▶ 0:19:27e e
▶ 0:20:09you ready I'm ready the hearing on the committee on oversight account and government reform will come to order I want to welcome everyone without objection the chair May declare a recess at any time I now recognize myself for an opening statement want to welcome everyone here and wish everyone a very good morning uh this is the committee's first hearing of the 119th Congress I welcome all of our new members and we recognized uh each of them yesterday
▶ 0:20:40and I welcome the gentleman from Virginia Mr connley uh in his new role as ranking member of the full committee to say I'm uh excited about uh you assuming the role of ranking member would be an understatement I think uh this is a significant upgrade uh for for the minority and I'm I'm excited and I know you're a good good man want to govern they'll get rid of you if I keep bragging bragging about you but uh I yeah please don't go
▶ 0:21:10on but anyway welcome and we look forward to working with you in five days president Trump will take the oath of office and become the 47th president of the United States President Trump is going to change the way Washington works and we'll bring accountability to the unelected bureau Ry this includes ensuring the federal Workforce is held accountable to the American people and ensuring they actually show up for work at the office when President Trump's team enters Federal agency headquarters
▶ 0:21:41in and around Washington DC they'll find them to be mostly empty that's due to the Biden administration's failure to end pandemic era Tork and bring federal employees back to the office the covid-19 pandemic is long over everyone knows that it's been over for a long it's been nearly two years since the house passed the showup ACT our bill to return federal employees Tork to pre-pandemic levels which only collected dust
▶ 0:22:11on Senator Schumer's desk last Congress yet we all see the situation in downtown Washington the government accountability office found that 17 of the largest 24 Federal agency headquarters in the DC area were less than 25% occupied some much less than 25% occupied a separate study by the public buildings reform board determined occupancy rates were just half at at 12% occupancy
▶ 0:22:41the federal government is the largest employer and office space occupant in DC taxpayer money is being wasted to lease and maintain all that expensive empty office space the resulting lack of foot traffic in the city is also economically devastating for the district as DC mayor Muriel Bowser has testified to be clear since the height of the pandemic much of the federal Workforce has gotten up and gone to work every day this for example includes those working in veterans hospitals
▶ 0:23:11patrolling the border and Performing other law enforcement functions but the Biden administration's own data shows that the vast majority of federal office workers around the nation remain at home either some most or all the time in fact nearly 228,000 employees work entirely from home the majority of the Department of Education staff now consists of remote employees who
▶ 0:23:41never come to the office and that's just the official data in our Tork investigation we learned that most agencies haven't been effectively tracking when employees are in the office in other words they don't even know if they're coming to work or not in the Biden heritage Administration the example was set from the top the committee heard testimony last Congress from the former head of the general Services Administration who worked remotely from Missouri while GSA maintained a virtually empty headquarters building in Downtown DC
▶ 0:24:12GSA is of course the agency in charge of federal Real Estate Management we also heard from the former head of the Biden Harris office of personnel management under oath she repeatedly told members she didn't know how many DC area employees were going to their office OPM is of course the agent in charge of Tork and she didn't even know what percentage of the federal Workforce was toring throughout our investigation of federal Tork and despite repeated hearings at both the full committee as well as the subcommittee
▶ 0:24:42level led by chairman Pete Sessions Biden Harris appointees failed to provide requested data about agency Tork they don't know the impact massive Tor has had on agency Mission achievement or Citizen Services we have no idea we do know that agencies have been plagued by poor performance the Social Security Administration for instance has a record backlog of initial disability claims there are long wait times at SSA field offices some of our constituents wait a half hour or longer
▶ 0:25:12to get their calls taken it can take even longer for Walkins to get seen in a field office yet nearly all SSA employees t workk a lot in fact they work from home more often than not per the administration's own data we'll hear today from Martin Ali who left his job at SSA commissioner late last November before doing so he signed an agreement extending over 40,000 SSA union members telework Arrangement through October 2029
▶ 0:25:43that's to the entire Trump Administration and Beyond and he is not the only agency that linked a longterm that Inked a long-term Tork deal for employees in the past year how is this good for democracy the voters just delivered president Trump an electoral mandate to run the executive Ranch should Union contracts designed to tie his hands take precedence over the Mandate by the people what adds insult to injuries at the American Federation
▶ 0:26:13of government employees union which fought to make Tork an entitlement at Social Security and other agencies is now recalling its own staff to Union headquarters based on a conversation with the American Federation of government employees Union spokesman The Washington Post reports the union is returning its own employees to the office quote to ensure that the staff is fully prepared to tackle an onslaught of trump policies targeting the federal Workforce end quote the Union's message couldn't be
▶ 0:26:43clear for those doing the people's business in a federal job showing up should be optional those charged with blunting the Trump agenda however they need to be on their a game and that requires guess what showing going up in person well I for one want federal employees to also be on their aame and so do the American people federal workers must show up for them I look forward to working with the Trump Administration and getting federal employees back to work
▶ 0:27:14with that I will yield to the ranking member for his opening statement and then we will have two other uh opening statements by Miss green and uh by Mr inum I believe thank you Mr chairman uh and thanks for calling this first hearing of the 119th Congress for our committee uh and it's of course the first uh Hearing in which I have the privilege of presiding as ranking member of the committee during my first term in Congress back in ' 09 I was proud to co-author the telework enhancement Act of
▶ 0:27:442010 in a testament to what we can accomplish when we work together that bill promoted a growing and robust Federal telework program and had bipartisan support Tork used to be something we could genuinely call a bipartisan issue but some have chosen to demagogue the issue to score cheap political points and to carry out the directives of billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk who have called for an end to all Tork and
▶ 0:28:14remote work no matter who that hurts no matter including the military and their spouses and people who need workplace accommodations in all we do in this committee we should ask ourselves how can we make the federal government work better for families and hardworking Americans how can we ensure that we're getting the federal benefits they earned and deserve faster and without headache when it comes to Federal telea workk we should be focused on employee performance and the bottom
▶ 0:28:44line not a rigid schedule of five days a week eight hours a day there is a difference between universal remote working in a pandemic and a scheduled AR architecture for Tork that is pro programmed approved and overseen Tork has long been a powerful tool for the federal government to hire recruit and retain the best employees and that's going to be increasingly true
▶ 0:29:15with the younger generation of workers let's be clear the federal government's pandemic era work policy maximum Tor was something completely different from the structured Tork program we created in the Tork enhancement act maximum Tork was an emergency response to a Public Health crisis that protected workers while ensuring continuity of operations for federal agencies some parts
▶ 0:29:45of it worked some didn't but regardless it was terminated the structured Tork programs in place now at federal agencies are contractual agreements designed to maximize benefits for the American people some of my Republican colleagues proposed throwing out the good with the bad by falsely implying that properly administered and structured tele workk policies allow federal workers to Sher their duties but agency performance data does not
▶ 0:30:15support that argument including I might add at administrator Al Mal's Social Security Administration we know that one size fits all approaches to telework like the other ones that have advanced simply aren't sustainable if we want a federal Workforce operating at its best we've got to be flexible the nonpartisan government accountability office found that Tor is a vital tool for agencies to fill High need positions and that when positions
▶ 0:30:45aren't eligible for T work it can be very difficult to find people willing to do the job if our ultimate aim is to attract the most effective Workforce to serve the American people why would we prevent Federal Managers from doing what works to get the job done if you listen to The Narrative coming from some you would think that the federal telea workk program is anomalous an aberration in a nation full of private sector workers that report to the
▶ 0:31:15office every single day but once again the numbers do not support that assertion in fact the nonpartisan Congressional budget office found that private sector workers are working from from home more than their Federal counterparts Tork eligible workers in the federal government tend to be people who have no shortage of options for higher paying jobs outside of the government and to put it bluntly younger workers in the labor market expect and even
▶ 0:31:46demand the flexibility that comes from telea work a reality we must face when we look at our aging Federal Workforce workers over 50 make up 42% of the Federal Workforce today as compared to just 33% of the private sector labor force moreover about 15% of federal workers are eligible to retire right this moment unfortunately some want to make the federal workplace an inhospitable
▶ 0:32:16environment and drive workers away making it less desirable uh as a workplace and as a place for younger workers to want to uh apply it's a continuation frankly of the cruelty and attacks on federal agencies and employees that we saw in the administration pay freezes executive orders targeting collective bargaining relocations
▶ 0:32:47and of course the Crown Jewel schedule up that would replace perhaps as many as a 100,000 non-political merit-based federal workers with partisan lackies and Trump is promising to do it all again I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses today about why they think um some have chosen as the very first witness of the new Congress a pro-worker former commissioner of the Social Security Administration and whether there attacks of Mr Amal are a preview
▶ 0:33:18of an anti-worker agenda bent on cutting Social Security benefits uh among other proposed ideas coming out of project and the so-called Doge with that I yield back Mr chairman gentleman yields back chair and I recognize Mr Green for an open stud thank you Mr chairman good morning I'm glad this committee's first hearing is dealing with the federal Workforce government accountability needs to start with federal employees and if you ask any American
▶ 0:33:49they'll tell you straight to your face they are not happy with the federal Workforce this Congress I will be chairing the subcommittee on delivering on govern efficiency we will be working closely with the Trump Administration and its Doge effort to make our government more efficient more cost effective and more accountable during President Trump's first term federal employees tried to undermine the America First agenda at every turn the swamp was hard at work not
▶ 0:34:19for the American people but indeed to subvert their will make no mistake they will attempt to do the same this term a new poll that nearly half of all federal employees plan to resist trump it shows this includes 73% of democrat federal employees this is totally unacceptable unelected bureaucrats do not have a mandate from the American voters president
▶ 0:34:49Trump does and president Trump is the incoming president starting on Monday this means that the unelected bureaucrats that work for the federal government will come into place and they will come to heal to the American people that have delivered the Mandate again president Trump was elected to put the federal bureaucracy in its place and that includes back in the office however Mr omali signed a contract on his way
▶ 0:35:19out the door of the Social Security Administration to stifle president Trump's authority over the federal Workforce this lock this locks in telea workk policies from the Biden era Mr om Ali left his job as head of the Social Security Administration in late November to run to be chairman of the DNC but right before he did he gave a parting gift to his friends his buddies who run the largest federal employee union he signed
▶ 0:35:49a contract with the American Federation of government employees that ensures Biden era telework levels for tens of thousands thousands of Social Security employees 2029 keep in mind this was the union he was supposed to be negotiating against not for as commissioner of the Social Security Administration Mr omali wased supposed to be serving the American taxpayers who paid his salary
▶ 0:36:19instead he worked for the union that endorsed him for his job and while Mr om Ali was signing off on this contract to allow public servants to continue to work from home the union he negotiated the deal for was starting to send their own employees back to their own offices in Washington unfortunately this hypocrisy is nothing new from the Democrats and their special interest and it is certainly something my subcommittee will work with President Trump to crack
▶ 0:36:50down on I'm thankful to Chairman comr that we are starting this work today it is also absurd that taxpayers are literally paying federal employees to do business for their own unions in other words when unelected bureaucrats are supposed to be working for the American people they are instead doing work for their unions the Biden Administration has refused to publish totals for the use and cost of official time which prior
▶ 0:37:20administrations released every year however based on available data we can assume two or 300 00 million are being spent annually on official time that's two or three billion dollar over a decade that Americans are paying for unelected bureaucrats to not do their job as I work with Doge on cost cutting ideas official time will be among the many items on the list thank you Mr chairman I yield back
▶ 0:37:50lady yields back chair recogniz Mr inum for an opening statement thank you very much uh chairman comr right ing member conly uh to all of our Witnesses who are appearing here today uh special hello to Mr oali former mayor of Baltimore and governor of the state of Maryland and special hello to Tom Davis a former congressman who uh couldn't stay away had to come back Mr chairman as members of Congress
▶ 0:38:20charged with the task of oversight I think it's fair to say we should all have the same expectations when it comes to performance and when it comes quite frankly to productivity and that no matter the level of federal telework each agency choosing to utilize telework must in fact operate and execute their own unique Mission effectively and efficiently I think it's fair to say what this means is that Congress has a duty to engage and work with
▶ 0:38:51nonpartisan objective organizations where possible to ensure that agency heads throughout government are properly collecting data and evaluating the impact of telework it means also that Congress must provide the proper levels of funding to allow agency heads to be able to hire workers that they in fact need to do the work uh and to evaluate telor performance on a regular basis with a regular standard what this does not
▶ 0:39:21mean I think it's fair to say is that all federal employees who are telea workking are lazy or apathetic or are not doing their job and it does not mean that all telework should be abandoned or eliminated while we're all here trying to I hope seek and find common ground on this matter it certainly does not mean that any of us sitting as lawmakers have any sort of right to harass or to denigrate federal employees slash
▶ 0:39:51American citizens who have chosen to dedicate their life and their life's employment to Public Service I think it's also fair to say that we must remember that in the wake of covid-19 millions of Americans including federal workers were forced to shift to telework Tork was not always perfect but in difficult conditions lest we forget our hardworking federal employees who Exist by the way in all of our districts
▶ 0:40:21delivered over and over again during that period for the American people while the pandemic and Public Health emergencies raged on and ultimately ended President Biden initiated a return to federal Offices in August of 2023 today according to the office of personnel management about half of all federal employees are eligible for Tela workk eligible not doing it uh and while 10% are
▶ 0:40:52fully remote currently across the federal government Tork eligible employees about 61% of their time in the office these figures mean that we find ourselves in a place where telework has become an integral part of the federal landscape evidence B out shows over and over again the fact that telework with the right safeguards can lead to improved productivity and better attract and retain sorely needed talent for example
▶ 0:41:22a recent GAO report shared that veterans benefits Administration found that tor helped Employee Engagement as well as employee retention and the Social Security Administration experienced a 6.2% gain in productivity last year while I should say in a telea workk posture at the end of the day Tork is not a cure all or be all it is simply a tool and like any other tool has
▶ 0:41:52its value its worth so instead of taking that out of the tool box we ought to do a better job I think of trying to find a way to uplift our federal employees and examining how we can use the tool of telework to improve our federal Workforce and the federal Services they provide so as we enter into this hearing uh the first of the 119th Congress this committee I think has a real choice we can commit to doing the real hard oversight and cooperation needed to actually improve
▶ 0:42:23the efficiency and the effectiveness of our government or we can give in to attempts to score political points when I say efficiency and Effectiveness I think that ought to be the goal of all of us and so as we examine this whole area of telework if that is our guidepost our North Star and ultimately we will find a way that increases the effectiveness and the efficiency of our Workforce and so it's my real hope that all of us colleagues on both sides of the a make the
▶ 0:42:53right choice as we move forward and Mr chairman I yield back thank you for the time gentleman yields back I'm very pleased to introduce our Witnesses today I think we have a very uh impressive panel uh Mr Martin Ali is the former commissioner of the US Social Security Administration prior to that Mr om Ali was the governor of Maryland he also served two terms as mayor of Baltimore and uh Mr Ali I might add that Mr infu and I are big Baltimore Ravens
▶ 0:43:23fans so uh Rachel gretler is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation a visiting fellow in Workforce at the economic policy Innovation Center Miss greszler specializes in retirement labor policies and worker compensation including with respect to federal employees no stranger to this committee former Congressman Tom Davis is the president of the federal city council which promotes economic development in the nation's capital Mr Davis represented the 11th congressional
▶ 0:43:53district of Virginia for seven terms and when Mr Conley comes back he's going to have a special welcome to you as well I believe that's his old District while in Congress Mr Davis served as chairman of this committee the house oversight committee from 2003 to 2007 we want to welcome you back congressman and uh MAA cross is a Workforce expert speaker and strategist Miss cross is worked with the federal government agencies and Private Industry
▶ 0:44:23to help entities leverage flexible remote and hybrid work again welcome all of our witnesses pursuant to committee rule 9g the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative thank you all and please take your seat again we appreciate you being here today and look forward
▶ 0:44:53to your testimony let me remind the witnesses that we have read your your written statement and it will appear in full in the hearing record please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes as a reminder please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it is on and the members can hear you when you begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green after four minutes it will turn yellow uh when the red light comes on your five minutes is expired and we ask that you please wrap it up I now recognize Mr Ali for his opening statement Mr chairman members of the committee it is a
▶ 0:45:24great honor to be with all of you Social Security is a Lifeline to 72 million Americans all across the United States 50% of American seniors living alone depend entirely on Social Security to keep them out of poverty not to mention millions of people with disabilities also depend on Social Security to keep them out of poverty to keep them from dying in poverty but after 10 years of Congress reducing customer
▶ 0:45:54service Staffing at Social Security to a 50-year low the challenge faced by this vitally important agency is perhaps the most daunting in its 89e history and that's saying a lot but the reason for this crisis is no mystery Social Security today is struggling to serve more customers than ever and we all knew they were coming more customers than ever with Staffing
▶ 0:46:25that Congress has reduced to a 50-year low this hard but Central truth is the underlying operational context of everything we will discuss here today and I do not believe that this was your intention in fact Appropriations chairman Tom Cole After learning of this reality said to me that it was more a matter of congressional neglect than it was of congressional intent but this is what happens when an agency is forced
▶ 0:46:55to serve more and more customers and ever with fewer and fewer staff year after year after year the American people deserve better in fact they've already paid for better I know your offices have received their calls I know you've heard their cries some of you will therefore be glad to learn that over the last year not withstanding the yawning gaping growing mismatch between Rising customers and declining staff the agency was led through a series of actions that achieved real measurable progress on some of its
▶ 0:47:25toughest problems we drove down the speed to answer on the 1 1800 number from 42 minutes at the beginning of last year to 12.8 minutes uh in October of of 2024 we eliminated the clawback cruelty that used to intercept 100% of the beneficiary's uh uh monthly benefit uh if there was a mistaken overpayment we cleared more disability cases than we received for the first time in years for 27 weeks in a row we
▶ 0:47:55reduced the backlog of administrative law judge disability hearings and their average processing times both to 30 year lows and we drove up overall productivity by 6.2% to repeat last year we drove up productivity by 6.2% the largest single year increase since 2012
▶ 0:48:25the dramatic around achieved last year is important people's lives depend on this agency but men and women of the committee the mismatch between Rising customers and and reduced Staffing is growing and only you can address this problem not by cutting staff not by falsely accusing staff of failing to work hard enough but by restoring the customer service for which Americans have already paid worked their whole life to pay for in conclusion the turnaround and customer service achieve by
▶ 0:48:56the hard work working men and women of the Social Security Administration last year was an achievement unrival by any agency in the federal government in recent years but as the number of American beneficiary customers continues to climb the people of the United States who depend on Social Security urgently need your help right now I look forward to answering your questions and I yield Back My Time gentleman yields back before I recognize uh Congressman Davis
▶ 0:49:26I'm gonna yield to Mr Conley thank you Mr chairman I was derelict in my opening statement not to welcome back my friend and uh colleague Tom Davis who served both as ranking member and as chairman of this committee uh with distinguished Service uh he was my predecessor in the 11th District of Virginia he was my predecessor as chairman of Fairfax County and he was my predecessor as a member of the board so our our two careers have kind of tracked each other uh over many years and it's great to
▶ 0:49:56see welcome back Tom thank you Mr chairman Congressman Davis and I'll recognize you for your opening statement thank you very much and uh Mr Conley thank congratulations on your new role I just for the record I left office undefeated and unindicted I retired um chairman comr ranking member Conley and members of the committee I appreciate the opportunity to testify I am Tom Davis I one of my roles is president of the federal city council this is a Civic organization established in 195
▶ 0:50:2654 we have over 250 businesses dedicated to the Improvement of our nation's capital we work at the intersection of federal and local Washington to create a more economically and socially vibrant District of Columbia Washington DC is the epicenter of federal operations with 374,000 federal employees in the region representing 11.1% of the regional Workforce including 162,000 in the district itself 44.3% of the district's Workforce when the Fed federal
▶ 0:50:56government sneezes DC in the region catch a cold today Washington has the highest work from home rate in the country according to the US Census with real-time occupancy data from Castle systems showing a DC ranking consistently last among major cities this unprecedented shift to remote work has devastated our local economy in four critical areas first the impact on small businesses has been severe DC office activity as measured by Castle systems remains at less than half of its pre-co
▶ 0:51:27The Exodus forced the closure of at least 375 small businesses immediately after Co with downtown retail vacancy rates of more than doubling from 10% in 2019 to 22% in 2023 these aren't just statistics they represent family-owned restaurants neighborhood cafes and local shops that relied on The Daily presence of federal workers remote capable workers typically spend $127 a week near their workplace on food retail and services spending that now
