Federal employees widely abused the Biden administration‘s telework policies, according to an inspector general report released by the Office of Personnel Management on Friday.
“Under the previous administration, OPMʼs telework and remote work policies were mismanaged and oversight was virtually nonexistent,” acting OPM Director Chuck Ezell said in a statement. “That era of telework abuse is over. At President Trumpʼs direction, OPM has restored in-person operations to ensure federal employees are working for the taxpayers.”
The report found that 58.1% of reviewed employees failed to meet minimum in-office requirements, nearly one-third had expired or missing telework agreements, and 15% of remote workers had no approved agreement on file.
President Donald Trump issued a return-to-office order on his first day in office, forcing employees to return full-time by March 3.
The OPM report was commissioned in response to a complaint lodged by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) in August 2023. Ernst wrote that “frustrated Americans are being put on hold while too many federal employees are phoning it in” and at the time called for federal employees to return to the office as soon as possible.
Multiple federal agencies were reported to be using 25% or less of the capacity at their headquarters in 2023. Federal employees were sent home en masse during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, and many had yet to return three years later. The OPM report found that remote work increased by 528% during the Biden administration, according to the Daily Caller.
It appears that the Biden administration made little progress in getting employees back into the office despite pressure from congressional Republicans and local elected officials, such as District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Ernst said in a Friday statement that the Biden administration slow-walked releasing data, contrasting it with a Trump administration “commitment to transparency.”
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“I exposed widespread telework and locality pay abuses under the Biden administration that led to government buildings being ghost towns,” Ernst said. “It should come as no surprise that those setting telework policy under Joe Biden were some of the worst abusers of it.”
The report also comes as Trump seeks to turn up the pressure on Joe Biden. Since taking office, Trump has called for an investigation into the former president’s use of an autopen device and wants a special prosecutor to look into the 2020 election.