Lawmakers Urge Newsom to Delay Return to Office for California State Employees

On March 3, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an order directing the state’s government agencies to bring teleworking employees back to the office at least four days a week by July 1.

Almost exactly three months later, a bipartisan group of California lawmakers wrote Newsom a letter asking him to push back that deadline while an audit of the mandate is completed.

Signed by 17 California Assembly members, the June 4 letter expressed the group’s concerns about how the return-to-office order will affect the state’s workers, taxpayers and budget.

Noting that the California state auditor’s report is scheduled to be released this summer, the lawmakers urged Newsom to delay the order, saying “it is critical to fully understand the impacts of telework on our state budget and workforce prior to making a decision to reducing its use.”

Telework’s advantages to the state and its employees—cost savings, reduced commutes, less traffic, increased productivity in many state agencies—are “well-documented,” the legislators wrote, providing data designed to illustrate the benefits of telework to the state.

For example, the lawmakers said allowing state employees to telework has saved California taxpayers millions of dollars in maintenance for state office buildings. Their letter also cited recent research that found telework has helped California meet climate goals by eliminating nearly 400,000 metric tons of carbon emissions.

In addition, the Assemblymembers suggested that Newsom’s return-to-office mandate could exacerbate the state’s budget shortfall “and hamper our ability to protect important programs from devastating cuts.”

The letter went on to point out potential parking issues that bringing back state workers to the office en masse could create.

For example, thousands of California state employees are based throughout Sacramento. The city’s parking infrastructure “is not prepared to welcome back a fully in-person workforce,” the lawmakers wrote, adding that a recent California Department of General Services memo informed the legislature that the number of available daily parking passes would be capped and reduced each day due to the demand created by the return-to-office order.

“Eliminating telework will create significant parking capacity issues and will harm productivity for existing in-person state workers as well,” the Assemblymembers concluded.

“We believe that our state workers have shown they can deliver for our residents effectively while working from home while reducing commute times throughout the state, whereby improving the quality of life for all Californians.”