▶ 0:51:57has been shifted to other areas second this shift has triggered a fiscal crisis through declining commercial property values and reduced tax revenues DC's office vacancy rate has reached an unprecedented 21.2% with vacant office base representing 8.4 million square feet a staggering 46.2% jump between 2020 and 2023 this vacancy crisis is has led to plummeting commercial property values and corresponding tax revenue declines forcing the district to implement over $500
▶ 0:52:27million in budget cuts affecting essential services this economic impact extends to Virginia and Maryland where tax bases are declining as expenditures need to expand particularly at Metro third our public transit systems are facing an existential threat prepandemic federal employees represented 40% of Metro's weekday ridership by 2021 this collapsed at just 14% causing Federal passenger revenues to plunge from 180 Mill to $25 million
▶ 0:52:58this dramatic decline has contributed to huge operating gaps in Metro's budget both Capital uh and its ongoing budgets uh it also has affected the Virginia Railway Express and the mark system in Maryland fourth and perhaps most concerning the impact on downtown vitality and federal operations recent GAO findings show that 17 of 24 federal agencies reviewed use just 25% or less of their headquarters capacity during 2023 this underutilization drains Federal resources
▶ 0:53:28while creating dead zones in our federal enclaves empty streets and vacant buildings contribute to safety concerns while previously vibrant neighborhoods have experienced notable declines in cultural and social activities the federal government has demonstrated remarkable resilience during the pandemic keeping operations running under unprecedented circumstances but as private sector employees across the country scale back their remote work the federal government has become an outlier this position not only impacts operational effect iess but threatens the economic and social factor
▶ 0:53:58of our nation's capital while Network flexibility has an perhaps an enhanced space in workforce management today but the current situation has created unsustainable challenges for our region we need a balanced approach that recognizes both the benefits of workplace flexibility and the essential role that inperson work plays in maintaining economic Vitality fostering Innovation and supporting the countless small businesses and federal Services uh on federal workers the private sector is far ahead of the federal government on this issue
▶ 0:54:28because having workers in the office is proving to be more productive and effective federal government must follow and set a positive example Federal contractors in particular take their cues from the federal government a return to office strategy that brings back more federal workers to their workplace would help stabilize our local economy support small businesses res restore public transit ridership and Revitalize the downtown areas this isn't just about maintaining buildings it's about maintaining the vibrant collaborative environment that has long made Washington DC a unique and dynamic
▶ 0:54:59capital city thank you for the opportunity to testify look forward to your questions thank you I now uh recognize Miss greszler for her opening statement good morning and thank you for the opportunity to be here today my name is Rachel greszler and I am a visiting fellow in Workforce at the economic policy Innovation Center today I'd like to briefly review the state of federal telework discuss how lack of accountability hinders effective Tork and offer a few policies to improve it
▶ 0:55:29according to the office of personnel management 43% of federal employees tored in 2023 that's nearly twice the 22% that tored in 2019 the Tork enhancement Act of 2010 requires agencies to have Tork policies to determine which positions are eligible for telea work and to quote ensure that telor does not diminish employee performance or agency operations it is the president's under Article 2 um his duties are to
▶ 0:55:59supervise executive agencies and Fa Faithfully execute the laws including managing Tork policies the Biden Administration rightly noted that the law does not mandate Tork or confer a legal right or entitlement to T work subsequently and following a record high 47% of federal employees who telea worked in 2022 the Biden Administration directed agencies to aggressively a substantial increase in meaningful in-person work
▶ 0:56:30noting that quote it was critical for the well-being of our teams and will enable us to deliver better results for the American people the incoming Trump Administration also has the right and duty to pursue its own policies and Tork can be very useful if it is flexible responsive and employees are held accountable but that can be hard to accomplish with civil service protections and practices that make it extremely difficult costly and time consuming to effectively discipline
▶ 0:57:00or dismiss federal employees for example it took years to fire a senior IRS employee who routinely abused his remote Arrangement by playing golf during the workday in the private sector he would have been fired in a day when accountability requires so much time and effort by managers it's not surprising that 32% of federal employees say that steps are not taken in their work unit only 32% say that steps are taken in their work unit to deal with a poor performer
▶ 0:57:30who cannot or will not improve a lack of accountability hurts employee morale it wastes taxpayer dollars and it enables misuse and abuse of Tor fortunately many agencies include Provisions in their Tor plans that prevent individuals who are on performance Improvement plans from being eligible for for T work but some instead specifically maintain the rights of individuals who are on performance Improvement plans to Tork some
▶ 0:58:01agencies have also made P highly problematic changes to telor Provisions in an apparent attempt to thwart the incoming Trump Administration the Social Security Administration modified its collective bargaining agreement on November 27th to strike out Management's ability to eliminate approved Tork due to operational needs or an employees performance and to strike out the authority of Deputy Commission to set Tork policies replacing that previous Authority with a requirement
▶ 0:58:31that the new administration's incoming Deputy Commissioners quote adhere to the current number of Tork days eligible positions in percentage of employees permitted to Tork until October 25th 2029 this is especially concerning considering that 98.5% of SSA employees are eligible for Tor that leaves fewer than 900 SSA employees who are not eligible for tele work spread across more than 1,400 SSA offices and serving
▶ 0:59:02more 73 million people another concerning aspect of this and of all collective bargaining agreements is that taxpayers subsidize unions Through official time which means paying federal employees to work for their unions instead of doing their government jobs that includes things like nurses at the VA spending 100% of their time working for the union instead of treating veterans and VA Hospital allocating half of its Hospital Wing primarily for the Union's use the
▶ 0:59:32irony of all this official time is that federal employees can't bargain for pay or benefits so they're often left negotiating for tedious things like the heights of cubicle space the right to smoke on smokefree campuses or the right to wear spandex at work Tor can be useful but a lack of accountability contributes to abuse and could lead to blanket restrictions to provote more responsible and effective Tork policy makers should first maximize Tork savings
▶ 1:00:02by getting rid of unused office space and ensuring the correct locality based pay adjustments second they should prevent collective bargaining agreements from obstructing a new president's legal duties including if necessary amending the federal service Labor Management relations statute and third don't pay federal employees to work for their unions instead of the jobs they were hired to perform thank you thank you chair I recognize Mrs cross for her statement
▶ 1:00:33thank you Mr chairman and ranking member Connelly and distinguished members of this committee thanks for having me I've served America both in and out of uniform for more than two decades I worked in areas like the United States intelligence Community the Department of Labor the office of personnel management I could go on and on the United States Department of Agriculture before jumping over to Private Industry where I worked for a fully remote company called Flex jobs and when I did I vowed to bring back the best and promising practices to share with government agencies for the purposes of efficiency accountability
▶ 1:01:03and strengthening the way that we work and serve America the title of this hearing suggests that telor in the federal government is new but it's been around for decades and decades offering cost efficient operations during emergencies and weather events even while expanding uh job opportunities Nationwide in areas like my home state of Maine um in Georgia where I served and in Mr chair man's home state of Kentucky before the pandemic less than 5% of the United States Workforce worked from home during the pandemic
▶ 1:01:33over 60% did and it's now stabilized at between 30 and 40% with Federal Tork mirroring rates as in Private Industry last year telworks saved $230 million through reduced office space and lower operating costs and the 2024 OPM report to Congress shows the lowest Federal telework participation rates in 5 years with only 7% of the federal
▶ 1:02:03workers working fully remote and 43% teleworking at least monthly in contrast in States like yours 59% of public servants state and local government employees were telea workking in a hybrid environment last year as compared to the 43% in the federal government telea work and flexible work have revolutionized productivity and engagement and recruitment in areas like the intelligence community and for law enforcement agencies during the pandemic the IC quickly adopted telework and other flexibilities boosting productivity and engagement scores
▶ 1:02:34to more than 76% in 2020 up from 69% in 2019 today the IC ranks number one among large agencies in work life balance on the best places to work list across the federal government and a recent GAO report found that frequent teleworkers USCIS outperformed l less frequent telea workers and accountability and customer responsiveness and job applicants showed three times more interest in remote positions even over
▶ 1:03:04jobs that offer Tor highlighting the critical impacts on recruitment for Mission critical roles the 2024 National Defense authorization act also emphasizes the critical role of remote work in military Readiness many military families rely on Dual incomes and live in rural areas across this country with limited job opportunities so high unemployment rates among military spouses create Financial strain negatively impacting reenlistment and retention rates the ND the
▶ 1:03:34ndaa mandates GAO to also report on federal telework to ensure that Federal remote jobs are accessible for military spouses and remote and Tel work is also essential for retaining Foreign Service officers which impacts both military Readiness and National Security attracting remote workers and creating more remote jobs can Revitalize local communities Breathe new life into downtowns and support rural communities the Tulsa remote program is a prime example generating more than 563
▶ 1:04:04million in employment income by attracting more than 2900 remote workers to live in work there imagine the potential if we leverage remote work Nationwide to reverse brain drain and bring more jobs to States support local businesses around the country and prevent economic decline in both downtown areas and Rural four years ago I testified before this committee on the future of federal work to leverage lessons from the pandemic and since then work Dynamics have continued to change dramatically
▶ 1:04:35posing challenges for all Employers in industry and across the government despite return to office headlines the best employers understand that flexible work is here to stay because enforcing rigid return to office policies can harm performance productivity and even profitability our recent KPMG s survey shows that only onethird of us CEOs expect a full return to office within the next 3 years flexible companies see better Financial growth and they outperform those with
▶ 1:05:05strict man RTO mandates which lead to lower engagement and often also lead to the attrition of your top performers the very ones we want to leave they're not going to push out the ones that you want to hold accountable for over two decades I also personally balanced a successful career in government while teleworking and while parenting my two kids as a single parent it allowed me to manage my responsibilities as a single mother and in today's competitive Talent Market offering flexibility is essential for productivity competitiveness and long-term success thank you
▶ 1:05:36thank you we now begin the member questions uh chair recognize Mr Turner from Ohio Mr chairman thank you and thank you for having this hearing on this important issue um M cross I I just want to point out first off that there's no one on this committee that is opposed to remote work the members of this committee all work from multiple locations so we understand that where and when appropriate remote work is is essential the issue is an absent Workforce
▶ 1:06:06and when and where is is too much and I want to thank you for your service to your country um I am particularly interested in your testimony because I'm I'm actually the chairman of the intelligence committee and you cite some specific information about the intelligence Community Workforce and I want to thank you for your work you've worked on quality of life life and Workforce Improvement for the intelligence Community but you cite some statistics that I believe that are a little misleading and I want to walk through you through those in your opening statement uh you claim that the US intelligence Community
▶ 1:06:36is a top place to work in the federal government I agree and you credit it to T work however the survey you site and the graphic in your statement shows that the IC has been ranked in the top five agencies to since 2012 long before the covid-19 expansion of Ted work likewise you highlight the IC as a top three agency in engagement and satisfaction again crediting Tork but the IC held that same top three ranking by your own statistics in 2019
▶ 1:07:07before the increase in in Tor finally The increased engagement scores that you used to advocate for Tor in the high 70s in 2020 by the way in 2020 in the height you actually cite it's the height of the pandemic which actually nobody was too happy then it's in the high 70s yet your own statement contradicts itself when you acknowledge that even with a shift back to in-person work engagement the levels remained in uh the 70s in in 20 23 um so it seems like your your
▶ 1:07:37statistics don't necessarily prove your conclusion because it proves a high satisfaction even though you're citing that there's telework and there's options of of flexible work so I want to give you an option an opportunity to at least discuss the fact that that your statistics show that the intelligence Community even without telework or option or or remote work options remains a very high U satisfactory work place to work
▶ 1:08:08thank you thank you yes I'm happy to address that and those are great points because I didn't mean to convey that telework and remote work were the only factors that drove engagement but studies show across industry in Gallup research well and I've got limited time so I just appreciate you've said that M cross the next aspect though that concerned me the most is that in intelligence work specifically the type of work is work that does not lend itself to tell it work it does not lend itself to isolation it it requires
▶ 1:08:38specialized equipment specialized access specialized access to to other individuals um it certainly is uh specialized locations uh so it does concern me that that you cite it as you know an an interest of increasing telework in the intelligence committee because in fact by its nature it's going to be the opposite people are going to have to be in special locations with specialized equipment and with a specialized Workforce would it not yes absolutely and
▶ 1:09:08I think that your question is really important to differentiate let me explain Tork is not just work done from home Tork is an improved authorized official work site what that means is that telor for instance in the intelligence Community could be done in different locations like skiff satellite organizations for instance the joint reserve intelligence centers that are around the country can be done remotely but with through Geographic look uh I appreciate that you've made that point because it's important for people to understand that you're not
▶ 1:09:38comparing people who are at home um in the intelligence Community if they're doing remote work they're not they're not commuting from home they're not an absent Workforce because they're still at the workforce in government installations doing work thank you uh I want to turn to Tom Davis now Tom the whole concept of having Urban environments is a concentration of individuals and density of of both capital and people uh it brings together consumer spending and is a concentration when
▶ 1:10:08we disperse it we weaken our Urban cores and our Urban centers uh speak for a moment again about what we're seeing in what we're doing to Washington DC as we're allowing people to um to take what is our investment of U federal government jobs and allow them to take them home well vastly underutilized Federal buildings where we are we are paying uh rate rent and maintenance costs uh we've seen a 20% plus office vacancy rate in the city which has lowered the city's
▶ 1:10:38tax base and their ability to do things and the Metro System where the federal government's heavily invested is all of a sudden running huge deficits because the number of riders coming in and out each day has decreased marketly uh just over the last few years thank you Mr chairman thank you chair agiz Mr con thank you Mr chairman and before I begin if you'll hold the clock I have in the consent request to enter into the record to statement by afge and a statement from the partnership for Public Service uh regarding uh
▶ 1:11:09this uh hearing without objection to order I thank the chair um Congressman Davis um you you certainly uh were a champion of Tork when you were chairman and ranking member of this committee and I take your testimony because you said we need a balanced approach Ro that you're not debunking the value of telework what you are distinguishing though is sort of incoit uh remote working that isn't structured from say the structured telework
▶ 1:11:39program is cross just referenced that existed prior to the pandemic well and as you know I'm on the board of some private companies that have gotten returned to work but we find a balance in each CL in terms of how you recruit people how you maintain things the point I would make in my testimony though is that that the district and federal Workforce are way out of balance with what we see in other areas so but you need both right exactly and but but but what the Delta though is the pandemic because we had a Tork program in place prior to the pandemic
▶ 1:12:09and we weren't hearing these kinds of reports of the business impact in the District of Columbia and I just think that's an important distinction to be made that's correct also the advancements in in Zoom uh you know Microsoft teams you see their their growth and the way they're utilized throughout industry I think is also uh been a GameChanger right um I assume Congressman Davis that I mean you're looking at cumulative aggregate impacts on retail
▶ 1:12:40on office leasing uh on on the broader economy downtown Washington DC and the impact um universal remote working has had I would assume that you would take exception to proposals to relocate Mass numbers of federal employees to other parts of the country given the fact that were that to happen uh the very impacts you're decrying would be magnified in the retail
▶ 1:13:10sector office leasing sector and macroeconomy of the District of Columbia is that not correct well it's certainly true for my organization and and it would be true for me who's grown up and lived his life here and like like you has spent 29 years of his political life in the in the region as well right I just think that's an important point that if we're going to be concerned about one we've got to be concerned about the other and both could have equal or even worse impacts on the macroeconomy we're concerned about um
▶ 1:13:40Governor om ali um walk us so so the agreement that uh some of my colleagues on the other side of the AL seem to be decrying that you negotiated um that was a brand new agreement we've never had an agreement but with afge or other federal employees before you made it up out a whole cloth to Pander to a union and uh there was no precedent and there was no antecedent and in fact you did not inherit such an agreement uh that you
▶ 1:14:10extended that that agreement being uh negotiated previously in the Trump Administration would that be a fair statement how guilty are you the uh let me pack all of that uh or succinctly do it quickly I got 1 minute and 46 seconds hey thank you no the uh duration of this contract was actually something that preceded my time at Social Security in fact there are three bargaining units two of them already had within their contract
▶ 1:14:41the telework balance and were they negotiated during the Trump Administration I believe so yes sir thank you keep going oh and the third one the with uh with afge was actually something uh we had a we had terms in their contract about when we had an opportunity we had two opportunities every year want to say we was that part was negotiated before me every six month to review the telea work balance and the on-site work balance
▶ 1:15:11in order to to do our very best to improve customer service even with the Staffing reductions that Congress has imposed on this agency and I did in fact change that onsite work at the headquarters components at the regional headquarters and also in the area components and for myself and my staff in the Commissioner's Office my immediate Command Staff we were five days a week and the Commissioner's Office overall was four days
▶ 1:15:42and one day of of Tor I thank you for clarifying the record because I think there's a lot of disinformation about what in fact occurred at Social Security and its antecedent which preceded the Biden IO back gent y's back I recognize myself for questions Mr om Aly what concessions did you extract from the uh Social Security Administration Union in exchange for this very generous Tork entitlement what did they
▶ 1:16:12agree to pay the taxpayers in return because they work for the taxpayers not for you yes sir thank you well they uh they gave up 10 to20 million in potential exposure to the agency because of 7 to n years of grievances that were ongoing that we had been unable to resolve and if they had gone to trial there was a risk that the agency
▶ 1:16:43could have been exposed for 10 or 20 in fact before I came into the agency there was a settlement of $22 million on a u on a u similar sort of case would that in encourage more grievances to be filed if they feel like they could be rewarded for a massive number of grievances I mean I'm just I'm just curious no I'm I'm let me answer the call to your question everything I did at Social Security for that urgent year that the president dispatched me there was
▶ 1:17:13about improving customer service yeah and sir and and and it's been brought to my attention the the Grievances were a subset of of T work so uh Miss greszler is it health stive bargaining to be weaponized in this manner uh where it's used primarily to bind the hands of the incoming president where this this agreement was was mandated or whatever through the entire next Administration
▶ 1:17:43yes I think that's an important point there was an agreement that was in place in 2019 and changes were made to that agreement last minute to bacon into the cake to make that telework an entitlement and and all that's doing is giving justification to Future Union grievances because now it's an entitlement whereas before it would have been negotiated now you just can't do it how can we prevent this type of abuse well I think that it already should be clear that this shouldn't be allowed because the president has the duties to Faithfully carry out
▶ 1:18:13the law which includes ensuring the tele workk does not diminish employer agency performance if that Defence is not given then I think Congress might need to amend um the fs mrr the AC Federal Federal service Labor Management relations statute um to either clarify that collective bargaining agreements cannot go beyond a presidential Administration or to ensure that if there are Provisions in there that are preventing the president from carrying out their duties effectively that those Provisions
▶ 1:18:43must be subject to revision thank you Mr Miley are are the taxpayers getting their money's worth for this uh official time this this new generous benefit from being able to not have to show up in in person for work are the taxpayers getting their money's worth well sir last year was the biggest increase in productivity that the agency had achieved meas that productivity with your chart there the American the
▶ 1:19:13American people and well the American people that call my case workers office would have a a different uh set of graphics for you to dis definitely struggling Congressman because you all have reduced Staffing at Social Security to a 50-year low not withstanding that we have increased productivity and customer service across every maor line with all due respect nobody's buying what you're selling if they've had to deal with the Social Security Administration uh my last question
▶ 1:19:44my time's running short Mr Davis uh you're written testimony notes that the DC area has the highest work from home rate in the United States significantly of the major urban areas yes yet yet many of the America's most successful companies are are actually doing the opposite there have been many stories that would site where uh private companies that experimented with telor are now bringing them back to work shouldn't the Trump Administration be able to try a different tactic than the failed one of this
▶ 1:20:14by Administration sure every new Administration is going to have going to be able to look at this with new eyes on it but I just say the private sector is way ahead of government on this in terms of return to work so the District of Columbia is being economically devastated by the massive Tork in a region that has the nation's highest concentration of federal office workers even maror mayor Bowser has testified that she strongly supports the showup act because of the devastating impact in the
▶ 1:20:44downtown area where it's where it's a ghost town and all these federal agencies with these highly paid federal workers with very generous benefits I would argue gener more generous than most private sector companies and that who are not coming to work so uh what what can be done about uh what does this say about the District of Columbia and the economic Devastation uh from these policies well well it's caused irreparable harm in terms of what their budget does but
▶ 1:21:14more importantly on a regional basis and even as far as the federal government goes concerned what it's done to the Metro system is it's reduce ridership significantly so you have the same infrastructure built to carry a lot more people into work and they're just not coming and the biggest drop has been among the federal Workforce which just aren't using metro to come to work because they're not coming in to work and that's a federal problem that's not just a DC problem all right thank you uh chair now recognize Mr Lynch from Massachusetts good morning uh thank you very much Mr chairman and
