Two Republican senators expanded their investigation into the effects of telework on government agencies in a Wednesday letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation, seeking information about offices outside Washington, D.C., after learning one agency spends $224 million a year on one department’s nearly-empty headquarters in the D.C. area.
Republican Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Ted Cruz of Texas spurred an investigation into remote work practices by the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Office of Inspector General (OIG) in July after questioning the office about allegations from whistleblowers from multiple agencies involving failures to meet in-office work requirements, fraud and waste. In a letter sent Wednesday, Ernst and Cruz asked the GAO to investigate the usage of hundreds of buildings owned or rented by the Department of Transportation, citing the massive cost for just the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.
“GAO’s report revealed that the DOT headquarters buildings were utilized at about 14 percent of their capacity in early 2023. However, the study did not include the rest of DOT’s office buildings, or those occupied by DOT’s nine operating administrations, which represent hundreds of leased and owned office buildings covering over 10 million square feet. Per GAO, these buildings cost the taxpayer about $224 million annually to occupy, operate, and maintain in addition to sizable environmental and opportunity costs,” Ernst and Cruz wrote. “Due to these high costs, it is critical that DOT only occupy the space it uses.”
Flipping through channels with a remote is not the same as remote work.
It’s time we get Washington bureaucrats off their couches and back in the office.
Our taxpayers deserve better. pic.twitter.com/IfEJHCGYRT
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) September 7, 2023
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) memo released by Sen. Ernst in December revealed that 24 agencies used less than 50% of their office space.
Ernst and Cruz also requested probes into building use for other agencies, including the Department of Commerce, by the GAO and took particular aim at Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter’s comments during a September 2023 nomination hearing for a second term.
“As of June 20, 2023, of the ‘regularly recurring working staff’ at the agency, 60 percent were showing up to work one day a week. Another 20 percent were showing up to work two days a week. This suggests comparable building underutilization issues at the FTC,” Ernst and Cruz wrote.
“When Commissioner Slaughter appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee last September, she made clear she does not care about this issue, stating whether FTC employees come into the office ‘is not particularly important to me,’” Ernst and Cruz continued. “It is, however, important to the American people whose taxes pay for empty offices.”
Ernst introduced the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Act, Sept. 13 as part of a package of legislation to rein in the “administrative state.” Expressed concerns that the effects of telework had been underestimated.
The numbers don’t lie and we have the whistleblower to prove it – Biden’s @USDA is a ghost town due to four years of tele-“work” policies.
Bureaucrats need to start showing up for work, or we need to sell off unused space. pic.twitter.com/nUpNswG4LS
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) February 28, 2024
“I fear my previous report, revealing just 14% of the Department of Transportation headquarters is being used, is the tip of the iceberg for federal employees abusing telework,” Ernst told the DCNF. “While COVID might be over, there is a roaring pandemic of bureaucrats not showing up to work. Before taxpayers cut a quarter of a billion-dollar check for office space, we need to figure out if anyone is actually there to turn the lights on.”
“As the Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee, I’ve long shared my frustration about federal agencies allowing employees to collect their taxpayer-funded paychecks without showing up to work,” Cruz told the DCNF. “Now, GAO has revealed that taxpayers are footing a $224 million-a-year bill for the Department of Transportation’s Headquarters, which was utilizing only about 14 percent of its building capacity in early 2023. I’m working with Senator Joni Ernst to uncover the full extent of how much DOT, along with the Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission, is spending on nearly empty buildings scattered across the country. It is imperative that taxpayers are not footing the bill for unused space and that bureaucrats show up to work for the American people.”
The Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. The FTC declined to comment.
“In the FAA reauthorization, Congress directed that the Secretary conduct a nationwide inventory and review of DOT’s domestic office footprint, which proposes opportunities for DOT to optimize office space by identifying available, unused, or underutilized space,” a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation told the DCNF when reached for comment. “We are preparing to initiate this nationwide review, which will analyze all office space for all Operating Administrations nationwide, except for the FAA’s airport traffic control facilities. DOT will look for ways to optimize our office footprint, including consolidating offices within a reasonable distance and co-locating regional or field offices of OAs.”
(Featured image credit: kyle tsui/creative commons)
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