership is committed to ensuring that the agency’s workforce has access to healthy and safe drinking water,” the EPA told the DCNF when reached for comment. “As part of federal government-wide safety and building operation efforts, GSA, the owner and building manager for most federal government facilities, has performed routine drinking water testing at EPA facilities. GSA is testing approximately 1,400 federally owned facilities and approximately 6,000 leased spaces, covering all federal tenants in those facilities, including EPA.”
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