▶ 1:21:44the ranking member I want to thank all the witnesses for your willingness to help the committee with its work uh special uh welcome to Governor Ro Ali and uh my old friend uh representative Davis Mr chairman good to see you again thanks for your your help on this issue I know that you have a a rich history here uh just on that last Point uh in in the previous question would the hellacious traffic situation here around DC uh induce employees to want to work from home
▶ 1:22:15uh you know I'm I'm I'm from the Boston area we have a fair amount of traffic but I have not seen traffic like I see here on the Beltway in DC it is uh would that would that induce and that would that improve efficiency if if if people weren't stuck in that traffic each and every day well I think traffic is always a factor I'll just add I mean I paid $30 in tolls coming in today from Vienna W it's at peak hours if when everybody's back it can go as high as $50 yeah some days it's less than that and it's before 9:30
▶ 1:22:45when they when they cut off so there's no question from an employee point of view and a traffic point of view sending everybody back to work uh is going to have an impact on that but you also got to look at it puts more people into Rail and that's really where we're hurting I just want to focus on that because you get they'll come back to Congress for Aid on on a Metro System that's designed to carry hundreds of thousands more people than it's carrying right now because they're just not coming in right I do notice in in in in my area in Boston uh that um
▶ 1:23:15many of the private companies the big Banks insurance companies are reducing the amount of office space that they they have been spending money on and and they've been encouraging employees to to work from home and to to Tork uh I mean there's there's efficiency that they see in that would that not be the same case for some of these government agencies I know that for example some of our postal uh uh offices and and other government buildings are rented out in very
▶ 1:23:46high cost areas and uh there might be a a reduction in cost to the to the taxpayer if we were to adopt that same same practice look there is no question that with the addition of Zoom you know Microsoft teams and some of these areas the the world has changed you can be more efficient in some ways is one of our previous testimony here goes some of this is from the workpl itself and able being able to have multiple people participate in this kind of thing my point here though is
▶ 1:24:16it's way out of balance the federal government is is way out of balance with where the private sector has moved postco at this point it's having a huge e EIC impact on the region and it's a question of what's the right balance but but okay claiming my time Mr chairman um I do want to point out though that so so with the federal government we have much different responsibilities than the the private sector in in many cases 71% of the federal Workforce is in homeland
▶ 1:24:46security and defense right there and so those those are are unique and they they aren't necessarily conducive to remote work uh the the civilian employees who are supporting our war Fighters need to be there and they they do not have jobs that are conducive to to remote work uh our postal employees that sort and deliver the mail each and every single day there's no way to do that remotely they're they're stepping up uh the O the Office of Management and budget
▶ 1:25:17is saying oh maybe it's OPM office of personel management has said that 80% of the Hours worked by federal employes employes are in person 80% of those those hours are in person and and uh obviously because TSA screeners that the whole you know border security piece that's all got to be done in person so it's a dwindling area also 30% of our federal employees are veterans are veterans so
▶ 1:25:48they you know I dare say they have a work ethic that that the general population does not necessarily possess uh to be honest with you and and while I support I support government efficiency I really do and there's look there's there's some inefficiency here that we need to work on what I object to is targeting federal employees uh for for malicious reasons to say we're going to have mass layoffs and we're going to we're going to move people around the country you know uh only 20%
▶ 1:26:18of federal employees work in the DC area you know 80% are are California Texas uh you know elsewhere around the country so uh I do object to some of the statements made by Mr ramaswami and and uh Mr musk that seem to NE denigrate the service and and and the character and integrity of some of our federal employees but with that Mr chairman I'll I'll yield back gentlemen yield chair recognize Mr grman from Wisconsin yeah first of all I think there was just an unnecessary
▶ 1:26:49criticism of people in the workforce who aren't veterans you know that are American work workers aren't the good unless they're veterans and and I object to that I mean I know there are a lot of preferences out there and we try to encourage people to hire veterans but I don't think a blacked condemnation of people who aren't veterans is appropriate um now uh we'll go for Mr Martin here um you you decided to run for the chair of the Democrat
▶ 1:27:19National Committee correct yes sir and you Ste down from your role as you've stepped down from your role as commissioner of Social Administration um you will not have to manage the SSA employees under the November collective bargaining agreement which you signed on behalf of the Social Security Administration correct yes sir from the changes I made on February 2nd to require more on-site Presence at the regional somebody else will have to deal with the positives and negatives of that agreement well I hope it I hope it keeps it on the trajectory of
▶ 1:27:49continuous Improvement that we put it on last year that's my hope everything I did there was about improving customer service in a recent podcast you claimed that we're going to experience that what we're going to experience the next two years is something less than a republic sadly is that your opinion yes um president Trump was duly elected by the American people as a a mandate to effectuate his policies is it not somewhat I don't want to say anti-democratic
▶ 1:28:20but contrary to the American Republic for you as an outgoing appointee to deny the will of the people and to a degree hamstring uh the president's ability to deliver Promises to the American people everything I did at Social Security was to improve customer service and as as I've looked at what's being erected around the capital it would appear that unlike four years ago we're actually going to have a peaceful transference of power
▶ 1:28:50that's one aspect of what it means to have a republic but there are others well I'm I'm not sure what you mean by that but the SSA afg agreement altered language in section 41 section 5c in the last contract said management has sold discretion to change reduce suspend or eliminate approved telea workk days for employees office component or Agency for any office
▶ 1:29:21component or agency wide due to operational needs it also allowed management to in some cases eliminate approved telework days due to employee performance the November 20124 contract appears to have altered management sold discretion to temporarily change reduce suspend approved tele workk days due to operational needs doesn't that limit Management's ability to monitor you feel employees performance I mean what's the upside of that provision yep
▶ 1:29:51Congressman I think you might be reading the wrong part of the agreement it reads if you look at the bottom of page one it reads in fact management has sole discretion to temporarily change reduce or suspend approved tele workk days for any employees office component or agency wide due to operational needs management also has so discretion to change reduce or approve telea workk days for any employee due to the employes performance and before that
▶ 1:30:22the first sentence is the parties recognized that agency assigned functions the nature of work to be performed and the type of positions can vary significantly from office to office so that's in the agreement right see at the bottom of page one right yeah when I read that paragraph it implies here well we we'll look don't think it was implying anything I think it was pretty now right you suspended the ability
▶ 1:30:52but it didn't eliminate the ability no we're not going to eliminate Tork we can't because you've reduced our staffing to a 50-year low at an agency that people already paid for their customer service Staffing okay we'll move on to one other thing um I'd like to show show you a picture well um how many SSA employees work out of SSA headquarters uh approximately 7,000 and shrinking we lost 2,000
▶ 1:31:22staff this year across the due to congress's inability to pass a budget that therefore puts the agency into a hiring freeze and attrition wipes out so far 2,000 people so on a normal W work day despite having about 7,000 employees um it shows in December 2023 a parking lot almost completely devoid of workers yes I it's right behind you and I hope the camera catches it because that was
▶ 1:31:52before I got to the agent this is a picture of that same parking lot after I got to the agency okay um because I ordered everybody back three days a week and in my Commissioner's Office four days okay um you feel it January 2025 how many processing times or how of processing times not returned to pre pandemic levels have they in some cases
▶ 1:32:22they have in fact actually for the first time in eight years this is the one that most of your constituents apply for and this is the retirement benefits we hadn't hit 87% timeliness since 2017 but we did this year that's this right here and this is monthly and by the way in an example of the greatest example of openness transparency and real-time Performance Management at least for the next few days you can see all of these metrics on Social Security's
▶ 1:32:53website and the real time okay all right gentlemen T chair recognizes uh Mr infu thank you very much Mr chairman um I'd like to start with Miss cross Miss cross you are um employed in a position where is it fair to say 90 to 95% of the workforce teleworks
▶ 1:33:24so or is it 100% I'm when I was at Flex jobs I'm not an employee of flex jobs any longer but when I left to work for the fully remote company Flex jobs everyone was remote and it was fully remote from its Inception so I never met my staff at all in person when I accepted the position of Vice President so you have seen the benefits obviously of teleworking I keep using the terms efficiency and Effectiveness was that also the case where you were were were people at the company satisfied
▶ 1:33:54that they were in fact being e efficient and being effective yes and I have to say that was my first Private Industry role outside of government um it was eye openening but we had you know implemented performance metrics like okrs we reviewed them monthly we understood where the company's goals and objectives were we were measured against that but not by hours and not by location but rather results profitability customer satisfaction those
▶ 1:34:24kinds of metrics that really created an understanding of how our work was affecting the bottom line not necessarily how when and where and and like was said earlier we certainly appreciate all the work and service you you've done for this country in a number of different roles I just want you to take a quick shot at trying to give me what your best thinking are is if we potentially abolish or severely limit telework in the federal Workforce what would you say that would
▶ 1:34:54look like I I can't imagine that we could do that entirely um but if we did do that here's a few implications you know we just had a snow day um the global workplace analytics team has this wonderful telework savings calculator which estimated that the federal government saved about $630 is million dollar a day on being able to continue it and operate its Mission and deliver services on behalf of the American public because they didn't have to shut down and stop working and pay people to
▶ 1:35:24sit at home and not work when weather is Inc increment inclement weather that could um affect people's lives and livelihood that's one example another example is what I talked about with military spouses and the other thing is is that the federal government is the nation's largest employer we need to keep Pace with industry Trends in order to create a country that inspires Innovation and competiti ility and make sure that we have our market share oper operating well to
▶ 1:35:54do that we need the right kind of people as well and so jobs are changing with technology we need to evolve to that knowledge based economy things are getting digitized we're leveraging Ai and technology and that therefore people's jobs are requiring less of them to be done in a physical location and more to be portable like right in front of me and using your brain which is attached to your thank you I want to reclaim my time but thank you very much um Congressman Davis I'm trying to find a way how do we balance the fact that there is a
▶ 1:36:24consensus that we are not doing enough in terms of telea work against with the jposition of your point that office space is increasing that the long-term leases that are in place that the federal government has signed onto must in fact be paid that Metro has gone from1 185 to $25 million um and that it's not just Metro but it's the system Mark that affects Maryland and and the system that affects
▶ 1:36:55North Virginia so where's the where's the balance there is there a way to do both that's what I'm trying to find of course I mean I think as I said before I think with some of these technological changes te tele Community is going to be a part of our future we're seeing it in the private sector I what my point here is it's just been way out of balance here in terms of the government lagging where the private sector is where other urban areas is hard to say what the right balance is I think reasonable people can sit across the table but the point point is we're way out of balance right now it's having
▶ 1:37:25severe Economic Consequences on the city yeah and I I would agree I I think the term reasonable people is significant here because if we're going to get to a reasonable solution it really does mean not just having a lot of outside voices that have not looked at this situation suggesting that we throw the baby out with the bath water but rather how do we find a way to make sure that we protect and enhance telework particularly for so many employees in the defense indust indry uh and others and how
▶ 1:37:55do we find a way also to balance the needs of local governments in this case the District of Columbia with respect to its infrastructure uh its rail system and everything else uh thank you Mr chairman I yield back my time is expired gentlemen yield back Chaz is the chairman of the government operations subcommittee Mr sessions from Texas Mr chairman thank you very much and thank you for having this hearing I think our four Witnesses display amazing uh fact uh basis and I appreciate them Mr Davis good to see you sir
▶ 1:38:25the young congressman from Virginia is a very dear friend of mine Governor thank you very much for being here today and I think that the the things that you bring to the table are important Mr mfum and I on a bipartisan basis spent the last several years looking at not just government efficiency but the results that do not serve taxpayers well and that is what is often termed w waste Fraud and Abuse yesterday there
▶ 1:38:55was an article in Epic Times from an an expert who estimated that there's some $800 billion dollar worth of waste Fraud and Abuse that if we looked internally to the system and you and I both know sometimes it's Medicare sometimes it's Medicaid sometimes it's federal employee services that we give other times it's Social Security I would suggest to you that I believe that as of the co-chairman of the Doge caucus that
▶ 1:39:26we have here that probably what this new Administration is going to do is have to spend a good deal of internal time teaching their employees and focusing them off identifying waste Fraud and Abuse we can do it perhaps by talking about it but it's got to be done within the agencies you uh respectfully serve this great nation as the uh as the head of soci security the commissioner you and I engaged
▶ 1:39:56each other and I provided this letter to you going back and I'm sure you may or may not recalling with me I called you day you called me yes sir and you were very kind to call me it was about a problem it was not a normal run-of-the-mill answer that was needed uh what somewhat concerns me is is that I have found that government agencies are not really good at making decisions
▶ 1:40:27perhaps they serve and and and get get information out but they're not good at solving problems uh OPM people who retire from the federal government right now it takes some five months before they get their paycheck those are the kinds of stories that need to be told instead of how efficient we are it is solving problems that people have to make the systems run efficiently yes sir I will tell
▶ 1:40:57you I sent you a letter not knowing you had left the agency I sent you a letter this is dated October 30th and you and I spoke and you were on on out in the field but I said I am interested in a decision on this case following our phone call it is now about December uh I mean January uh 15th I still have not gotten an answer back of of something that was very
▶ 1:41:28specific that came directly to the commissioner yes sir and the commissioner from the letter that I sent last week I said I still have heard Zero from the agency zero and I do admit you were not there my point might be we're tending to focus on how efficient an agency is but we're not really focusing on on the work that they need to do on two parts number one
▶ 1:41:58making decisions about things that might not be easy for the regular Workforce to perform and secondly the $800 billion dollar that goes against the American taxpayer that creates some real problems so I just want you to know I think you provided me I I will be it's not been announced but I expect to be chairman uh again of the government operations uh Workforce and it would be my
▶ 1:42:29thinking on a bipartisan basis and I hope I expressed Mr manuma yesterday I hope we get to work together again thank you I we need to turn our attention to inefficiencies to the things that are causing a a bleed of not just taxpayer money but the reason why it was intended that way so I would like to let you know I'd like to get back and to vet you I know I was given five minutes but I wanted to make my point here
▶ 1:42:59I think that we do have to come back to leaders like you who expressed today look I did sign a contract but you can make any decision that's in the best interest of the business and I will count on that because you helped sign that and that was the spirit which you did it but we need to look within about solving problems and looking at this $800 billion waste for abuse sir thank you I I I hope that I offered a
▶ 1:43:29fair analysis thank you and I hope that we will get in touch with each other when this is over with Mr chairman I want to thank you for this hearing and I yield back my time Mr chairman any chance I could have 30 seconds uh to respond to both of those go ahead thank you uh Congressman uh we got right on that right away I called you that same day this is one of those Troublesome things in SI lots of regulations the lady in question owned multiple cemetery plots we suggested a workaround
▶ 1:43:59for that that she was not amendable to that Mr cloda who's still at the agency is here and uh and he should be able to run that to ground you did on that phone call with me give me a number of your staff and that failed obviously we didn't communicate and make sure it got back to you secondly every two weeks Mr chairman we looked at fraud as part of the security stat process uh while all of them were open and live streamed to the entire actually your oversight Committees of both parties and the sces fraud was closed
▶ 1:44:30but we had the office of Inspector General there and we have greatly upped our game because of an agile every two weeks every two weeks approach and I think you'd be interested in that thank you hopefully the person that took the message wasn't working from home and and didn't get it to you but uh chair recognized Miss Brown from Ohio thank you Mr chairman first I would like to welcome our new colleagues to the committee um in the the last Congress this committee was marked by division dysfunction and dishonesty I was hopeful this would change with the new Congress
▶ 1:45:00sadly I can't say I'm surprised to see the same Petty partisanship returning again let's be clear there is important work to be done in this committee we could be focusing on ways to improve the lives of the American people like bringing down grocery prices improving access to health care or making housing more affordable instead our very first hearing is political assault on the federal Workforce the irony could not be more glaring we are sitting here in front of
▶ 1:45:30former commissioner om Ali Just days after President Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act into law the new law removed unfair penalties that were reducing the Social Security benefits of teachers postal workers law enforcement officers and other public servants for decades this bipartisan legislation was a big win for the constituents we serve And Timely implementation of the law is critical to the 200,000 Ohioans who will
▶ 1:46:00see their monthly benefits increase by hundreds of dollars yet instead of discussing this Monumental win with Mr om Ali my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have called him to discuss Tork so before I get into the topic of this hearing Mr Ali I want to give you the opportunity to discuss the Social Security Fairness Act and what it means for former public servants this has been a long lingering problem in that many of you in Congress
▶ 1:46:30have been working on and then the legislation was finally passed in a bipartisan way in essence uh uh in to to explain it as plainly as I can there were a number of public employees that were allowed on the option of their employers County city states uh to essentially opt out of paying into Social Security during the time that they worked as public employees public servants Law Enforcement Officers firefighters uh and um
▶ 1:47:01because on the rationale that they already had a pension a government pension and in 1982 every periodically Congress looks at the 75-year projection of Social Security makes adjustments so it can continue on in 1982 one of the proposals and that compromise was to offset the pension benefit which as some of you know is you know have a progressive formula to offset the uh benefit
▶ 1:47:32by an amount that they had earned in their other pension their public pension not Social Security and so this bill went into the uh trust fund uh to the tune of 222 billion if memory serves me correctly and uh in order to address that that uh that also created a huge workload for the agency without another dime put to processing it so they
▶ 1:48:02are they are going to have uh three million underpayment cases to process but the good news is the firefighters the teachers and and many of those others aren't going to face the shock when they're not able to put as much together for their retirement as they thought they would because a lot of times uh they were unaware until they apply for their benefit so it was a very good thing but the agency will struggle to get that workload out given the reduction in Staffing to a 50e low thank you
▶ 1:48:32before returning to tela workk I'd like to make a few points on Monday a new president will be sworn in a president who openly pledged to purge thousands of hardworking federal employees and politicize the justice system a president known for self-dealing abusing power and trampling on civil rights and the president who obstructed Congress in cited violence and sought to undermine the peaceful transfer of power we are the oversight committee and we should be working to block and expose such dangerous abuses instead
▶ 1:49:02we are holding a hearing today that advances the incoming president's political Crusade against the federal Workforce I will continue to defend the hardworking servants who keep the federal government running and serving the American people the federal Workforce has become more resilient diverse and productive over the last decade this progress is largely due to the expansion of telework flexibilities which have empowered employees to adapt to changing demands while maintaining high levels of performance telework policies
▶ 1:49:33have enabled thousands of federal workers including the almost 10,000 federal workers in my district to seamlessly continue their essential duties whether in office or remotely in short telework flexibilities have helped government remain efficient and effective in serving the American people and with that Mr chairman I yield back J yeld chair now recognize Miss mace from South Carolina thank you Mr chairman Mr Martin Ali I want to wish you luck in your campaign to be chair of the Democrat National Committee
▶ 1:50:03and let me just say I think you are the perfect candidate to chair the Democrat Party your liberal record is truly astonishing thank you at an event in 2005 you compared a federal budget request which cut spending to the terrorist attacks of 911 you raise taxes tolls and fees on your constituents 80 three times as governor of Maryland including increasing sales taxes income taxes the gas tax you also created an array of new taxes on services for your
▶ 1:50:34constituents I'm talking I'm going to reclaim my time I'm talking right now I've not asked you a question yet have I no I have not no you haven't for your constituents making your constituents the people you served in Maryland pay more you love some law breaking illegal aliens as well you've advocated for Mass amnesty for illegal aliens my my favorite part of your love for criminals in this country is you don't refer to them as illegal aliens but instead you refer to them as new Americans you must really hate
▶ 1:51:04American citizens you must really hate our country in 201 you signed a bill into law to allow illegal aliens to qualify for instate tuition at public universities in Maryland and the hits are going to keep on coming in 2014 you signed a bill into law to allow illegal aliens to get Maryland drivers like license in 2014 you signed a bill into law to allow gender confused sexually perverted men to use women's restrooms and locker rooms in other words you forced women and underage girls to address in front of men
▶ 1:51:35I could go on suffice to say you're perfectly in line with the Democrat party today and emblematic of why Democrats just can't stop losing elections you are emblematic of why the Democrat Party has no dignity and no respect for women you are emblematic of why Democrats don't put Americans first Miss Mr am Ali my first question this morning can you a candidate to be chair of the Democrat Party Define what a woman is for me today Madam uh or
▶ 1:52:05or con can you define what a woman is oh yes what is a woman you're going to ask me to Define what a woman is yes I am right now well I'm talk you just said you could explain it to me uh I'm I'm talking to a woman right now distinguished woman representative woman what is a woman I think you're kind of denigrating the purpose of this what is it you can't Define what a woman is all right in an effort an effort to be unbiased an effort to be fair and unbiased can you define what a man is for me I
