EXCLUSIVE — Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is advancing her push against federal teleworking in a new letter to the Pentagon, demanding that the department present a plan on how to verify if teleworkers are actually working.
In a letter sent on Friday to Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland of the Defense Health Agency shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner, Ernst accuses her of “undermining the mission” of the agency to “placate the parochial interest that is DHA’s employee union.”
“I understand telework can be helpful for agencies when used with strategic guardrails in place. However, as with anything, the excessive use of this option without sufficient oversight can lead to counterproductive outcomes,” Ernst wrote. “Clearly, as it relates to this [master labor agreement], that principle is being ignored.”
Ernst is demanding that the Defense Health Agency present the use of virtual private network tracking, information technology login information, and employee traffic logs to determine how many teleworkers are spending the majority of their working hours in a region with lower locality pay rates than their designated primary workstation is located but still receive the higher locality pay.
“Time and again, when federal employees are permitted excessive telework without guardrails, it results in slower services for those the agency was created to support,” Ernst said. “Our servicemembers deserve nothing less than the most efficient and effective processes to get what they need. Prioritizing those who don’t want to show up to work over the health care of our servicemembers is disgraceful and unacceptable.”
The Master Labor Agreement allows, among other provisions, telework for up to 10 days per pay period. The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, agreed to this framework with the Defense Health Agency, touting it would improve working conditions for 38,000 employees represented by the union.
Ernst pointed out that there are 10 days in a pay period and the agreement does not have any requirements for employees to verify that they are teleworking.
“DHA is expected to take it on faith that the employee is being forthright and honest with the DHA about their location when they are on permanent telework, creating a situation ripe for locality pay fraud,” Ernst wrote.
In fiscal 2019, the latest data, the Department of Defense spent over $21 million on “taxpayer-funded union time,” while the unions also spent an additional $8.4 million on government property and expenses, per the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Ernst said there is “no mechanism” for managers to verify teleworking employees are not using the opportunity as a chance to engage in “dependent care activities while performing official duties.”
Ernst gave Crosland until June 13 to provide the VPN tracking and other log information, payments between the health agency, and the percentage of agency staff who teleworked an average of more than four days in the calendar year 2023.
This is the latest effort from the Iowa junior senator to demand answers to the extent of teleworking in federal agencies. Since August of last year, she has requested investigations into 24 federal departments and agencies for their telework procedures.
Meanwhile, the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service released findings this month on employee morale at 532 federal agencies and agency components, revealing that while scores across the government had improved slightly since 2020, employees overall remained unhappy.
However, employees who were allowed to telework full time were the happiest federal employees and scored their workplaces an average of 75 out of 100 compared to workers at headquarters, 69 out of 100.
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Ernst and Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) recently introduced the Telework Transparency Act, which would require agencies to make their work-from-home policies publicly available, as well as mandate audits to determine whether teleworking employees are receiving the correct locality-based pay.
The Department of Defense declined to comment.