Federal workers frequently violated work-from-home policies under the Biden administration, a government watchdog revealed in a report released Friday.
The “rampant telework abuse” was the result of “compliance failures and weak internal oversight” at former President Joe Biden’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM), according to the agency’s inspector general, which sampled the badging data, timesheets and remote-work agreements of dozens of federal employees.
“Under the previous administration, OPMʼs telework and remote work policies were mismanaged and oversight was virtually nonexistent,” OPM Acting Director Chuck Ezell said in a statement.
“That era of telework abuse is over,” Ezell declared. “At President Trumpʼs direction, OPM has restored in-person operations to ensure federal employees are working for the taxpayers.”
The report found 58.1% of employees sampled failed to meet minimum requirements for in-office work under Biden.
Nearly one-third (29.7%) had lapsed telework agreements, 21% had discrepancies in their paperwork and 15% did not have any approved agreements on file, OPM’s inspector general discovered.
The scope of the evaluation did not include determining the precise reasons for the noncompliance, but the OPM IG listed several possibilities, including “intentional fraud or abuse.”
“Weak or missing management controls” and “negligence or carelessness” by employees and supervisors were also listed among the possible reasons for the violations.
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies and departments to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements” and require workers to return to the office on a full-time basis.
Federal employees were forced to return to full-time, in-office work on March 3.
Trump’s order included limited exemptions to be determined by the heads of departments.
OPM noted that it has also implemented new internal controls and compliance reviews for employees who continue to telework.
