A National Park ranger wearing a face mask is seen at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., the United States, on June
29, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]
Too many federal employees in Washington, D.C. continue working from home months after the pandemic ended, and that should change, said The Washington Post (WP) on Tuesday in an Opinion article.
"At some agencies, employee absences have negatively affected customer service," said the article authored by Michael R. Bloomberg, co-founder of Bloomberg and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, and mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. "This has gone on too long. The pandemic is over. Excuses for allowing offices to sit empty should end, too."
A recent survey by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows just how bad the situation remains. The GAO measured 24 federal agencies' use of their headquarters during one week in each of January, February and March. Six of these agencies -- the Agriculture Department, the General Services Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Personnel Management, the Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration -- recorded an average occupancy rate of less than 10 percent.
Seventeen of them averaged 25 percent or less. Across all 24 agencies, the average was only a little more than 20 percent. "In other words: Federal offices are mostly empty," said the article.
There's no good reason why government workers have been so much slower than everyone else to get back to the office at least a few days a week, especially when so many jobs -- from social services to law enforcement -- require people to be present, it added.