▶ 1:52:35have uh two sons that are men yes I have series of yes or no questions so the potentially future chair of the Democrat Party cannot Define let's for the record Mr chairman he cannot Define what a woman is and he cannot Define what a man is and you expect people in this country to follow follow your lead I'm a woman who has broken so many glass ceilings in my life the first Republican woman elected to congress from South Carolina the first woman to ever graduate from The Citadel of the Military College of South Carolina I know what a woman is
▶ 1:53:05and I'm going to protect every one of them so I have a series of yes or no questions for you today one of my Democrat colleagues yesterday stated a rape victim's fear of rape was just quote fantasy do you agree with this statement is my is a woman's fear of rape being raped a fantasy yes or no no it's not a okay one of my Democrat colleagues yesterday say that a rape victim's fear of rape is being quote dramatic do you agree with that statement fear of rape being dramatic yes or no well could be okay you can't answer the question my next question you've spoken
▶ 1:53:35of Democrats needing to restore credibility and learn from your failings and to quote from you recently learn from your very bad loss is this uh in reference to Democrats raising taxes on the middle class yes or no no is this in reference to Maryland not requiring an ID to vote in their elections no is this in reference to coddling criminal illegal aliens no I've never is this in reference to starting a war on real biological women no is this in reference to allowing men in women's bathrooms
▶ 1:54:06no is this in reference to forcing women and girls to undress in front of men in the locker room oh come on yes or no congresswoman this is your party's platform you understand what I'm laying out for you do you understand English understand what you're trying to lay out but our party's platform is the economic security and The Well of every man woman child in the United States of America that's our party's platform I'm G to reclaim my time Miss B's time Mr chairman the witness should not be badgered
▶ 1:54:37Mr chair recogniz Miss mace just yesterday only two Democrats voted with us to protect women in sports this is your platform you want boy you want boys and men to be to women to be able to watch women undress in a locker room so is your big loss in reference to taking away women's achievements in sports I believe yes or no no I don't is your loss in reference to allowing men to take away women's scholarships yes or
▶ 1:55:07no Mr chairman the GLE L's time has expired he took my time Mr chairman uh she had about 15 seconds that rolled around so you got one one time for one last question miss m think C she she she asked the question you have learned nothing from your own failings when you try to run for president as a far-left progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton dropped out after getting one half of 1% at the Iowa caucus so good luck with that uh Mr DNC chairman I thank you I appreciate
▶ 1:55:37your well wishes G lady yields back chair recognize Miss stanbury from New Mexico all right good morning everyone thank you Mr chairman I think we all need a deep breath after that um I want to thank our Witnesses for being here today as a former federal employee and a former Omer I am always excited to have a nerdy hearing on federal Workforce issues but I think it's important to actually be real about what this hearing is actually about and I
▶ 1:56:07think it's always important here in the oversight committee to pull back the curtain on kind of the bigger agenda and why these hearings get called so let's talk about what this hearing is and is not I think it's important to observe that this hearing is not just about telework and work from home policies it is actually setting the stage for dismantling the federal Workforce it's about the incoming Administration and their desire to try to Fire
▶ 1:56:37and get thousands of federal workers to leave the federal Workforce and it's about the restructuring of the workforce through the new Doge subcommittee and the executive actions that uh are associated with it and that was created here in this committee yesterday how do we know this because the co-chairs of the Doge task force Elon Musk and V ramaswami have been very open about telea work ending as a way to get thousands of federal employees
▶ 1:57:08to leave in fact right after the election in November they published a thought piece in the Wall Street Journal which stated that telework would result in voluntary terminations of federal workers it's also noteworthy that one witness who's here today is from an organization that was co-founded by an author of project 2025 and was a former Trump om official it's also noteworthy that the majority here in the oversight committee actually tweeted
▶ 1:57:38from their own account this week that they were plotting to take down the State and here we are they're not even hiding it anymore it's also noteworthy that this isn't Just Happening here in this room but as we speak here in this room Russell VA who is literally one of the Architects a project 2025 is preparing for his confirmation Hearing in the Senate this afternoon now
▶ 1:58:08Mr vot is one of the former leaders of om he is by his own description uh called his own Think Tank the Death Star uh and has made it very clear that his intentions upon becoming the OM director is to eviscerate and dismantle the federal Workforce but I think it's also uh worth noting uh to Mr VA and to other Star Wars fans that the Death Star actually had 1.7 million
▶ 1:58:38military personnel and uh almost a half million droids and civilians working there because even uh uh Commander Tarkin and Darth Vader understood that it takes a Workforce to get stuff done so uh not unlike the Death Star we have to be clear that there is a nefarious intention behind this hearing and what we know is coming and Donald Trump has been very clear that he plans to sign an executive order in the
▶ 1:59:09coming weeks possibly even next week that will end work from home so that is what this hearing is actually about and I want to just establish why we are fighting back it's not only essential to make sure that our federal agencies our military our security is protected that our workers can do their jobs but it also is fundamental to our economy as Mr Davis has pointed out in fact in New Mexico we have one of the largest Federal
▶ 1:59:39workforces in active duty military in the country 22,000 New Mexicans work for the federal government for our National Laboratories our military our Social Security Administration these are the hardworking people that come to work every day to proudly serve the American people to make sure that you get your Social Security check to make sure that you get your disability to make sure that our national security is protected to make sure that our public lands are protected and to
▶ 2:00:09make sure that our roads are paved and you can get to work put food on the table a roof over your head and keep this great country going that is what our federal Workforce does every day in this country and we are going to fight to protect our federal Workforce every step of the way to refal the nefarious plans that our friends across the aisle have in dismantling the federal Workforce and to protect Social Security because we know
▶ 2:00:39that it is fundamental to making sure especially that our seniors can live with dignity for the rest of their lives and with that I yield back kid lady yields back chair now recognizes Dr Fox and before I do I think we all want to congratulate you Dr Fox upon your recent appointment as chair of the rules committee thank you you um you know I'm sitting here thinking like an average American and I cannot
▶ 2:01:10understand how the other side thinks you're serving the American people by not having people come to work every day the American people don't understand that they go to work every day why is it that the federal Workforce is not required to go to their office and do their jobs and for them to defend that is really mindboggling um Mr om Ali you're an ambitious
▶ 2:01:40man with a long career and elected and appointed positions I need one one an one word answers from you in those positions who were you accountable to constituents taxpayers the president the American people the American people or the people of Baltimore or the people of Maryland to public well uh that's what we want you to continue to do but in nove the November
▶ 2:02:102024 agreement between SSA and the American Federation of government employees that you signed allows 98% of SSA employees to Tork can you explain how you Justified signing the agreement that will result in not even meeting the low bar of 50% that President Biden set out for people to come to work the
▶ 2:02:41the eligibility of telea workk greatly preceded my arrival at the agency congresswoman in fact in the second term of President Obama's administration he asked the agency to be become leaders in the federal government in portable workloads and I think we should all be grateful because otherwise in the Pandemic those checks would have stopped uh what my agreement did was to to uh to put into the agreement actually a dialing up of on-site presence I incre but you never even
▶ 2:03:11met the 50% threshold that President Biden put in place you never met that well U and and I think that is such a low bar I just don't think that this agreement that you signed serves the best interest of the taxpayers who pay for the Social Security Administration or the American people who expect their government to show up and be able to provide good service so
▶ 2:03:42this I think it's an Abomination that you would sign an agreement to let 98% of the people in the administration stay at home and work not what I did congresswoman well that's not what I did 98% were eligible for telea work but I required all of the headquarters folks and the Regionals and the areas to be there three days a week and ever since the pandemic ended those field offices in each of your districts have been open five days a week ever since
▶ 2:04:12vaccines were available five days a week thank you very much Miss gretler the federal government's the largest employer in the United States with about 2.2 million civilian employees out of this number how many employees have a telea workk Arrangement and how many are workers we know that 43% are teleworking um I believe the eligibility is in the high 50s in the high 50s so
▶ 2:04:42on a typical day about what percentage of civilian federal employees show up in their workplace that we really don't know because the way that they're classified and the agencies have been measured so so we have no way of tracking how many employees are T workking are working in their offices is that correct correct that's not true okay in a small business or in the private sector there's no way that management could get
▶ 2:05:12away with not knowing exactly how many employees or toring or working remotely it's inexcusable that the federal government does not have a reliable way to figure out where its employees are working something has to be done there has to be accountability Mr Davis welcome back to committee um as the GAO noted in 2023 17 of 24 major federal agencies headquarters in the DC
▶ 2:05:42area were less than 25% occupied ordinary American small businesses in Corporate America can't afford to pay for space they barely use let alone help the federal government pay for its unused space What are the economic impacts of having so many empty Federal Office Buildings well you're paying for a service you're not receiving I mean very quickly and if this continues then you're going to have to downsize you you can't continue on vein and from your
▶ 2:06:12perspective what's the impact of Tork and remote work in the DC area well as I've said before telor can be an important part of of delivering service worker satisfaction everything else the point here though is it's so overdone in Washington and among federal employees compared to where the private sector has moved and other urban areas are it's have a devastating economic impact on this region and on the Metro System in particular thank you Mr chairman I yield back gentle a yields back uh before
▶ 2:06:42I recognize Mr Garcia at the request of the witnesses pursuant to the previous order the committee will stand in recess for a brief five minutes thank you real five minutes
▶ 2:16:49for e
▶ 2:17:26we had our old hearing yeah the committee will uh reconvene chair now recognizes for five minutes a gentleman from California Mr Garcia thank you Mr chairman and thank you again to our Witnesses for being here uh I want to just start um I know we're talking a lot about the federal Workforce I served as mayor of
▶ 2:17:56of my my hometown Long Beach for eight years before I got here and so I'm really proud of the you know 6,500 employees that made up our city and all of their hard work and I'm also proud of our federal Workforce um and of course we all know that there can always be improvements and there's always ways of looking at efficiencies and and making our Workforce stronger and I think those that work on the front lines will tell you that as well uh you know I think unfortunately um there are some here that have tried to smear a federal Workforce and continue to bring up um I think factually incorrect or incorrect statements and certainly
▶ 2:18:26things that are not true about the way our workers operate here not just in DC but as we know a lot of the federal Workforce is all across the country um and they want to justify their plans to fire thousands of people and gut critical programs by attacking the Social Security Administration and other agencies within the government now this is of course one of our first hearings as we're opening up the new Congress and Republicans not surprisingly are taking aim at the Social Security Administration and we know that's not a coincidence I want to start with you know commissioner Ali thank you for being here of
▶ 2:18:56course and for your work overseeing uh what I believe is one of the most important agencies in our entire government um just briefly Americans have earned their social security benefits isn't that correct yes sir thank you and exactly as you know this program has been the backbone of our society gives millions of people the ability to live with dignity and security uh and make no mistake you know it we know it there are right-wing extremists some in Congress that want to privatize and cut Social Security Now commissioner Ali we know that Elon Musk who
▶ 2:19:26at this point I believe is essentially the co-president has called for cutting at least two trillion to federal spending and actually more recently he's actually said no it's more like one trillion that I want to cut of federal spending now do you believe it's possible to reduce federal spending by $1 trillion without cutting Social Security Medicare and Medicaid no sir I don't believe that's mathematically possible I agree with and if you add up the entire discretionary federal budget which is everything from head start protecting our borders our military
▶ 2:19:56firefighting Federal infrastructure you actually only get to about $ 1.7 trillion dollar so even if you eliminated the Department of Education Transportation HUD the FBI all science funding you would still need to cut Social Security Medicare or Medicaid to reach that two trillion in spending cuts I I think it's important for everyone to understand that the real agenda here is quite dangerous not not just for the federal Workforce not just for the Social Security Administration but to the entire country and that Elon Musk through
▶ 2:20:27his I think insane ideas is really calling much of the shot so I want to show you something to the administrator and to our our our panelists here these are some of the programs that we have that um ESS s since are waiting for re reauthorization from the federal government uh Republicans are often vague about their Cuts because obviously they don't want the American people to know what they really want to do the real plan of course they say is to make sure that the federal government is perceived it's broken federal government workers are all lazy we have to we have to break it we have to eliminate it
▶ 2:20:57and I November Elon Musk outlined his actual plan for the Wall Street Journal to cut about $500 billion doll of programs that need to get reauthorized so here are those programs right from um his interview with the Wall Street Journal we're looking at essentially the single largest program that would actually get cut according to Elon musk's plan would be veteran Healthcare and it's not just veterans Healthcare at 119 there if you're looking at at all this you're talking about opioid treatment the state department
▶ 2:21:28housing assistance we're in a huge housing crisis you're looking at Nasa cutting essentially the entire department of education and these are billions of dollars for programs that are needed for people to survive and so I think it's really important as we talk about efficiency which is what Republicans want to talk about in this hearing and others that it's Elon Musk and his Direct Ive is to essentially cut programs and departments that would harm whether they say the word Social Security or not the amount
▶ 2:21:58of money they want to cut from the federal government would lead to drastic cuts to Social Security and Medicare period those are just the facts and so I think it's important that we talk about efficiency in the way that is honest and direct with the American people I also want to just just say in conclusion um I think we should we owe a great deal of respect and admiration to those men and women that are on the front lines working across the country to help American people access their benefits take care take care of our military
▶ 2:22:28families and provide care to veterans in our hospitals and we should not let billionaires attack our federal employees or the Social Security Administration but we should instead be standing up for them and with that I yield back Mr chairman gentan yields back chair recogniz Mr cloud from Texas thank you Mr chair certainly we need a federal Workforce but our job as the oversight committee and certainly of any official work in the administration should be to make sure that we're returning a good Roi to the American taxpayer I
▶ 2:22:59do have some concerns with what seems to be underlying principles in some of these arguments and that there's an absurdity in that it seems some have the view that the American people exist to support the federal Workforce as opposed to any of us serving in the public sector uh exist to serve the American people and so I can tell you firsthand from just from the case work that we do that we've certainly seen a Slowdown in responsiveness from us working cases for Veterans for Social Security
▶ 2:23:29passports and the like indeed during covid there's a warehouse where federal employees were paid to digitize records that are physically in a warehouse and understandably during Co they were not there but when we went to reup the payment of that Republicans tried to say well you're going to actually have to show up in the warehouse and Democrats on this committee push back against our provision in a physical Warehouse to to ban teleworking it was a job that could not be done at home uh and
▶ 2:23:59we saw that uh more notably as we enter into a second Trump Administration I'm concerned about a federal bureaucracy that has outgrown its Authority that often slow walks uh policies that they don't like uh and has in my view become a unconstitutional fourth branch of government indeed uh during the Trump Administration and and I'll submit a Bloomberg article Washington bureaucrats are quietly working to undermine Trump's
▶ 2:24:29agenda in which that article found that uh career staff had found ways to obstruct slow down simply ignore their new leader the president a Washington Post article resistance from within the federal Workforce has rushed against the Trump agenda they see the bureaucrats using time to their advantage and so they would slow walk different things um I am very concerned about this especially as we seen the recent Contracting that has come from Mr omali on his way out as he's posturing for a slot in the DNC
▶ 2:25:00specifically with afg miss geszler you mentioned how taxpayer funded lobbying happens on the clock is that true in your opening statement yes federal employees can take official time to not do their jobs but to instead work for their unions which include lobbying Congress right and I'm reading from the unions page right now that says afg runs one of the largest best political programs in afg history this is their article talking about the work they did during the last presidential election and when I look at their endorsements from the
▶ 2:25:30last few elections I see Harris Biden Clinton Obama Carrie Gore I'm I'm noting a trend I don't know if anyone else is but so we have taxpayer funded political organ organizing going on on the clock and this is very concerning to me and I think should be for anyone looking for a good Roi from their tax taxpayer um I want to turn though because there's a lot of discussion about private and public when it comes to teleworking and there's a little bit of a difference in that although I think there's lessons to be learned that could cross
▶ 2:26:00that but in the private sector you have immediate accountability and so there's earning statements that aren't met there's productivity goals that aren't met and those who are managing have the ability to immediately fire make course Corrections and the like uh to get rid of Bad actors poor performers and the like uh there was an OPM study that said 8% of civil service managers who had poor performing employees uh only 8% of them tried to correct them why is that because 78% of those
▶ 2:26:30who tried were effective at bringing discipline or firing Bad actors so that's less than 2% barely over 1% of Bad actors we were able to get fired uh the the the ability for us to deal with Bad actors which includes those abusing telework is very difficult could you speak to the process of of what it takes takes to get rid of Bad actors in our federal government yes it's already incredibly difficult and timec consuming and costly and that's why we see that Federal Managers try it a couple times and then they just give up on it even things like not giving an
▶ 2:27:00employee a performance-based um pay increase require setting up a performance Improvement plan it takes a year and a half to actually go through the process of trying to fire an employee and get rid of them um and F telor is supposed to be something that is left to Management's discretion and I think that everybody here would agree that we're not going for 100% remote and that you can have productive Tor but the problem is when you put in place policies that get rid of the ability of management to effectively manage those Tork policies and that's precisely
▶ 2:27:31what this new contract agreement does it literally crosses out each Deputy Commissioner will determine the number of scheduled tele work days if any eligible positions in percentage of employees permitted to work and now it just says whatever is in place and as of now until 2029 and so you're stripping the ability of management to do what they need to do to make those tele workk policies we can submit this into the record go for it literally cross please we just read a big passage of
▶ 2:28:01it yeah thank you very much um my time's expired but I'd like to submit for the record a report from Senator Janie erst out of office bureaucrats on the beach and in bubble bass but not in Office Buildings without objection to ordered chair now recognizes Miss Lee from Pennsylvania thank you Mr chair my Republican colleagues really want to kick off this Congress disparaging our federal workers and unions with yet another hearing on telework
▶ 2:28:32they seem to be convinced that uh you have to be physically present in an office to do your job despite all of the evidence that we've already heard against it from one side of I have to say that people need to work more and then out of the other side they want to limit how you can work and where you can work from that's just plain anti-work so since Republicans are so obsessed with efficiency that they created a subcommittee around it I would love to talk about government efficiency I think my Republican colleagues needs to face some hard
▶ 2:29:02truths that some workers are going to be more efficient at home some are also going to get more work done or even work more hours by working from home they waste less time too when they're not commuting into the office how are we going to talk about government efficiency while pushing for policies that keep folks from executing their jobs efficiently I do actually want to work on government efficiency and I think it's important but it's not very efficient that we're probably going to do the same hearing five more
▶ 2:29:32times these attacks on these federal workers are repetitive and nothing more than grandstanding you have a trifecta you shouldn't have anything more to complain about so we should be able to stop wasting time on this type of nonsense this hearing does nothing more than demonstrate their cruelty and that's always been the point they're telling us how little they view government workers in the people of the DC area they're showing us how low they regard the people of DC whether it's because they're government workers are because they're majority black Republicans are letting an unelected multi-billionaire run a muck
▶ 2:30:03and they're attacking our government workers Straight Out The Gate how is that efficient these people want to do their jobs they want to do their jobs well and efficiently but every three weeks we come out here and we attack what we already know is an efficient way to work and why do we know that because we've heard the testimony throughout all of this all of the last Congress in this very committee testimony that told us how work from home policies don't impact efficiency how allowing Tork attracts diverse higher quality candidates and talent how it makes it easier for our
▶ 2:30:33veterans and our military spouses and mothers and those with disabilities to work we have already determined over and over and over and over again that these policies are better not worse more efficient not less wful I honestly don't have any questions today because we've already heard them all we've already had them all answered a dozen times over uh throughout the hearings of the 118th Congress so we might as well just refer this hearing straight to the Doge subcommittee I agree uh so that we can take this up four
▶ 2:31:03more times I hope that you will join us in each of those uh Endeavors regardless of who sits in the Oval Office we have a mandate to not run a circus over here and day two We are failing to do that I hope that we do better uh IO back chair recognizes Mr Fallon from Texas oh thank you Mr chairman uh Mr ell fair to say that you're a fan of telework you think it's better and more efficient I don't I don't I don't know that I'm a fan of anything other than improving customer service in an so you don't have an opinion on telor
▶ 2:31:33you don't think it's better or more efficient for federal it is like this one well I don't need to see sir I don't need to see that Sir Mr chairman I'm claiming back my time I only have a limited amount of time Mr Melly so uh you won't say or admit that you think it's more efficient for federal employees to work out of their kitchens living rooms bedrooms on the porch in a bean bag rather than coming to work in a federal building in a professional environment and provide services and
