[tomder55]

A new report by the GAO says that HQ buildings of the Fed agencies are on average 25 % occupied weekly .That means that 75% of the swamp critters pretend to work at home.

The federal government's office spaces cost billions every year to lease, operate, and maintain. Even before the pandemic, agencies struggled to determine how much office space they actually needed.
In this testimony, we discuss the 21.5 million square feet of usable office space—conference rooms, team rooms, and offices—in the headquarters buildings of 24 agencies. During 3 weeks in January, February, and March of this year, 17 agencies' buildings were at 25% capacity or less

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Federal Real Property: Preliminary Results Show Federal Buildings Remain Underutilized Due to Longstanding Challenges and Increased Telework | U.S. GAO

Besides the HQs the Feds pretend to occupy 511 million square feet of office space. The GAO took the HQs as a representative sample.

Underutilized office space has financial and environmental costs. Federal agencies spend about $2 billion a year to operate and maintain federal office buildings regardless of the buildings' utilization. In addition, agencies spend about $5 billion annually to lease office buildings. Any reduction in office space could reduce these costs.

It wasn't covid that caused this . GAO says this trend began long before covid. The GAO says even if there was perfect attendance these buildings would still be 33% vacant . The Leviathan just has no clue about the need for space utilization. But why should they care ? The people shell out the $7 billion+ a year to lease, operate and maintain federal office space.

There ought to be a law.

OOOPS there is
' FEDERAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT REFORM ACT OF 2016'
PUBL318.PS (congress.gov)

The Federal Property Management Reform Act of 2016 establishes a framework for agencies to assess and inventory real property, more efficiently manage buildings and co-location opportunities for federal agencies, and determine how to dispose of unneeded property.

New law codifies best practices for federal property management (federaltimes.com)

That was 2016 .

2 Presidents as Chief Executives have done little to fix the problem . Both have/had utilized EOs frequently . Congress has not demanded that the OMB enforce the law.

It is a separate debate if work at home is an effective work model . What is not debatable is that it is STUPID to pay for office space not used or needed .