Top Republican James Comer is leading the charge in Congress to bring 228,000 federal government employees back to the office.
This week, he’s working to give Donald Trump suggestions for a new government “business model” to reduce the staggering number of federal telecommuters.
Comer, chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee, will hold a hearing Wednesday on federal telework practices that have persisted long after the COVID pandemic.
“We know that more than half of federal employees, and a large majority of federal office workers, regularly telecommute or work completely remotely,” Comer revealed exclusively to DailyMail.com.
With roughly 2.2 million civilian federal employees, the sheer size of the number of government employees who are remote is difficult to quantify, the Republican admitted.
Comer also shared that he spoke with Donald Trump this weekend about the extent of telecommuting when he and other lawmakers visited the newly elected president at Mar-a-Lago.
“At the very least, President Trump expects the federal workforce to show up for work,” the chairman said of their conversation.
The lawmaker also shared that he will share his findings with Trump, who he then expects to use the information to inform his cost-cutting initiatives, such as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“What we’re trying to do, as quickly as he comes into power, is provide him with as much data as possible, to help them come up with a new business model for the federal government and federal work,” Comer shared.
Republicans are working to deliver a new government business plan to Donald Trump after examining how many federal employees are working from home
A photo from the House Oversight Committee’s telework report shows the Department of Health and Human Services with most lights off before 5 p.m. Republican Chairman James Comer claims that half of the 2.2 million U.S. federal workforce regularly telecommutes
“The business model under the Biden administration is that you can work from home, and there is no accountability or transparency,” the chairman continued. ‘IIt has not been well received by the American people.”
A committee staff report released Wednesday found that of more than 2 million federal employees, 228,000 are fully remote, meaning they never enter an office.
Many of the remote workers were allowed to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic and never returned to their assigned offices, he said.
His committee sent questions to each federal agency to determine how many employees were teleworking and office occupancy rates.
However, he claims that the agencies have shown a complete lack of transparency and that few have responded to his requests.
“Again, we’ve asked these questions to federal agencies, and they have not been transparent at all with their answers. Some agencies have given us some information. Some agencies never even responded to our request for information.”
During their investigation, the Oversight Committee found that some agencies that allowed employees to come into the office one or two days a week did not list those employees as “telecommuters.”
Instead, they were counted as employees who regularly come into the office.
The Social Security Administration headquarters will have a nearly empty parking lot at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, December 6, 2023. According to the Government Accountability Office, 17 of the federal agency’s 24 buildings in D.C. were operating at 25 percent capacity or less as of March.
More than half of the Ministry of Education’s 4,245 employees do not regularly report to work, the committee’s report shows
DOGE co-chair Elon Musk has said bringing federal workers back to offices is a priority
There are also many questions about which employees may be eligible to telecommute and why, the report details show.
This lack of transparency has increased legislators’ skepticism about the need for such remote working measures.
“The Biden administration will go down as the least transparent presidential administration in history,” Comer lamented.
“It shouldn’t be difficult to determine what percentage of your workforce is teleworking, but they won’t give us any information, and very few media outlets are even curious about it.”
In practice, telecommuting employees don’t appear to be as effective as those who come into the office, Comer argued.
He expressed frustration over the difficulties his office is experiencing in carrying out basic administrative work for constituents.
It’s difficult to get employees from many federal departments on the phone, and he talked about his recent challenges getting a Social Security Administration (SSA) employee on the phone.
“There is a record backlog of initial disability claims,” he said. ‘There are long waiting times at the field offices and it is impossible to get to RSZ employees on the phone.’
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer
‘And we think this is because there is too much gambling.’
It is also “impossible” to get anyone on the phone at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Energy, he added.
The President also addressed how the widespread abuse of teleworking has eroded public confidence.
“The American people know and expect a federal government that is efficient and productive, and right now they don’t have that,” Comer said.
Wednesday’s hearing promises to be a first step toward a broader overhaul of the government’s remote working policy.