▶ 2:32:03value to the American taxpayer you know you're not going to comment either yeah I'm glad to comment you want me to answer your question are you gonna because you didn't before go ahead I want to answer your question okay it depends on the job function for example okay so fair to say again five minutes I just I'm going to when legal decision writers which is actually approved by a trump appointed board some federal employees it's not all but if you have to be in a field office to see people you got to be in the field office sir you were a um you were the mayor of Baltimore yes sir I was eight years what years
▶ 2:32:34uh 19997 and then you were governor of Maryland Maryland from 2007 2015 sir did you offer such generous Tork terms to in benefits to the Municipal Employees and then your state employees during your tenure as mayor and governor no that was all that was all preco I don't think any they actually showed up for work in Maryland well and in Baltimore Mr everyone at Social Security Works five days a week Mr ell uh would you acknowledge
▶ 2:33:04and I'm not saying you need to agree with this but would you acknowledge that on the campaign Trail president Trump made it Crystal Clear his intention to bring federal workers back to the offices and largely or mostly and Tork Poli I've heard it said I can't I can't recall whether it was him or the other president whether it was Elon Mosk or president Trump all right so I don't I didn't ask about the SN remark but president Trump was a candidate for the presidency and he did acknowledge that and there was an election on November 5th I'm sure you're aware when did you sign the agreement with the
▶ 2:33:34public sector Union the American Federation of government employees that allowed tens of thousands of federal employees to continue to tell work up to three days a week AKA 60% of the time what date was that I returned I increased their on-site presence February 2 and I signed it November 27th all right I know you're an experienced political but it's not the question I asked I asked what date did you ink the deal I told you November 27th November 27th okay yes sir so 22 days after
▶ 2:34:05very important word after the November 5th election any reason it couldn't have been ink before well there was also a settlement I had to we were able to get from the U the union concessions on some grievances that had the agency exposed for millions of dollars and that was part of it but as you know people work against deadlines so coincidence that it was three weeks let's say after than before no I wouldn't say it's coincidence I say people deadlines
▶ 2:34:35all right um what year does President Trump's term end what year it's hard to say Janu I know you're gonna say that's up to him four years right January 2029 if he chooses to serve all four years January 20 20 is that correct calendar year what year yes I mean well that's the term to which he was elected which is what year four years after this year do you do the math on that you need a calculator no I don't what is it need a calculator I assume I assume it's um 200
▶ 2:35:05U um I don't know 2 you'll pardon me for hoping might leave soon I can help you out 2029 Fair yes 2029 and that's the term of the collective bargaining which preceded think 2029 yes Congressman wow that's amazing uh so here's the good news y'all may have been able to circum circumvent the American people's will this election cycle but there's another election come November of
▶ 2:35:352026 and the people are going to get to consider this issue and they have a choice they can believe in the fiction that magically somehow it's more productive and efficient to allow public sector federal employees who get paid by the American taxpayer to be at home perhaps on their couch living room bedroom patio bean bag running errands with little to no structure constraints coincidence or consequence or accountability or you can believe that actually having
▶ 2:36:06them come to work and building a team and creating Synergy with productivity and accountability is better so the American people going to have a choice Mr chairman and that's what to buy yourself I didn't ask you a question Mr Nory you're welcome to for Congress and sit up here but I'm not asking a question I'm going to finish my remarks you can they can believe and and and buy the bill of goods that you're selling them or they can believe in the reality that we're pitching them Mr chairman I yield back gentleman yields back and I apologize in advance I will hopefully be
▶ 2:36:36able to correctly pronounce this by the by the end of uh the 119th Congress but uh Mr yeah you're recognized for five minutes thank you thank you um uh hello to to reiterate what many of my colleagues have already said as someone who represents 34,000 federal workers many of whom are my friends and neighbors I can promise you that these federal workers are smart and dedicated professionals who would probably get paid more working
▶ 2:37:06in the private sector but choose to serve their country and so I think if you want to attract and retain great people in our military at our agencies and get more for our tax dollars I don't think vilifying them is going to uh help us attract and retain great talent in our federal Workforce for and some of the rhetoric I'm hearing today it's just there's this assumption that uh teleworking federal employees are not working at all that's simply not true and I know many of them in my community who uh sometimes they work three days a week in person but uh I make that commute myself actually
▶ 2:37:36um every day it's about 45 minutes I paid $35 in tolls this morning and um many of them have to pay that same amount so it's expensive to come in it's actually very difficult it's spent it's a lot of time on the road that they could be spending working instead and so I would ask Governor am Ali U when you've had telor policies in place is there any evidence of a significant drop off in employee performance uh based on the administration's adoption of it no in fact Congressman we actually increased productivity this year by more on a year-over-year basis than we have at any
▶ 2:38:06time since 2012 and may I just show you this quick map I I don't mean to bite into your time but the alj level hearings are where people with disabilities go in front of a judge it's an on the record approach before covid all of this was in person after covid and the changes we had to make we now have bandwidth and dockets all over the country and it it's you can see on the right hand side that's where we began the year anything in dark green was 270 days
▶ 2:38:37we haven't been at 270 days to process an alj Hearing in 30 long years in just one year you see the dark green on that map that's because of the ability of the alj's often times other people that are called to testify like the uh VOC vocational rehab people can all be right there were it not for that ability and the agency's ability to monitor that and do it well we would never have gotten back with the Staffing reductions Congress
▶ 2:39:07has imposed on us to a 30-year low and a and the fastest average processing time at the alj level that we've had in 30 years that's the most compelling case so it sounds like uh Tor actually made it more productive Tor and the internet and advances in you know the recording and everything else about it yes and it sounds like Tor also made the Social Security Administration a more attractive place to work is that correct and easier well you know honestly Congressman the the attrition rate
▶ 2:39:37at Social Security and the demoralization there because of the rising could you put that back up on the eil this one because of the rising workloads uh the attrition rate was about the first in the agency when I was asked to go there in fact in the teleservice centers uh that answer the 800 number it was a 22% attrition rate uh I can tell you though Congressman I am deeply concerned that some would like to break this fragile agency and
▶ 2:40:07that would be really really bad for the 72 million Americans seniors people with disabilities people on SSI we turned it around in a much better Direction thanks to the good people there but you could very well break Social Security and uh I would um I heard a lot about the DC and Northern Virginia economy I'm so glad to hear that I'm glad everyone on both sides of they all cares about it so that when there's an effort to move agencies out later on
▶ 2:40:37I'll hold you to it um but I would ask uh congressman and Mr chairman Davis um if if we were to remove or fire federal workers in this region uh you mentioned Dev our economy would that devastate our economy depends how many you're talking about where where you're going I mean in massive firings is going to you know whether it's a private sector or public sector is going to have an effect do you think moving agencies away from our region as proposed by the incoming Administration would be good for our local economy well I don't know I don't know what they've proposed uh you know
▶ 2:41:08even moving the FBI out of Washington DC has gotten a lot of controversy within the region between Maryland and Virginia in DC so anytime you move anything it's going to have Economic Consequences I think moving away agent es from our region would be a self-imposed recession and I think firing federal workers in Mass would be a self-imposed recession for Northern Virginia so I I love the concern for Metro I love the concern for businesses in our region I'm looking forward to having that discussion and solving that but the rhetoric coming from the administration
▶ 2:41:38is really bad for our local economy I yield my time Mr chairman I just have a UC request um I would ask unanimous consent that article from Governor zec on the earnest report documenting telor abuse be entered into the record without objection so order I thank the chair chair recognize Mr Perry from Pennsylvania oh oh was it supposed oh I'm sorry chair recognized Mr Donald's from Florida we go that thank you chairman I appreciate that um
▶ 2:42:08Miss greszler is that how you pronounce your name got it right corre can you please explain a difference between the definitions of telea work and remote work yes remote work is 100% from a different location and can include living entirely thousands of miles away Tor is having the ability to work anywhere from one to five days a week at a remote location okay can can an agency force a federal employee to tellw workk like similarly can an agency force a federal employee to show
▶ 2:42:38up for work yes and we saw that happen during covid-19 there was forced Tork that happened um and they should have the ability to force an employee to show up to work um but when you have problematic components that are baked into the cake for the new Administration that prevent such as Deputy Commissioners at SSA from having that Authority because of collective bargaining agreement that's arguably counter to the law do you feel is within the perview of the president of the United States to set the work schedule for federal employees across the board I do and in particular Tor
▶ 2:43:08that's what the Tor Act of 2010 requires Miss cross do you agree with that assumption that the president of the United States has the broad authority to set work requirements for federal well you can't think about it now miss cross we're here you got to we're on the flly do you think it's under the purview of the president to set work requirements for federal employees since essentially we in our system of government we have a unitary executive and the president of the United States is the executive branch sure okay
▶ 2:43:38Mr rali do you agree with that assessment that the president of the United States has the unilateral Authority for setting work requirements for federal employees I no under the law he he has the he has the ability but it's not unilateral he has to abide by the law at least in a republic you abide by the law Mr rali do you believe that the president of the United States is the executive branch whether it's president Trump President Biden President Obama President Bush President Bush uh Herbert Walker Bush President Reagan do you
▶ 2:44:08believe that the president of the United States is the unitary executive and is the executive branch yes and he has to abide under the law he has to obey the law so you mean to tell me that the president of the United States doesn't have the ability to set work requirements I'm saying that he does but he has to do so under the terms and the and the rule of the law and so uh and contract law and and things contained in agreements that are negotiated under the law are things that the president
▶ 2:44:39has to be mindful of and should be you know and and should be guided by when you signed this agreement with the unions um over at uh the Social Security Administration a did you do it purposefully to undermine president Trump on his way in the door no I did it to sustain the big customer service delivery improvements that this greatly depleted agency had made in the course of the year and to try to staunch the attrition rate and the fact that so many are eligible for retirement you know
▶ 2:45:09the reduction in Staffing is really hurting a lot of seniors in every one of your districts a lot of people with disability a lot of our poorest people that are on SSI it's uh I did what I did in order to better serve the American people but when you set this agreement knowing that the presidential election already been decided did you call maral Lago and say hey what's your opinion on this no did you ask did you ask President Biden to reach out to president
▶ 2:45:39Trump in a matter of transition and say hey which way do we want the next president to be able to administer the employees that are under his purview as executive I worked for president Biden he appointed me and I was confirmed I was confirmed in a lopsided bipartisan margin by the Senate and I executed the duties that I was assigned at Social Security to better serve senior citizens better serve people on SSI and people with disabilities that's what I did con my counterargument
▶ 2:46:10to you Mr rali is that whether it's whatever president were talking about they all have the same duty to serve the seniors who were promised something on on Social Security and that mission is going to be executed regardless of party regardless of president but sir what you did was to essentially do a workaround of the incoming Administration but I'm gonna come back to you later miss gesler I'm gonna come back to you you say you stated earlier in your testimony about we do have an issue with some of the federal employees who are doing work
▶ 2:46:41Union work on federal uh government time can you expound upon that yes unfortunately we don't have any more data on that because has the Biden Administration stopped collecting that um but if you use what the um Obama administration those figures and convert them to today salaries um taxpayers are paying over $300 million per year to pay federal employees to step away from the jobs they're hired for and instead go do Union work on taxpayers dime Mr chairman if if you will oblige what is some of the
▶ 2:47:11the do you have an an idea of some of the work that's being done on federal government time for the unions they're a part of that can include negotiations it could include lobbying Congress it can include helping employees to file grievances or unfair labor practices if they have their telework policies taken away from them Mr chairman I will move that it's in the interest of this committee and frankly of the United States going forward that we find out exactly what uh work is being done while employees are being paid by the federal
▶ 2:47:41government that is not within the purview of the job that they were hired to perform I yield back absolutely chair now recognizes uh Miss ensari from Arizona thank you Mr chair um I'm new to this committee but I can see that we're picking up this Congress right where you all left off last year which is ignoring the data and perpetuating false narratives about federal workers it's obvious that this hearing is no more than a politically driven attempt to Pedal a myth about the Social Security Administration
▶ 2:48:11just to serve the incoming Trump administration's billionaire Le assault on the very federal agencies that are designed and working to serve the American people so let's set the record straight under the Biden Harris Administration Social Security made dramatic improvements to its ability to deliver services to working Americans and Incredibly it accomplished that despite House Republicans hellbent refusal to give the Social Security Administration the funding that it needs to
▶ 2:48:41succeed one notable success was the Social Security administration's launch last year of its security stat initiative Governor om Ali could you tell us how security stat works and how it has improved customer service at SSA congresswoman thank you it was one of the leading examples of the greatest use of Performance Management openness and transparency that the federal government has ever achieved so imagine if you will there's a we gathered on a
▶ 2:49:11regular repeating basis not annually like a lot of governments work but every two weeks every two weeks every two two weeks in an agile approach where we set two we deadlines and um for and we ran plays in between so at the headquarters we would gather all of the Deputy Commissioners the the most relevant ones not all of them uh around the table and we would look for one blessed hour at a thorny problem like solving the problem of the
▶ 2:49:41huge weit time on the 1 1800 number what are the things we can do to reduce calls on the front end what are the things we can do for first call resolution on the back end at the end of that hour and all of this was based on data on the map all of which again if you go to the Social Security website at least for the next few days you'll be able to to see I suggest you screenshot it and uh then after one hour we would reassemble in 10 minutes across the hall in a room that had the big
▶ 2:50:12letters on it follow-up room then on the next hour we were back at it again and we would look at the problem of overpayments and underpayments what are the things we can do right now to reduce those that drove a faster Cadence of action more sub regulatory changes than we had ever done before and that's what allowed us to be able to get on top of some really thorny problems uh caused by the lack of Staffing for example the numbers of people that are waiting
▶ 2:50:42for their disability determinations uh uh you can see it doesn't happen overnight that backlog and that in disability cases had been growing for seven long years but by going at it every two weeks every two weeks with openness transparency and asking ourselves the question does it work or does it not and coming back to the drawing board in two weeks you can see we were able to start closing when it reached its peak for the last 27 months uh 27
▶ 2:51:12weeks I was there uh we were able to reduce or close more cases on the backend than we so it's about creating a compelling scoreboard it's about measuring performance and it's about getting the best out of your people collaboratively and and that's what we did and Governor om ali uh the SSA has also dramatically reduced those weight times I understand it's 50% is that correct yes it it was at it was at 42 and a half minutes speed dancer at the beginning
▶ 2:51:43of last calendar year through a number of steps every two weeks every two weeks and then a big cut over which happened it was probably the largest Telecom it cutover in uh Federal history given the given the volume that we handle of 8 million calls a month in September we cut over from an underperforming clunky system and managed to achieve cost savings and also had a better system that got that speed dancer down to 128
▶ 2:52:13minutes wow 12.6 excuse me and for the first time we're able to offer people call back assist just like they get from you know their bank or any other you know customer facing entity that they deal with in the private sector Governor om Ali that is a remarkable Improvement uh how did SSA accomplish this did you hire thousands of more workers to get this done no it was with it was with fewer workers we did bring on some expert Telecom people in order to manage that that cut over uh but they were on a
▶ 2:52:43contractual basis for a short period of time we have been shedding staff when what a lot of people in Congress don't understand is that to level fund this agency means that the agencies since its fixed costs go up by 600 million it has to shed 600 million worth of staff so that's why we've been reduced to a 50-year low you know it used to be we were talking about efficiency earlier uh
▶ 2:53:13until the Staff reductions of the last 10 years Social Security oper ated on 1.2% overhead for benefits paid and we offer and we operated at a high level of customer service at that 1.2% if you compare that to all state All State operates at 19% overhead for benefits paid Liberty Mutual Liberty biberty operates at uh 23% overhead so when we operated at 1.2%
▶ 2:53:44it was a high level of customer service and you all could restore that 1.2% % if you chose to you could take it all out of the trust fund it wouldn't Advance the depletion date by by more than 30 days and you wouldn't add a dime to the national debt because people already paid for the customer service that these Congressional staff reductions are now denying them thank you thank you g ladies times expired chair recognize Mr Perry from Pennsylvania thank you Mr chairman Miss greszler how much money
▶ 2:54:14if you know is spent by the federal government M maintaining its own office space I believe it's about 8 billion and plus potentially more than7 billion per year in the energy cost and the seven plus seven billion eight8 billion doll is the cost of them and then they've done some calculations associated with the energy involved in that okay um as just a followup on another committee I serve on we we got a a the completion of a study by the GAO that
▶ 2:54:44said on average 17 of 24 federal agents surveyed use less than 25% of their headquarters um I I'll go to the governor here in a minute but I I don't think this is a case where we don't we don't want to disparage federal workers we all depend upon them they're I think just like you Governor they want to do the right thing and serve and help the American people um but as you cite
▶ 2:55:14in your written testimony a Social Security Administration respons to a letter sent by chairman comr rep sessions and myself indicated that in FY 203 the SSA had 1,30 employees who spent a total of over 200,000 hours and $15 million of official time doing things like lobbying Congress do do you think that that should be any way restricted by the Act certainly the the Hatch Act I mean what whatever it should we should all abide
▶ 2:55:45by the law well I understand that but I don't know when the and forgive me if I don't know when I don't know when the last time you worked kind of privately so to speak where you took time out of your own like you left work didn't get paid for being at work because you weren't at work and went and Lobby Congress most of my bosses go to work every day and and and they have to Lobby their member of Congress on their time but yet at the federal level you get to Lobby Congress on the taxpayers time I'm just asking if you think that that's appropriate or
▶ 2:56:15it should be limited by the Hatch Act I I would I would defer to people that are at the agency I'm not sure I don't know that I have that letter did I sign it or was it signed by my predecessor no it was it was uh did it was it was you yeah okay all right so uh well let me ask you um does the collective bargaining agreement that you signed in the end of November of last year do you think that that limits the president's ability to change any of
▶ 2:56:45what he might change to for efficiency you know not try again not trying to disparage federal employees or whatever but I would say this sir uh in my in the office that I that I represent the the folks that work for us uh for my bosses we do a lot of work because people can't get answers from Social Security I know you got a chart and so on they can't get answers so we end up doing that work and the president might want to might want to make that more efficient does the bargaining agreement that you signed preclude him
▶ 2:57:15from making any changes in that regard regarding and I'm not here to disparage Tork maybe it's more efficient maybe it's not but does that preclude that yeah it's um no it does not it um and I I hope that we give the presidents the incoming president's appointee a chance to actually get into Social Security and to understand the operations there and the interplay between onsite and Tork do we miss greszler
▶ 2:57:45do you know if there's any standardized met on or regular reporting across agencies to measure the efficiency of telework we have them no standardize across all agencies like one standard so that we can compare do we do no no there you don't know of one or there isn't one there's no standard there is no standard so if you don't know where you're starting from how do you is it good do you say it's a good practice to expand a practice that you don't know whether it's working or not it
▶ 2:58:15may be working but you don't know right cuz there's no standard by which to evaluate that is that a fair statement I would say it it's not appropriate to expand it or to lock into place any current policies okay uh Governor yes sir the GAO analysis of the first quarter of 2023 arguably you were not there yet showed a space utilization rate at the headquarters in Maryland of Social Security at 7% what was what was it by quarter during your time there I
▶ 2:58:46don't have that but the agency probably does I can tell you that I increased on-site Presence at that headquarters well okay but 7% like I I don't know about you that's a pretty low number right you saw the parking you saw the parking lot picture I when was that picture taken that was taken before I got there that was taken in December okay well so that's potentially it's a 7% rate yes sir so let me ask you this in the remaining time whether it's 7% 20% and that
▶ 2:59:16was the one at the high but it n it could be during this 7% time you said argue was before you got there yeah that one at what point do you think it's appropriate for the federal government to sell off property unutilized 7% 10% 20% what per we have been we have been greatly reducing or the agency has been greatly reducing square footage and trying to get out of and trying to rightsize what the agency should be I haven't seen that
▶ 2:59:46at all they hang on like like it's the end of the world to any to any so so you ran the agency what percent at what percent utilization rate do you say we got to sell stuff what percent well we actually a lot of our stuff is leased but we look to leases they come up I'm just looking foration I don't know that we've ever I don't know that's what we ever looked at we just looked at customer service and we looked at produc we just keep every building even though Miss greszler says it costs
▶ 3:00:16us all this money even though nobody's chairman that's that's the last question but feel free to answer thank you govern some of some of them are owned but very few of them a lot of them are leases and you have to wait for them to come up and then we look to downsize wherever we can because it's a different environment now than it was before the Le yes about a million square feet thank you Mr chairman gentlemen stimes expired and Miss Crockett Miss uh anari went over about a minute and 20 seconds too so it it balanced out I okay
▶ 3:00:46chair chair I I tried keep it fair and uh Mr Conley is always elbowing me to make sure it's right so chair recognize Mr Bell from Missouri thank you Mr chair that right yeah um thank you Mr chair and thank you to our guests um it is day two for me as well and like my uh distinguished colleague Miss Ansari um I Echo her
