A federal inspector general has opened an investigation into post-pandemic telework policies that have turned some government offices into ghost towns, risking the spread of disease and raising big questions about how agencies deliver services.
The inspector general for the General Services Administration, which acts as the chief landlord for civilian executive branch agencies, confirmed the work in a letter to Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican who says the barren buildings raise a host of questions that the government does not seem to have fully grappled with.
“My office shares your concerns about the effect of telework on GSA’s ability to carry out its mission effectively and efficiently,” acting Inspector General Robert Erickson told Ms. Ernst in a letter, which The Washington Times obtained. “My office plans to continue to devote attention to GSA’s space utilization in our future oversight efforts.”
His office has already done groundbreaking work on water supplies at understaffed federal buildings, finding that the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease has been detected in at least six federal buildings. One actual case of the disease has been linked to one of those buildings.
Investigators said stagnating water in buildings left vacant by the pandemic led to breeding grounds for the bacteria.
The inspector general also has issued an urgent alert dinging GSA for failing to test water supplies in child-care centers in agency-run buildings before reopening them after the initial pandemic shutdowns.
The inspector general, in a statement to The Times, confirmed its interest in telework policies. That includes an ongoing audit of how the agency is accounting for telework and remote positions as it manages its vast real estate empire.
Ms. Ernst said it’s time the rest of the government takes the issue as seriously.
“Every day this is put off, more dollars go down the drain to fuel the D.C. swamp,” she told The Times. “There’s no better way to start paying off our nation’s over $33 trillion debt than a clearance sale on unused office space.”
The issue could come up as early as Thursday, when GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee to defend her agency’s actions.
GSA owns 1,600 buildings and leases space in 6,500 others, comprising more than 360 million square feet of office space. That’s more than all of the commercial office space in cities like Los Angeles or Chicago.
GSA told Congress this summer that it is already working to figure out office space needs in the new remote-work environment. But officials said Congress needs to pony up cash to make sure the agency can complete the study.
While GSA acts as the chief landlord, the agencies that fill the federal offices have a role to play as well, said Ms. Ernst, one of Congress’s top waste-watchers.
Last month she fired off letters to all of the government’s inspectors general, prodding them to look at the agencies under their purview and figure out whether they’ve grappled with the telework world.
She pointed to a study of key-card use in the Washington, D.C., area, where just 5% of the pre-pandemic workforce swiped in at a government-leased office building during two months in 2022.
She also highlighted the case of a manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Atlanta who posted a photo to social media bragging that he was logging in to a work meeting from a bubble bath.
“It’s time for Biden’s bubble bath bureaucrats to get back to work, or forfeit their expensive, unused office space,” the senator told The Times.
Beyond the outrageous cases, Ms. Ernst said there’s real money at stake. Federal pay is often adjusted to compensate people who work in higher cost-of-living areas, but employees who work remotely may no longer qualify for the add-on funds.
And taxpayers are shelling out for office space that’s vacant, Ms. Ernst said.
“It appears hybrid and remote working is now standard practice for the federal workforce. So, it is imperative for taxpayers and those being served by federal programs that costs and outcomes are not negatively impacted by the arrangement,” Ms. Ernst wrote in her letter to the inspector general community.
The Legionnaire’s disease case is particularly troubling.
In the alert last month, the GSA inspector general said elevated levels of Legionella, the bacteria that causes the disease, were detected in six GSA-controlled buildings in July and August. Two of the buildings were in Chicago and one each in Utah, Nebraska, Michigan and New York.
That New York building is the border crossing between Canada and Lewiston, where an employee contracted Legionnaires’ disease.
GSA leases the space, and the owner refused to test the water supply, so GSA hired its own testing company in August. Those tests confirmed Legionella was found in restrooms, a break room and shower areas in locker rooms.
The testing confirmed that the bacteria didn’t come in from the outside, and likely formed inside the building’s piping system.
“The elevated levels of Legionella have occurred at a time of reduced building occupancy levels. Reduced occupancy can cause water stagnation in buildings and allows Legionella to grow and spread, thereby increasing the likelihood of Legionella contamination in other GSA-controlled buildings,” the inspector general said.
But even as worries mount over empty buildings, sometimes keeping employees home is the safer option.
Federal workers in San Francisco this summer were directed to work from home rather than show up at the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building due to the open-air drug market, homeless encampment and rampant crime that have sprung up on the sidewalks outside the building.
Things were so bad that authorities turned to a time-tested solution — a fence — to try to block drug dealers from one prime drug-dealing spot.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.