A new audit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general reveals that more than 10% of telework agreements may have discrepancies.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, has requested that government agencies conduct an audit of telecommuting and remote work in August 2023, citing media information. account The story of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who attended a staff meeting while taking a bubble bath. A HUD report released Tuesday found that several employees live more than 3,000 miles from the office where they were scheduled to work. (Related: Exclusive: EPA agrees to audit telework policies one year after Republican senators request)
“Five of these employees had flexi-place agreements that meant they commuted more than 3,000 miles each week from one side of the United States to the other, or from the continental United States to Hawaii,” the report states. .
According to the report, HUD established the Flexiplace program in 2022 to regulate remote work and telework, defining teleworkers as employees who come into the office on a set number of days and remote workers as employees who do not come into the office. . The report also noted that at least 30 employees live more than 1,000 miles from their on-site work location, and for the remaining 35, it did not have valid data.
“It's only October on the calendar, but with so many ghost employees and haunted empty halls, it's been four years of spooky season at the Biden-Harris HUD office building,” Ernst told the Daily Caller. told the News Foundation. “This audit has revealed a veritable house of horrors for taxpayers. Federal employees should get back to work and stop treating their offices like werewolves treat daylight.”
Switching channels using a remote control is not the same as remote work.
It's time to get Washington's bureaucrats off their couches and back into their offices.
Our taxpayers deserve better. pic.twitter.com/IfEJHCGYRT
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) September 7, 2023
The report also found problems with scheduling work hours and work days for employees who signed Flexiplace contracts.
“We identified schedules that differed from the agreement type, were missing, or were inconsistent with full-time work in 66 of the 7,710 agreements (1 percent),” the report states. . “The largest group of discrepancies includes 41 employees who have regular telecommuting agreements that require fewer than the two days per pay period that HUD requires for typical telecommuters. I did.”
In an Aug. 28 letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, Ernst wrote that unused office space is causing water leakage in about one in four government buildings, contributing to Legionnaires' disease. He pointed out that it was contaminated with bacteria. (Related: Senate passes Joni Ernst amendment to crack down on telework abuse among federal employees)
According to a PowerPoint presentation obtained by DCNF, the Office of Inspector General recommended that HUD take steps to reduce the risk that the agency would make improper local payments and ensure that official reporting is accurate. HUD has announced that it will do so.
Ernst introduced The Stop Working from Home Counterproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Actwill come into force in 2023 as part of a series of bills to rein in the “administrative state.”
Acting Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Adrian Todman did not respond to a request for comment.
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