▶ 3:01:16sentiments but also I'd like to add that I think it's essential to this body's work that we restore uh decorum um to be able to do this work um I am encouraged when I see our chair and ranking member disagree without being disagreeable I think this type of decorum and approach is certainly something that should be utilized throughout this body consistently um the Social Security Administration
▶ 3:01:47plays a a crucial role in providing benefits to millions of Americans yes yet it's operating on a budget that simply is not enough to meet this important Mission my Republican colleagues are using telework as a scap goat for their underinvestment but it won't change the fact that the real culprit is their refusal to give SSA the resources it needs and it's critically important
▶ 3:02:18that we not lose sight of the human cost of refusal the Social Security Administration estimates that 30,000 people lost their lives in the fiscal year 23 2023 while waiting for decisions on their disability claims we have to address these backlogs by investing properly in the agency as of December 20 24 my home Home St
▶ 3:02:48Louis is home to over 3,000 federal employees and I truly believe they are the backbone of our community if further cuts are made we run the risk of closing essential SSA field offices which would only add to the challenges our residents face Governor om Ali about how many field offices does SSA have and where are they located there are 1,211 field officers all across
▶ 3:03:18America and on any given day uh there's always a risk that one of them might suddenly implode if too many employees uh with u certain expertise in title two or Title One suddenly decide to take other jobs in fact that happened to us in southeast Cleveland not so long ago we just couldn't keep the office open because of the Staffing cuts and Governor om Ali why is it essential to SSA to have field offices
▶ 3:03:49it's essential because there's some things that we can only people can only do in person uh one of the we talked a little earlier about fraud sometimes people have to come into the office to prove who they are because their bank accounts have been hit or hacked uh some people just need that inperson service in order to apply especially for some complex Pro uh programs like disability uh so we we strive to get everybody in within 28 days if they're making a disability application because we've learned
▶ 3:04:19that the sooner you get people in uh the the more that that speeds up the process once it starts going through the process and going to all of the state disability determinations offices okay Governor om Ali why has SSA face the need or potential need to close field offices Congressman it's Staffing it's all Staffing I mean if you look at that that chart you will see that because of the Baby Boomers the number of beneficiaries has been climbing
▶ 3:04:49climbing climbing and is going to continue to go up but that red line represents the Staffing which ever since Congress started so-called level funding the agency the ay's Lost 600 million in staff anytime that it's been level funded so what used to be a very efficient provision of customer service when we were funded at 1.2% of benefits has now you mean nobody's happy with where it is right now we've gotten a lot better on many
▶ 3:05:20things but I don't think any of us should be happy uh we are funded now on less than 1% and that and you can see it's the reduction of Staffing to a 50-year low while the number of beneficiaries has doubled since you know what it was back um back when in two in around 2000 and just so we're clear ssa's field offices create jobs for Americans who live in those communities is that correct well yes
▶ 3:05:50but fewer and fewer of them and when SSA is forced to close its field offices local workers lose their jobs yes sir is that also correct yes sir so my my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are suggesting that Tork rather than a lack of sufficient funding is to blame for the closure or potential closure of SSA field offices is that accurate no that is not accurate the cause of ssa's declining customer
▶ 3:06:20service over the last 10 years uh it began before uh the pandemic but the decline it it it's all attributable to reduction in Staffing to a 50-year low while beneficiaries continue to climb uh it's just uh and even though last year we actually improved productivity by more in one year than we had since 2013 the the folks
▶ 3:06:51the men and women across the country in those field offices uh they're not just the people that see people they also have to process the claims and put them through and for the last year they've been trying to Sprint up a downward moving escalator because of the growing workload the declining staff and and what that does to to u to people's morale and their ability to get the job gentleman's time's expired so
▶ 3:07:21uh chair recognizes Miss Green from Georgia Thank you Mr chairman Mr om Ali under your tenure the Social Security Administration failed to deliver for the American people on November 8th of last year your agency announced the appointment focused service AFS which directs field offices Nationwide to require nearly all services be scheduled by appointment at local offices while the intent was to reduce in-person wait
▶ 3:07:51times my constituents cannot get through the phone lines to even schedule an appointment in just the last week nearly a dozen just last week nearly a dozen constituents have contacted my office complaining that when they called to schedule an appointment they were placed on hold for hours then ultimately routed to The Voice mail where no one answered and no one called them back
▶ 3:08:21and this has been going on and on and on this is absolutely unacceptable and the American people deserve to know the root cause of why this policy was implemented to begin with the short answer is your Tork policies the AFS was put in place to reduce weight times yet the only reason the wait times were so outrageous to begin with was because there weren't enough staff in the office to reduce the in-person wait
▶ 3:08:52times because your staff is at home not working for the American people it is reported that your local offices are only staffed at 20 to 30% on any given day it's kind of had hard to have in-person appointments when people are not at the office no wonder wait times were so long and you commissioner om Ali just signed an agreement to make that permanent for the next four years of President Trump's Administration which is more failure but
▶ 3:09:22that's your fault and by the way commissioner I reached out to you last August this is the letter that I sent to you dated August 1st 2024 requesting an in-person meeting with you to discuss some of the serious issues that my cons constituents in Northwest Georgia are constantly having but you never responded to me Mr om Al I never got a phone call I never got a letter back and that's clearly
▶ 3:09:52maybe you were enjoying the telea workk policies yourself instead of doing the actual job or possibly it's because you were too busy drinking with the union members that you were negotiating with instead of negotiating against on behalf of the American people now Mr om Ali right before you resigned as Social Security administrator you signed an agreement with the American fed Federation of government employees on November 27th 2024
▶ 3:10:23now remember two weeks before that as I mentioned you were partying with afge members in Florida but you weren't interested and calling me back or were even bothering to return a letter when I wanted to talk to you about very serious issues that my constituents were having you see as Republicans we fully support making sure that every single American receives their benefits from Social Security you Democrats like to lie about us
▶ 3:10:53we are going to make sure that every single person that paid in gets every single penny that they deserve that they paid in it will come out and back to them that's what's important to us actually working for the American people now Mr rali I'd like to ask you another question since you're very interested in being DNC chair you are after all a lifelong Democrat politician I don't even know if you had a job in the real world but you have been an elected politician for years Mr om Al
▶ 3:11:24you're also a Catholic are you not you're also a Catholic are you not I I am do you serve God or do you serve the Democrat Party I serve God okay then Mr Mr chairman as a Roman Catholic I take offense at the suggestion that somebody has reclaim myice time Mr Ali will you be supporting the murder of The Unborn up until the day of birth like your party does as DNC chair will you be supporting
▶ 3:11:54the murder of innocent unborn people is that in line with your faith in God in the Catholic church I trust the Judgment of women and doctors over the Judgment of government now do you trust God's judgment do you trust God that he loves and has created every single human being do you support the murder of unborn children and are you going to uphold that evil practice ITI that the Democrat Party wants to continue you see abortions over 95% of them are unintended
▶ 3:12:24pregnancies they use abortions as birth control so are you going to continue the birth control practice of murdering The Unborn children as chair of the DNC will that be that be a policy you'll be supporting I am pro-choice and I trust the Judgment of women and their doctors over the judgments of government well thank you for letting God know where you stand with the I talk to God every day yeah well you might want to talk to him a little bit more Mr Al because you're definitely in the wrong thank you Mr chairman I yield back
▶ 3:12:55L Ys back chiz Miss Simon from California good afternoon and I'm so thankful for being able to um you know be here today and I want to actually thank all of the witnesses I I appreciate the testimony of each one of you all um so greatly uh for me this conversation is actually it transcends um our any partisan rhetoric I mean I think we can all agree we can all agree that our widows that the children of
▶ 3:13:25dead parents that disabled folks when they call the Social Security office they want someone to answer we can all agree that when an elderly person goes to the Social Security office that they want to be able to talk to someone we can also agree that efficiency and efficacy within our federal government it's the floor that these folks work for us all and I
▶ 3:13:55come to this politic as a widow I lost my husband more than a decade ago and I sat with him after receiving just the most horrible news of our life that he was going to die in a hospital room and our little girl was about one one was going to college one was going to preschool and I sat in that hospital room for 5 hours trying to figure out as my fingers trembled and
▶ 3:14:25filling out that ridiculous application just hoping that it would go through because you see Kevin had to leave his job I had two babies I'm thankful so thankful that we got a yes the first time while it took months we were approved shortly after Kevin's death we got a death B benefit and thank God for that $600 because it was just $200 short of the payment that it cost for the Undertaker to
▶ 3:14:55take my love from our home on Father's Day only two weeks after I had to sit in a social security office by myself weeping with tissues and I waited three hours for a wonderful woman to come greet me as I asked and begged for a death benefit for Lea who's now 13 I believe in telework I believe in efficiency I also agree that folks need to be in their seats
▶ 3:15:26when they can I actually am here to speak about disabled workers and mothers like myself I was born legally blind and I remember my mother weeping and talking daily to the Social Security offices and members of our public education system saying I need support and help for my little girl she needs to learn how to read we as a committee have to figure out how to figure it out whether you're working at home like that mother that I just talked
▶ 3:15:56about she worked at home for many years working for the federal government working for the veterans administration as a pacemaker Tech she retired she worked for 30 years and you all know if you work for the veterans administration there have been folks for decades who have been working both in the office and at our wonderful facilities including Fort Miley serving our good people let's figure it out folks deserve the support to live and Thrive particularly the Widow particularly the disabled worker and
▶ 3:16:26children who need every single opportunity to live and Thrive our folks are dying to survive I had a question but I'll save us time and I'll yield back chair now recognize is Mr Burleson from Missouri thank you Mr chairman Mr om Ali the afge the same exact Federal Union that you signed a cont cont with so that the SSA employees cannot continue can continue to work remote until or some of them can continue to remote work remote until
▶ 3:16:562029 recently decided that to send its own employees so the union decided that the employees that work for them that they they wanted them to return to work in fact the the new return to office mandate ordered the national president ever ordered by the national president Everett kellerer is designed to ensure that the staff is fully prepared to tackle an onslaught of Trump's policies targeting federal workers so it seems that it's a direct
▶ 3:17:26admission by you know afge the union the inperson work actually is better would you agree I it depends I mean I ordered more inperson work I don't I'm not familiar with what their policy is but for us we found that at the headquarters components where people have to collaborate and work out problems yeah there's no I don't think there's a substitute this created a disp between the employees as well of of the of that Union who filed
▶ 3:17:56a labor grievance against their own Union calling the move hypocritical do you find that hypocritical I'm I'm not aware of the I'm not I'm not deeply aware I I just can't speak to the facts of what's going on at a union let me ask this question you know in working in the private sector most of the time well not most of the time every time a private sector business chooses to which employees can work remote often it's done based on performance you know that the employee has high performance
▶ 3:18:27standards therefore oftentimes the the employer might reward that employee with the the the high you know performance employees with the ability to work remote is that something that's possible with the employees of the Social Security Administration yeah I I don't know that we ever reward employ emplo es by giving them more time to Tork but so it's not based on performance that's my question actually it is management and I'm reading from the Munch malign uh
▶ 3:18:58uh Amendment management also has sole discretion to change reduce or suspend approved telea work days for any employee due to the employees performance okay so are they is there pay is there pay influenced by any performance well ultimately it can be and they also would not get the uh you know the performance uh Awards the in the packs program that you all do in the federal government that we never did in city or state government
▶ 3:19:28okay Mike so in the in the private sector I can I can tell you that we do things like computer monitor computer usage monitor email uh the frequency of opening emails internet browsing history um there's things like inactivity alerts there's social media monitoring and other things like that is that being done yes sir okay and Drew Ferguson your recently retired colleague can tell you about it because he actually came to security stat and saw live how we monitored 4,700
▶ 3:19:58people that were on the phones trying to answer as quickly as possible that growing backlog it was real time and if they were on call and if they're not are they fired yes they're disciplined if they're not if they're not working certainly miss gretzler my question regarding to this is we've got you were just talking earlier about how difficult it is to fire an employee who's not performing how difficult is it and how often does it happen compared to the private
▶ 3:20:29sector um it's extremely difficult as I mentioned it takes more than a year and a half on average to get rid of a federal employee um the firing rates are a tiny fraction I believe the exact statistic is in my testimony um but it just does not happen very often and I think that the point that needs to be made is that the telework Authority needs to be with management it can't be taken away from them because then when you do have problems like an SSA employee who was having his wife and his mother log on to the system to make it
▶ 3:20:59look like he was working while he was instead running a home business um you can't have that accountability if it's baked into the cake that those Deputy Commissioners no longer have authority over this tele workk policy it one of the other statistics that's interesting is that the level of Union p participation I think in the in the public sector is 25% in the federal government but in the private sector it's much lower it's lower than lower than 10% what is the purp what is the reason for that yeah it's kind of surprising especially considering that federal employees
▶ 3:21:30can't bargain for their pay and benefits um part of who are they bargaining against well and that's that's the irony here and it's one of the reasons that um FDR opposed federal employees even belonging to Union less yet being able to use that official time because both sides of the table are being paid by taxpayer that's right both sides are being and the taxpayers is the one getting the bill yes exactly thank you my time has expired K time's expired CH recognizes men's not here
▶ 3:22:00uh fro Frost Mr Frost noon no oh I'm sorry Miss Miss Norton from Washington DC thank you uh Mr chairman uh I welcome former chair Tom Davis uh back to the committee Tom has always been a good friend of the District of Columbia and to me I'm welcome you back sir this hearing is designed to denigrate federal employees and to lay the predicate
▶ 3:22:30to gut the federal Workforce and to convert a significant portion of the remaining federal civil service into Political appointees federal employees deserve praise for their expertise dedication and service not derision in the first two weeks of this Congress alone at least four bills have been introduced to gut the federal Workforce for
▶ 3:23:00example Senator Joanie erns introduced the drain the swamp act which aims to relocate at least 30% of the employees assigned to an agency headquarter ERS in the national capital region outside the national capital region her swamp act would relocate non-security Federal headquarters
▶ 3:23:31outside of the national region congresswoman Claudia Tenny and Senator Marsha Blackburn have introduced bills to create a federal commission to study the relocation of federal agencies outside the national capital region let me be clear what these bills and this hearing are about they are about getting
▶ 3:24:01experts to quit the Workforce these bills would deprive the federal government of expertise and experience this will harm the services uh the federal government provides to Americans each Congress I introduce a praising federal employees and highlighting their critical work on behalf of the American people Federal
▶ 3:24:32employes should be applauded for their tireless work and extensive efforts on behalf of the American people thousands of civil Federal servants have given their lives in the line of duty to their country Republicans have made it clear they want to gut the federal Workforce and the civil service system which ensures a nonpartisan merit-based professional
▶ 3:25:02Workforce and turn it into a p patronage system instead of attacking attacking federal employees this committee should be considering bills to support the federal work for such as my bill to to combat V opay compression this committee can do better for the American people I yield back
▶ 3:25:33G lady yields back chair recognizes Mr Jack from Georgia Thank you Mr chairman and first I'd like to thank each witness for testifying before this committee today and I'd like to specifically acknowledge and thank former representative Davis for testifying chaired this committee during the 108th 109th congresses and rest assured I'm not going to ask you on the record if you like this committee room better than the original by my count I'm roughly the 30th member of Congress to ask questions of each of you and I'm grateful for your attention Governor Ali let's start with you
▶ 3:26:03for the record were you elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1991 and reelected in 1995 yes sir and were you elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999 and reelected mayor of Baltimore in 2004 yes sir and during your first term as mayor of Baltimore did you initiate a government program called City stat yes sir and would you mind elaborating on that program for just a moment sure City stat was uh borrowed from comad in New York it's based on four
▶ 3:26:33principles that grounded every conversation and I've used that also at the state for state stat creating the number one public schools in America 5 years in a row and most recently at Social Security the tenants are Timely accurate information shared by all rapid deployment of resources effective tactics and strategies and Relentless followup thank you when you campaigned for governor in 2006 you campaigned on City stat success when you campaigned for reelection in 2010 you campaigned on City stat success and when you campaigned for president
▶ 3:27:04in 2016 City stat was one of the core programs you cited as a model for governmental success it was one of the proudest political achievements you had but what I find interesting is that City stat mandated in person agency meetings and Inter departmental collaboration in person right with members of your cabinet and yourself and in order for City stat to be successful you needed in-person meetings because that's how humans have worked together for Millennia true and that's what we did at Social Security too I'm one of the few members of this committee who actually served
▶ 3:27:34as a federal employee I proudly worked as an employee in the executive office of the president from the very first day of President Trump's Administration to the very last day of his administration and at no point during those four years did I Tella workk at no point during those four years did my colleagues on across the the White House campus tell workk and what was the result under President Trump's leadership our Administration was the most successful in recent history and it was affirmed by the American people uh last November when they gave a landslide Victory to president Trump and House
▶ 3:28:04Republicans enabling us to have this Committee hearing today so I guess my question to you is if the model program throughout your political career that you've cited as you know one of the things that we should strive for for governmental success mandated and required in-person meetings which is how humans have worked together for Millennia why did you sign an agreement in November of last year that's in direct conflict with the core tenants of that program we we it's consistent with it because I dialed up in on February
▶ 3:28:352nd the the onsite requirement at the headquarters and every meeting none of those meetings was virtual everybody was present however we did live stream them to 120 senior executive service people all across the nation and we allowed for the first time ever that I'm aware of in the federal government our oversight Committees of Congress to be able to have their staff attend and listen at every one of those and we had uh om uh was able to listen
▶ 3:29:05as well but it was all in person so this agreement uh the amendment to the agreement that there's three unions at Social Security the other two unions already had the telework balance they had achieved one of them are the people that write decisions like legal cases and they were actually found to be far more productive uh not coming on site than they were when they came on site and uh that was actually I think found by a court the remaining one that hadn't had it incorporated into their agreement was afge and once we
▶ 3:29:35saw the record increase in productivity this year uh we incorporated that at the end of this year before I left into the agreement but it does say that management has the discretion to temporarily change reduce or suspend uh approved telework for any employee office component or agency-wide due to an operational need and I know my colleague representative green covered the timeline but there is
▶ 3:30:06some semblance of uh suspect timing I mean I I as I understand that you attended a conference hosted by afge between November 12th and 15th 3 days later you announced your campaign for chairmanship of the Democrat National Committee and just nine days after that you signed an agreement supported by fge which by the way is a very powerful political entity that could be very helpful to you in your campaign for chairmanship of the DNC so as My Time is Here expiring I'll just note that it invites a direct conflict of interest and to me it suggests that
▶ 3:30:36your motivation was out of personal political ambition not the oath you swore to the American people it was about the deadline and we also were able to spare the U agency what might have been 10 or $20 million in liability so there were two settlements actually and having been a lawyer and people tend to settle things when they're up against deadlines and it is true that my time was expiring at Social Security the p and I would always go to labor meetings whenever I could
▶ 3:31:06and more than that I went to a lot of manager meetings too and you can probably find pictures of me going out for pizza or beer watching a football game after a lot of manager meetings I did them all summer with my time expiring thank you and I yield back to the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky our chairman Mr comr thank you chair recognize Mr Frost from Florida thank you Mr chair so the Republican attack on this committee on telea work policy and hybrid work continues from last Congress I think this
▶ 3:31:36is the fifth or sixth or seventh hearing we've had on something like this and this abolished telor policy would cost American taxpayers billions of dollars each year and slow down operations and I can't help but notice that in the same Congress that this committee is establishing a subcomittee to deliver on government efficiency the majority seems unable to spot efficient policies that are right in front of them while Tor and remote work existed long before the covid pandemic we can now look at the data and
▶ 3:32:07better understand whether or not this is a policy that drives government efficiency uh Miss cross how possible is it that the reason behind Republicans push to end work at federal agencies is connected to maybe something a little bigger and what I mean by this is when we look at documents like project 2025 and we hear from a lot of those authors who are now going to be running the federal government we often hear this notion of making things so unbearable for federal workers that they quit on their own
▶ 3:32:37is it possible that this whole effort is beh to Ella work is part of a greater effort to push a massive amount of federal employees to quit thank you for your question yes it is possible in fact in Private Industry companies that Force strict return to office mandates it's widely recognized that those are often regarded as soft layoffs um so it's easier for you to be able to say we're going to make it as untenable as possible so as you mentioned
▶ 3:33:07you know our workers leave the challenge with that is often your best high performers are the ones that walk out the door because they're the ones that can more easily do it so are significant implications to Performance and productivity when you do and what kind of damage does this do to government operations like responding to wildfires sending out Social Security checks renewing passports or any other examples yeah well initially telework mobile work we used to call it flexy place it's gone through a lot of iterations was a component of uh continuity of government continuity
▶ 3:33:37of operations and emergency preparedness in fact every year OPM collects data from federal agencies to ensure that are goals set metrics set and that they're tracking it against the ability to perform operations in unplanned events weather storms emergencies potential things that we can't predict like Global pandemic so for one it will disrupt operations for two it'll cost a lot of money by the way uh industry says industry data says that uh office level occupancy rates were hovering between
▶ 3:34:0850 and 60% well before the pandemic because of the mobile nature of our jobs anyway you know uh We've looked into to this a little ourselves and evidence is pretty obvious for example DHS massively reduced the amount of real estate it had to rent between 2018 and 2023 this saved billion DHS even said that quote the goal of fewer buildings and better buildings is good for the workforce good for DHS and the mission and good for the taxpayer
▶ 3:34:38end quote GSA they said that it reduced its rent bill by $50 million in fy22 all while increasing productivity and the Consumer Finance uh uh Financial Protection Bureau said that they spent over 35 Grand per month on helping employees to get to and from work and now it's down to about $700 a month Miss cross instead of abolishing it can we actually build on hybrid policy and Tor policy remote work to maximize government efficiency um achieve
▶ 3:35:08cost savings productivity and employee well-being while at the same time yes looking at Bad actors as well yes 100% we're seeing cost savings each and every year as it relates to reductions in transit subsidies when you're paying people that otherwise could work from an approved alternate worksite not a home not on a bean bag but an approved authorized worksite to be able to do so in a different location maybe that is a home office maybe it's a federal satellite or co-working space maybe it's a field office location as well in addition to reducing
▶ 3:35:38office spaces in fact Global workplace analytics was here at a hearing a couple years ago and estimated that if you you increased telea workk just by 25% you could reduce $ 1.7 billion dollar in office space costs each and every year I I appreciate you bringing this up eliminating massive savings and slowing productivity on its own would be bad but the policies that are are chairman and the Republican Party once separately would add a bunch of new costs to American taxpayers
▶ 3:36:09and I think that's really something we have to keep in mind the notion that hybrid work means that you're not working is ridiculous I mean members on this committee members of Congress adopt a hybrid work model ourselves I encourage members maybe try a month of no hybrid work no interviews in your car no interviews at home go into your office for every single thing you do and I think they'll find that part of what helps us be efficient in our own job
▶ 3:36:39is the fact that we have the choice of of where we're going to do that work there's no real reason to label the entire Federal Workforce is lazy um and um this is something we should look at um but a few bad actors uh we shouldn't be able to label the entire Workforce because of that so thank you I yield back chair recognize Mr Maguire from Virginia thank you Mr chairman uh we live in the greatest country in history where our rights come from God we're born with these inalienable rights that are enshrined in the
▶ 3:37:09Constitution but our nation is a nation in Decline but through the grace of God we have president Trump back in the white house we have a majority in the US Senate we have a slim majority but we have a majority in Congress president Trump and I think all of us we love all American people and I got to tell you as a veteran if you saved my life on the battlefield I wouldn't care if you call yourself a Democrat Republican independent male or female whatever we're all Americans and we're all people but it seems like
▶ 3:37:39our country is committing suicide with policies that we're making you know if you had heart would you want someone who was the best doctor in the country to perform that surgery or would you want somebody it's I like the way they look or it's their turn or they have a different agenda and I bring that up because it seems like our friends on the other side are making decisions that are America last $36 trillion in debt is egregious and they testified yesterday in oversight that we we spend
▶ 3:38:09more money every day than we bring in every day that is not now if the government was to build you a car you would never buy it it would cost you a million dollars the free market Has Lifted I mean just created more opportunities in Innovation than any country in history and Elon Musk since you guys talked about Elon Musk you probably saw how he La launched that rocket and landed it precisely American in Ingenuity
▶ 3:38:39for a fraction of what it cost the government to send a vehicle into space and if the uh civilian world is going back to in office and the largest Workforce in our country the government is saying no no no you can stay at home we talked we heard earlier in testimony that a gentleman it took him three years to fire him he kept playing golf instead of doing his job I heard a testimony about a woman who stood up in a zoom call
▶ 3:39:10and was only wearing her top you cannot build relationships and be effective and you should listen to the cues of Elon Musk who's a very successful businessman but if you don't listen to Elon Musk listen to the direction of the private Workforce they're going back into the office and also when President Trump got elected they started getting rid of those ridiculous America last the opposite of meritocracy Dei policies I know we're going to do oversight I hope we'll do oversight on what happened in Los Angeles but you hear
▶ 3:39:40stories where they had these meetings about how diverse they are rather than how do we make sure we have enough prevention enough water and our tanks and things like that so my first question is for The Honorable Mr ali uh we isn't it isn't it great we live in a country where a man or a woman can work hard and Achieve just about anything do you agree with that statement yes sir and so these policies that we see coming from the left
▶ 3:40:10where you get a job based on things other than meritocracy make no sense and when the other side wants to make policy for president Trump before he even gets sworn into office that go to the end of his administration is an example of poor leadership you know a party that wants to put put men and girls Sports is cannot I mean Trump has a mandate he got the popular vote and he won the Electoral College and these idea that uh criminals are good
▶ 3:40:41police are bad and nobody cares about the victim there's just a whole pattern just just like this idea that we don't want uh government employees to go back to work it's a list of the many examples of poor decisions coming from the left and my next question would be that wasn't a question well you answered the question I said do you agree with that statement you said you do the next question would be for um but I you know M gesler Congressman I buried 10 police officers in the line of duty please don't accuse me of not having
▶ 3:41:11respect for police officers nobody said that I said that the policies of my district we talk about Lake and Riley preventable in my district Campbell County a 33y old illegal alien was released from prison four times because criminals are good and police are bad no one cares about victims and he raped a 14-year-old girl these illegal aliens that are coming across our border are robbing raping and killing the American people and it is preventable we love our law enforcement I'm sure you do as well and I talk to law enforcement every
▶ 3:41:41day and they say their hands are tied and what I love it is that we have a president that that loves our country he loves our men men and women in uniform military and law enforcement and I'm so excited to be part of that team I never Ted my off Marland or Baltimore Miss gesler what are um I have a question for you I know what are the top reasons why federal employees leave the agency and and his time's exed but please feel free to answer the question well I think it can vary a lot by agency but they really don't leave very
▶ 3:42:11often the federal quits rate was about 4% over the last um decade or so compared to over 30% in the private sector it's not true accountability is a problem though that that's the lowest rating on the federal employees Viewpoint um we don't know what it is actually because the Biden Administration removed that really bad question very good thank you uh chair me which one oh no actually Miss Randall sorry thank you
▶ 3:42:41Mr chair and thank you to all of uh the folks who have come to testify and the people who have been sitting um and watching this Committee hearing um you know I'm new to Congress I served for six years in the Washington State Legislature before coming here and um our committees were very different I got to say um not used to quite as much political theater I think as I've had a chance to see uh here in this room today and yesterday but
▶ 3:43:11I appreciate all of you public servants um and experts for coming to share the answers to questions um and to sit through uh uh many speeches about all range of topics um not just remote or inperson work um you know I represent a district that has 27,000 federal workers in Washington's Olympic Peninsula a lot of them Department
▶ 3:43:41of Defense civilian employees um I've got an Olympic National Park employees firefighters a whole range whose uh work experiences look all sorts of different ways you know some who have split unpredictable shifts week to week Rangers in the Olympic National Park um you know firefighters who have different Duty stations food inspectors people who live in really rural remote communities but whose telor
▶ 3:44:12plans allow them to keep the essential offices of our government open and serve my community and my neighbors I also served in the legislature during covid where we had to adapt to um new remote work uh environments that people didn't think were possible until we were able to do them and like you have testified Mr om ali um lots of folks were able to get service who hadn't previously been able to
▶ 3:44:42be served I was really inspired by my my colleague um Miss Simon's comments about um you know disabled community members I'm the older sister to a sibling with who was born with really really complex disabilities and it was um systems like Medicaid and Social Security that allowed her to get the care that she needed and allowed her to live a full life and allowed my parents to be able to ensure that they didn't have to make tough decisions about which bills to play in order for Olivia to get care um
▶ 3:45:12my stepdad had a really dramatic uh heart attack that has put him on Social Security and unable to work um in his life and I am so grateful to the government employees that have helped ensure that he has been able to live a full life too as we think about um as we think about accountability and government government efficiency what the right policies are I'm thinking like I've heard so many folks on this panel say about
▶ 3:45:43how it impacts our neighbors how it impacts the folks who rely on Social Security how it impacts the folks who are counting on Wildfire firefighters and how it impacts our defense Readiness posture as you know someone who represents Naval based Kitsap in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard intermediate maintenance facility where we too were able to find opportunities for telea work and remote work um Miss cross I wonder if you could speak more broadly
▶ 3:46:13than just to the p s Nial Shipyard which is my interest but um how important these work workplace flexibility policies are to attracting recruiting and then retaining Talent um who have in many opportunity many opportunities to go elsewhere to the private sector but who are choosing to stay in work for the people thank you for the question uh research shows on
▶ 3:46:44LinkedIn in their Global Talent Trends report that work life balance often trumps bank balance in terms of what job Seekers are looking for when they are searching for jobs in fact studies show that job Seekers are willing to forgo sometimes up to 20% in pay in order to find more jobs that offer more flexibility a lot of those reasons are because of burnout crisis issues with mental health and well-being sometimes when you're dealing with being a caregiver and a working parent which often
▶ 3:47:14in the sandwich generation we're seeing a lot of by the way federal workers OPM estimated uh about 65% of them are juggling parental care and caregiving responsibilities at the same time not to mention the challenges when you live in rural communities so around the country rural areas like my home state of Maine have been dissipated by rural brain drain where Highly Educated highly skilled Talent had to leave and go find the jobs um so having the ability to have a hyper
▶ 3:47:44sweep site of different kinds of flexibilities not just geographic location flexibility but ones that include flexible work remote work telea work and different kinds of work opportunities allow us to really get the best talent from wherever they are that includes older workers people with disabilities caregivers working mothers spouses foreign spouses and really great by the way Tech Talent who can solve this nation's Innovation problems we need them to come to government and so if we can't allow
▶ 3:48:14those jobs and we can't offer it as a recruitment strategy I'm not sure what's going to happen with our competitiveness thank you thank you uh chair now Rec Mr Palmer from Alabama thank you Mr chairman uh in regard to the concerns that been raised by my Democratic colleagues about how eliminating buildings and and positions might impact the local economy i' just like to point out that remote work has severely impacted the local Economist widely reported uh about how downtown
▶ 3:48:44businesses are struggling in DC because people are not coming downtown to work um Mr uh greszler uh one of the things that concerns me is that the federal government uh makes locality uh pay payments and it depends on the cost of living in the city is Washington DC is one of the most expensive cities one of the highest locality pays have have you looked into whether or not people who are working remotely now are getting the same locality pay that that they were uh coming downtown
▶ 3:49:15Town there're supposed to be but the report from Senator erns that I believe has been entered into the record has a lot of information about that and when there were some spot checks done there are often cases where 80% of employees who should not be receiving that locality based pay adjustment um are in fact receiving it that's could be hundreds of millions of dollars billions of dollars um that that they shouldn't be getting because they're not working in the office so um Mr Al I know you're not there anymore but I think that's something that we might want
▶ 3:49:45to address in this Congress is to make sure that the pay matches uh the location and rather than than paying these higher locality pay payments yes sir it was also stated by one of my Democratic colleagues he he raised questions about whether or not we're actually going to be able to cut 1.5 trillion or something I forgot the exact number that he said and it just shows a lack of understanding of of of the problem for one thing but if you just look at improper payments Miss gesler uh we're
▶ 3:50:15right at 240 billion a year and we're doing everything in 10year Windows when we're talking about cutting 2.5 trillion or whatever the number might be that's over 10 years so if we just reduced improper payments by half that's 1.2 trillion plus interest it probably gets us to that 1.5 trillion but it certainly gets us over halfway to the to the goal of of the Baseline of 2.5 trillion wouldn't you'd agree with that yes you point out improper payments that's something that most Americans don't realize I think it's to the tune of about $1,700
▶ 3:50:45per household per year is just improper payments money that's going to the wrong people and in the wrong amounts um and it is a complex problem and it has to deal with people getting benefits that they weren't entit we're borro every dime of that to send it out improperly yes I see problems there's widespread problems um but there are a lot of savings that well under u under your watch Mr Al uh in 20123 it was 8 billion in improper payments from Social Security and a lot of that had to do with with the backlog due to delays
▶ 3:51:16and and people and and they're they're either underpaid or overpaid most of it was overpayments of like I said 8 billion and there's $23 billion do in Social Security and unrecovered over payments did you make any effort to deal with that yes sir I wasn't there in 2023 but that number sounds right it is a large program well while you were there did you make any effort to to yes sir every two weeks we met with all of the Deputy Commissioners uh for one hour we focused on the things we could do to bring down the overpayments
▶ 3:51:46and also to bring down the underpayments how about payments to to dead people because it when I first came to Congress in 2015 this was I believe I may have been the first member of Congress to actually get this into the budget uh to to deal uh with improper payments and and I think we're were sending out around3 to5 billion dollar a year to people who are dead and in one case uh they were send a Tex to someone who would have been 130 plus years old I believe that we've I believe they've gotten better at that uh however
▶ 3:52:17uh there are instances where because of kind of the automated alerts that um sometimes we see they there's occasions when payments are ceased when we wrongly uh when the agency wrongly thinks that someone has died so that happens also it's a large agency it's a hug a lot of people I think again going back to to the issue of remote work I think there's some times when that's appropriate but I don't think it's totally appropriate at the degree that you're doing it let me ask you this
▶ 3:52:47uh quickly um do you the Constitution says one Congress can't bind another Congress do do you think it's proper that uh an agency or an administrator can bind a Congress or a president the way you have well sir the the term of that contract was actually I do believe but not asking about contract I'm asking about whether or not that's appropriate let me ask you this it's appropriate how much interaction did you have with President Biden during your tenure how much interaction
▶ 3:53:18did you have with President Biden well I talked to the White House all the time times okay did you find him me his mental acuity sufficient for the job I found him to be pretty sharp in the cover up and the LIE excuse me you participated in the cover up and lie that the president had the mental acuity to carry out the functions of the office which our clearly he didn't our headquarters was in our headquarters was in Baltimore I was often in the field I spoke to the White House all the time and um
▶ 3:53:48uh had the support I needed to turn around an agency his staffing has been reduced to a 50-year low right gentlemen's time's expired CH now recognize M Crockett from Texas thank you so much and chairman we may need some ADHD medicine up in here um you know I will applaud my colleagues that understood that this was about telework and didn't somehow bear off into trans children and and Veer off into talking about a president who will go down in history
▶ 3:54:19as one of the best presidents that we have ever had in this country and he was able to do it while we were showing up to work but somehow we physically showed up to the building but we know that this was the most unproductive Congress that we had in the 118th so thank God for Joe Biden who absolutely got so much done in a record amount of time he only had the 117th where he had had actual adults in the room and actually in the 117th the interesting part
▶ 3:54:49is that it was Co and guess what they got to vote remotely and somehow they ended up with the infrastructure act somehow they ended up with the chips and science act somehow they ended up with the first gun bill that we have had to do anything as it relates to gun violence in this country in almost 30 years and honestly the list goes on and so many of your districts are going to benefit for so long because of the work of Joe Biden he only had a Congress to help him out in one term so
▶ 3:55:19God bless him um I will also say as we are talking about the accomplishments of the Biden Harris Administration rule Broadband was a very real thing hold on and I can remember Republicans that did not vote for the rural Broadband celebrating all the money that their states were going to get and the reason that I'm going talk about it is because while I do represent um a pretty urban area now I lived in East Texas I also lived in Western Arkansas so I have lived
▶ 3:55:50in Rural America and one of the interesting things about Rural America and I want Rural America to listen up because most Democrats are not representing very rural areas but let me tell you whether I represent a rural area or not I believe that as a US Representative I should do what makes sense for US citizens and the right thing was to make sure that we did expand Broadband you know what that meant that meant that people in rural America who tend to end up in towns like the one that I lived in in Texas
▶ 3:56:20Orana where they rely on say the paper mill or they rely on the tire plant they rely on these businesses or the chicken plant if for some reason one of those shuts down it shuts down the entire economy but by making sure that Broadband was is was a reality there as well as everywhere else guess what they can actually participate and get some of these jobs but let's talk about about the reality of the struggles that we have when it comes to the federal government because Lord knows if I got out of the federal government I would make
▶ 3:56:50more money too we are missing out on a lot of talent by not trying to make sure that we are offering a competitive environment and when we miss out on that Talent unfortunately it's not a theoretical person that struggles it is the real American citizen that struggles in fact I think the American people are going to recognize that they don't necessarily have the best talented people that are about to run this country and instead we have a lot of trivial Trolls but I'm going to move on to make
▶ 3:57:20sure that I can clear up something Republicans have done a lot to peret to perpetrate the narrative that Mr omali gave away the farm when he reached an agreement with the unions at the Social Security Administration in November 2024 to amend the existing bargaining agreement we know that's false ranking member Connelly showed that Mr om Al's shrewd bargaining tactic SE very little in exchange for averting potentially billions in legal liability to SSA but let's talk about a time right
▶ 3:57:50when departing officials actually did give away the farm and sell out the American people for political gain Miss gretler do you recall when then president Trump's acting Department of Homeland Security deputy secretary Ken Cinelli struck an eight-year agreement with the Union at Immigration and Customs Enforcement on January 19th 2021 one day before President Biden was sworn into office I was not aware of that okay all right well let me tell you about it
▶ 3:58:20so Ken Cinelli who by the way was found to be illegally appointed essentially gave the union deao control over the agency he included a provision in the last second collective bargaining agreement that would have required the Biden Administration to secure quote prior affirmative consent from the ice Union's 7,000 members before enacting any new enforcement policy or practices in addition the agreement specifically authorized the union to reject direct orders from the president including
▶ 3:58:50Mr Biden's order to focus on federal resources on non I'm sorry on violent criminals to protect our communities the agreement would have irrevocably blocked the government's ability to challenge the authority of the ice Union for eight years unlike the deal Mr om Ali was able to get for the American taxpayers with his collective bargaining agreement the Cinelli negotiated agreement was a blatant and egregious attempt by one Administration to tie the hands of his successor in fact it was such a bad deal for the Americans that Tom Homan you may
▶ 3:59:21know the name Trump's current pick for the top border security role which is bordar and former acting director of ice proclaimed it quote not good for the agency I don't recall the outrage on the other side of the aisle in this committee though about that agreement Mr Davis or Miss gesler do you remember any of our Republican members expressing concerns about Mr cinel CBA and and then your time's expired but feel free to answer Miss Crockett's question I don't know anything about it
▶ 3:59:52I'm not aware of it either but I would note that they probably did not follow those rules given the mess that happened at the border okay the last thing that I gentle gentl L's times expired no you complained when somebody we got a UC request okay okay I'm asking for a unanimous consent to enter into the record a March 2021 New York Times article entitled Trump's official last day deal with ice Union ties Biden's hands without objection to order chair recognizes Mr burett from Tennessee
▶ 4:00:22thank you Mr chairman I'd remind the members that the uh much uh um celebrated Transportation bill was done in a six about a 16-hour committee meeting um done by Tork and then that bill after it was passed was probably something we could all live with hold our nose maybe it was then taken I believe to the speaker's office Rewritten with the help of some lobbyist and that bill 85% of it was what we would
▶ 4:00:52say was not traditional transportation and the rules were suspended and we were not allowed to amend it on the floor I always think it's good to put things in perspective Mr Ali I am the 435th most powerful member of Congress so when I ask my questions everybody's already asked all the good ones so I would expect you to either act disgusted or puzzled at every one of my questions all right and and be mad at me like you would at somebody way back if that's if that's possible um is it
▶ 4:01:23true that 230,000 federal employees work remotely I don't know about that but I know at Social Security we have the one of the smaller percentages only 1% work remote As a result of this uh I feel like many federal buildings are left vacant and work out work output is negatively impact would you say that's fair to the American taxpayer I know that in our instance we drove up productivity by a record amount and we
▶ 4:01:53also required more people to show up for more days of onsite I'd like to see that um at some point if somebody I'm not I'm just I really would like to see that in writing somewhere would you say it's accurate that that you all tried to Trump proof the Social Security Administration before leaving it um to join the Democrat National Committee well I haven't joined the committee yet uh I am uh but we did everything that we could to improve customer service during my time there and I ordered
▶ 4:02:23more people back on site in February and we did incorporate that as my time there was expiring coming to an end uh we were able to get an agreement from the one Union that didn't have it in their contract and term of that contract actually was something negotiated before my time how many different unions you deal with I know our post office I think deals with maybe seven or eight we have three three okay um let me ask you this it's been asked but I need to know why did you sign an agreement
▶ 4:02:53with the federal workers union that locks in Tela work through 2029 for um soci SSA employees two reasons um to improve customer service and to continue its Improvement even with the stunning reduction of Staff we are been reduced by Congressional cut to a 50-year low in Staffing even as our beneficiaries continue to rise uh the second reason was the union agreed to
▶ 4:03:23give up certain grievances stretched over a seven to ninee period of time that had the agency in Jeopardy and uh that was something we were trying to get before so we did it did not go backwards on the increased on-site presence that I implemented there that also helped contribute to the record high in productivity and that's that chart that's the highest and and this is audited and has long been audited it was the biggest increase
▶ 4:03:54in productivity on a year-over-year basis at least since 19 or 2013 okay your agreement protects telea work for Social Security employees through 2029 according to the Biden Harris Administration 58875 Social Security employees are telework eligible of those employees employees only 46.9% of them spend their time in the office why did you guarantee most Social Security employees the ability to show up less than half that time well
▶ 4:04:24they all work five days a week they are producing for the American people even though their Staffing's been reduced to a 50-year low but in the agreement it does say management has sold discretion to temporarily change reduce or suspend approved telea work days for any employee office component which is like a division of Social Security or agency-wide due to operational needs and that's consistent with the language that was in the U I believe in the other
▶ 4:04:54two agreements which were negotiated before my time I do remember during Co um I remember one a Democrat chairman was called on somebody and you could hear birds in the background he was obviously on a boat and he said do I hear seagulls in the background and then another one was um I remember in his boxer shorts he did have a tie on those so it coat he had a shirt and tie but when he stood up his they saw his boxer short so um I always thought that that showed that I felt like Tork was not as productive as we once said it
▶ 4:05:24was Mr Davis can you explain how the largescale Tork posture of the federal Workforce was affect has affected your mission to make DC a place and I'm out of time so well I just say Qui clearly hurt the tax base it's hurt incoming revenues it's hurt the Metro System so I remember when the mayor Washington came in here and she petitioned the president to please send people back to work just because of that and I will say it's we I say we handle more constituent service or we have the best constituent
▶ 4:05:54service in the country I would stack my folks against anybody and just when you're dealing with the IRS or any of these other agencies Social Security it just takes to dadgum long you know we're waiting six months to get responses from the IRS we're waiting uh Social Security is just continuation of continuation of uation and um and it's not working thank you Mr chairman thank you chair recognize Mr Gil thank you chairman comr thanks for holding this
▶ 4:06:25hearing today I'm excited to serve on the oversight and reform committee to help eliminate fraud waste and abuse within the federal government um I'm not in inherently against the concept of telor in areas where it can be effective especially in the private sector um but I am highly skeptical of public sector unions bargaining with the American taxpayer uh unlike private sector unions of course
▶ 4:06:55um and the public sector unions don't have to worry about undermining the economic viability of any business or entity um in other words there's not really a limiting principle to what they can ask for um whereas private sector unions can only bargain so much uh before they run their employer out of business um public sector unions can milk working class American taxpayers limitlessly uh I think that's a serious problem and that appears to be exactly what happened
▶ 4:07:25here uh and in the federal government um Tor has proven to be a really sweet deal for union bosses with workingclass Americans picking up the tab uh the government accountability office released a report in November 2024 finding the federal government could not effectively track Tork or its effects for instance the report found that teleworking could be contributing to the IRS correspondence backlog and I can say nothing infuriates
▶ 4:07:56me more than knowing that a woken weaponized IRS is taking forever to respond to my constituents back in Texas 26 uh because they've got employees who are relaxing at home I'd love to see President Trump fix this however um of course the Biden Administration particularly uh former Social Security administrator uh Martin orali have done everything possible to tie his hands uh to allow maximum teleworking former commissioner om
▶ 4:08:26Ali gave the American Federation of government employees a sweet deal courtesy of the taxpayer that locks in maximum telea workking until 2029 despite the fact that President Trump won in a landslide and our party the Republican Party has a very clear mandate to fix the chaos that that the Democrats created including in the federal government like right here uh as has been mentioned former commissioner om Ali is also running to be
▶ 4:08:56the next chairman of the DMC and presumably you're courting those same union bosses that you were cutting deals with not long ago I don't think they have a vote I I knew DC was corrupt but that is that is still astounding um i' like to begin uh with with with Miss gesler um and thank you for being here by the way we appreciate it um you've written a lot about how federal employees could be spending 100% of their time working for unions instead of the taxpayer
▶ 4:09:27due to actions taken by the Biden Administration could you elaborate on that how does this harm uh taxpayer well that gives those Federal unions more leverage they don't have to collect higher fees from their members because they are able to effectively fund their payrolls by having federal employees work for them instead of do the jobs that they were hired to and I think that we should have recognized here on both sides of the aisle that telor can be a good thing and the problem gets down to not being able to enforce it the Biden Administration tried to get agencies to get Workers back into the office people
▶ 4:09:57like Mr omali brought back their own staff but when it comes down to the rank in the file who are the union members you couldn't get them to come back we have acting Secretary of the Department of Labor Julie Sue under the self-proclaimed most pro-union Administration in history unable to get a deal to get Workers to come back into the office 50% of the time and they even said themselves they were arguing with the union and they said this isn't something that you should be able to negotiate over because this is time in Management's
▶ 4:10:27hands um and so the problem is the unions and it's especially problematic that we are paying federal employees to step away from their jobs to do this work that's right and you can tell us what what specific actions could president Trump or congress take um to end this practice I would argue that President Trump has the authority already under his Article 2 constitutional duties to be the head of the Executive but if the unions refuse to comply and to follow orders then Congress might need
▶ 4:10:57to amend the statute to specify that either no CBA authorized under a prior Administration can bind his hands or at least to open it up to the problematic components got it and and you pointed out that the by Administration removed the office of personnel Management's webpage documenting federal employees use of official time uh my Democrat colleagues love to talk about how the Biden Administration is an ethical Administration um and I I'll end
▶ 4:11:27with this just yes or no do you think that this action uh increase transparency in ethics or government in government or not no it reduced transparency thank you I yield My Time gentleman yields back chair oriz is Mr Bigs from Arizona thank you Mr Mr chairman uh Mr oiley uh is it possible to reduce federal discussionary spending by2 trillion doll dollars over 10 years I'm I'm without hurting people I think it's it's a yes or no
▶ 4:11:58question can you do it can you do it you can but you'd hurt a lot of people so so previously you said no you can't do it that was a qu answer to a question over there but I wanted to clarify over 10 years thank you yes and that thanks for answering that question so my next question for you is um can you tell me what the the 2024 uh limitation on administrative expenses amount is that you're operating under which not you now but
▶ 4:12:28right but SSA is operating under now because of the CR Etc yeah it was in the neighborhood of 14 billion 14.22 six billion sound right sound right yeah and that is up over uh fiscal year 23 but flat because of the CRS um for 2024 is that right it's mostly been flat for 10 years well actually that's that's not so it's gone up in some years as high as uh well that's true there was
▶ 4:12:58one year before I got there where you all did allow them to hire some more people if you if you look through it that number has gone up every year in fact if you look at at the um but not as much as their expenses if you look at the uh administrative expens is as a percentage of total cost and please don't interrupt me yes sir if you look at that you will see that even though percentage wise it's gone down um last in the last few years and again I just don't understand why you you
▶ 4:13:28you have to interrupt you don't have to interrupt I'm asking the question I'm making a statement then asking a question and then I'll let you I'll let you talk then okay that'd be great yeah so uh in 2023 uh it was uh overall for uh old age and disability uh that was about one let's see here 1.8% but nominally it went up it went up by $500 billion right not no not
▶ 4:13:58not not 500 million I'm sorry their expenses went up by 600 million so from 2022 to 2023 that number went from 6.74 6 billion to 7.26 billion right I don't I don't have the historical data in front okay all right that's fine what I can tell you though so so the next question is this what's when we look at the percentage of hours uh uh spent by your employees uh
▶ 4:14:29remotely that's uh below do you know what the number is no I know that we only have 1% that work remotely but I'm no longer if if you look at all if you look at all of those people who are working remotely uh it's fewer than uh half are working their hours fewer than half of the hours are being worked in person no we only have 1% that is according to the OM and I'll submit that for the record Mr chairman we only have 1% of our Workforce working remotely
▶ 4:14:59you well you want to talk you want to distinguish between hybrid and and working remotely and we're talking about the number of hours the number of hours less than half I'll submit that to the record that's from om all of our employees work once again once again you don't have a question in front of you I don't know why you feel you got to do that except for you're slick and you want to you want to try to control things but the bottom line is this I want to talk about cases in my district we had a constituent reach out to my casework team I have an excellent casework team they submitted an inquiry
▶ 4:15:29on September 25 2023 you weren't there yet I guess response to the request came in on October 4th stating a tech would review the request and respond within the next week but there was no response my team requested to follow up on November 13th about 6 weeks after we were told we'd get a response within a week again nothing again on January 8th nothing February 26 nothing March 26 20224 all with no response and one more time on April 15 2024 before finally receiving a response
▶ 4:16:00on April 22nd 2024 this is typical we we we this I I know that the reason we get them is because they're having a problem and we see all the problems but that's typical and so I I I I know what your argument is your argument is that you're trying to do more with less but I'm I'm suggesting to you I I live in Maricopa County and panal County arizonas I was trying to see on your little map where you're telling us how great things have gotten and and I was looking
▶ 4:16:30and and I I don't have your before and after picture but what I got is a picture that we're still we're still way way longer than we should be we can put so now uh uh I want you to deal with that shoot I'm out of time but um I thought I was going to get to answer a question now you did answer some questions plus you got to interrupt a few times as well so yield back to Mr chairman gentlemen yields back and without objection we're going to enter into the record the data that you uh requested
▶ 4:17:01two other UC requests Mr chairman uh the CRS SSA uh table on on ad limitations administrative expenses and the document that they have supporting that and also a news article from just the news State called State home bureaucrats without objection so order chair now recognizes Mr Higgins from Louisiana Mr chairman I acknowledge that the service levels are not what they could and should be okay we'll reset
▶ 4:17:31the clock and recognize Mr Higgins from Louisiana well thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman one of the benefits of having other committee obligations and arriving at oversight committee behind my colleagues that I get to listen to all the testimony um Mr chairman this the this this is
▶ 4:18:01social security for one hour 28 minutes 25 seconds phone number 800 it's a number for Social Security this this what our elders have to listen to these are our elders my man yes sir the reason they're calling when I have a question
▶ 4:18:31for you I'll ask it that's the way this works the reason our elders call for help is because they need help not because they want to listen to elevator music music they want to talk to a human being the first 5 minutes of this on hold for an hour and a half Mr chairman was instructions to get to various websites which our elders have difficulty doing I have difficulty doing it I is
▶ 4:19:01frequently confused and alone scared don't have like laptops and and apps and things they have a telephone they want to talk to Human being but wait they have a local Social Security office they could go to right that's a historical model no I give you exhibit B this is from your website or was before you ran for
▶ 4:19:32DNC and retired in November after negotiating this deal and you think ties the hands are an incoming executive we're going to defeat that in article three I'll go and get into that in a minute but from the website does listen to this America pay attention what's happening to our elders if you need in-person help you must first make an appointment you know how you make the appointment on the telephone you know who answers the phone nobody
▶ 4:20:02this is a greatly efficient Social Security Administration all of our offices we struggle and work so hard to care for our elders and the number one complaint is that they can't get any answers or even anybody on the phone at Social Security so I want you to know Governor Mali that I completely support your run for DNC chair you you have a
▶ 4:20:33certain air of elitist superiority that that that perfectly reflects your party and I completely support your run I hope you get it earlier in your testimony you stated that the contract you signed that uh presumes to to commit the executive branch and the federal government through 2029 to a union agreement in fact they hail it in CNN as uh
▶ 4:21:03Social Security Union secures telea and it said the deal will secure t workk for SSA employees through 2029 that's a union guy to CNN you said it doesn't tie the hands of the incoming Administration I happen to agree with you Governor but but that's because the founders were wise enough to divide the powers of our government and we're going to defeat the contract you sign
▶ 4:21:33in article three watch watch us do it but in the terms of the contract it states and it language in article 41 Section 3 Strikes the words that the commissioner will determine a number of scheduled Tork days if any eligible positions and percentages of employees permitted to telework and replaces it with the commissioner will adhere to the current number of telea workk days eligible positions
▶ 4:22:03and percentages of employees permitted to work Tork as of the date of this agreement until October 25th 2029 but by some measure you say yeah that doesn't tie the hands of the incoming Administration that was your testimony about an hour and a half ago before I got on hold with Social Security that so let me just say that you know manto man brother I respect you you know you're standing your ground you're here today
▶ 4:22:33on fire you know it and I I I appreciate that so manto man you and I can probably get along pretty good but it's a mischaracterization of our position Mr chairman Mr ranking member to say that we have a pro that Republican conservatives and fiscal Hawks like me have a problem with the federal employees we have a problem with federal employees failing to perform and and we associate the
▶ 4:23:04failure to perform with with realities that we face you want to talk to us in person get an appointment want get an appointment make a phone call we don't answer the phone the that failure to perform is the issue Mr chairman Mr ranking member that's our issue with the federal government employees and we associate it with not showing up for work through telea workk so let me say that those federal employees
▶ 4:23:34that do not show up for work they're going to get fired Mr chairman I would have how you all chair uh gentleman s expired chair recognize Mr Crane from Arizona thank you Mr chairman uh thank you to everybody on the panel for showing up today uh and holding this hearing we're obviously here to conduct critical oversight about the inefficiencies within the federal government surrounding telework policy most Americans are aware of this practice but for those who aren't it's basically when employees
▶ 4:24:05are allowed not to come into the office and they're allowed to work from home one of the troubling parts of the data in front of us is how even after after the covid pandemic federal employees were not forced to come back to work under the Biden Administration another troubling thing that we're we've learned about is that Mr om Ali who sits in front of us today and as the former head of Social Security signed a contract with the labor union right before resigning this contract which was signed after the 2024 presidential
▶ 4:24:35election would allow 98% of federal workers within Social Security Workforce nearly 60,000 people to work with remotely over the next four years this lasts the entirety of the Trump Administration which goes completely against the American people's mandate to root out inefficiencies in Washington and become better stewards of American taxpayer money clearly Mr omali now that he's retired will not have to oversee or be responsible for any of the inefficiencies or lack of productivity
▶ 4:25:06within that agency now let's zoom out for a minute real quick let's look at the context of the time that we live in where 80% of Americans do not trust the federal government and it's exposing evidence like we are today that adds to the overwhelming distrust of the federal government and bureaucrats like Mr Ali let's also take a moment to recognize the economic issues that Americans are dealing with right now 36% of Americans are working multiple jobs to make ends meet my constituents
▶ 4:25:36in Arizona are paying around 26% more every month for the same goods and services compared to 202 when President Biden took office most importantly our federal government is now $36 trillion in counting in debt so while Americans go back to work they also have to suffer from inefficiencies and Reckless decisionmaking of bureaucrats like Mr om Ali numerous Federal buildings here in Washington DC are empty these buildings are only 25% occupied
▶ 4:26:06with the lease electricity and utility still being paid on the taxpayers dime the lights are on but no one is home this is costing the American taxpayer an estimated $15 billion annually now Democrats in the hearing today will tell you that Tork policies of the federal government and some surveys are less than counterparts in the private sector trying to show that everything's okay and there's nothing to see here well let's be honest that's not quite a fair comparison number one it's much more difficult to fire a federal employee
▶ 4:26:37if it is discovered they are gaming the system number two federal employees are paid by the taxpayer whereas private employees are not private companies have to be efficient and profitable to pay employees I'm going to start my questions now Mr om Ali I was reading through your bio it looks like you served as member of Baltimore City Council mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland you also said here today that you ran your own Law Firm is that correct yes sir you're under oath today is that correct Mr Ali to tell the truth I said yes sir okay great
▶ 4:27:07um when you own your own law form Mr uh Ali did most of your employees work in the office or from home oh it was a very small firm it that's not what I asked you sir I didn't have any employees you didn't have any employees okay interesting okay got it when I joined another firm there was a larger number of employees but I wasn't managing follow up real quick so when you so you didn't you didn't have any you didn't have any employees right that's what you just said that's true in my solo practice I did not I was also on the city council
▶ 4:27:37at the time okay let's just let's play a hypothetical then Mr Ali cuz I clearly tell you have some common sense you're a smart man or you wouldn't be in that seat if if you did have employees at this business that you own what would be some of the advantages of having them come into the office Congressman I readily admit that and that's why I brought more people on campus on site at Social Security uh we I believe that the people that are managing and figuring out problems like how to better serve the American people
▶ 4:28:08with fewer and fewer staff need to be back did you sign a contract tying president Trump's hands and really tying his hands and trying to bring back the Federal Workforce so that the American taxpayers can be better represented and we can have more efficiencies for their hard-earned money yeah the the teration of the contract was actually something that preceded me but what I did do was I amended it because they were the last Union that did not have the balance of
▶ 4:28:38on-site and Tor in their contract so I did do that they W Mr chairman one last one last one last statement I think Mr Higgins did about as good of a job as anybody I heard pointing out how disastrous the administration that you led has become holding up his phone playing the elevator music as he called into your old agency and he's been on hold for an hour and a half and then showed you that if senior citizens or anybody else
▶ 4:29:08wants to make an appointment they have to call that same number and wait for an hour and a half so I'm sorry sir but I find it ironic and pretty sad that you come in here talking today about what a great job you've done how efficient you've been and how responsible you've been with the American taxpayer dollar and because of all that sir I actually think you'll do a great job as a DNC chair Mr chairman gentleman times expired chair recognize it's Mr Timmons from South Carolina thank you Mr
▶ 4:29:38chairman and thank you all for being here today I last so we are almost done um and I want to apologize going last it's going to be hard to hit some new new topics but maybe we'll hit some old ones in a different way um as you know this committee has jurisdiction over the city of Washington DC last Congress my Republican colleagues and I clashed with mayor Bowser over homelessness and crime in the city with City Council Members over the lunacy of DC election laws and with officials in the bid Administration over DC's criminal friendly criminal code particularly
▶ 4:30:08as it relates to bond but today miraculous ly almost all of us seem to be in agreement on this one important issue returning federal employees to in-person work and away from work from home agreements from Tor Mr Davis um could you briefly explain to the committee how vital the federal Workforce is to the economy of Washington DC it's over 40% of the workforce uh in the city itself uh small businesses we've had over over 100 have failed o under this
▶ 4:30:39the buildings are empty the downtown tax BAS has dropped significantly um and it's hurting not only the city's economy a lot of small businesses as I've said have gone under but the Metro System itself where there's a huge Federal investment is geared to take a lot of people more into work than are going people just aren't going in because they don't have to go in I couldn't agree more while it has improved my commute time um I think that's the only good thing about it right and I'll give that up if it means getting people back to work uh Miss Kesler
▶ 4:31:09could you speak to the importance of federal employees specifically those working for the Social Security Administration returning to their offices yes we've heard from a lot of members today who have to take those complaints because they aren't able to get through to the Social Security Office whether it's being able to get somebody on the phone or get into the office especially for elderly Americans who need to be able to see somebody face to face you need to have people there thank you for that um now some officials in the Biden Harris Administration deliberately slowed the transition back to the office by ensuring that telework
▶ 4:31:40would continue for years to come let me be clear president Trump uh this committee and countless members on both sides of the aisle are committed to Bringing federal employees back to their offices where they belong city councilman chairman uh Phil melson's Representatives called the possible outcome of lawmakers Tork POS policies immensely consequential to the city of Washington DC mayor Bowser called on President Biden to take decisive action to get most federal workers back to the office Biden's Chief of Staff Jeff Zs sent not one but two emails to Cabinet
▶ 4:32:10leadership in 2023 and EMP izing that aggressively increasing in-person work was a top priority for the president I can go on and on it was even in the State of the Union Address so mral I guess my question my first question is could you clarify whether the Tork agreement you signed with afge includes any Clauses or Provisions that would allow a future Administration to terminate or modify the agreement before its expiration in 2029 yes sir here's the part I've read several times now
▶ 4:32:40management has so discretion to to temporarily change reduce or suspend approved telea workk days for any employees office component or agency-wide due to operational needs so the next um Social Security administrator could unilaterally modify that contract well it's the language is in the contract and it would and they would and the term of the term here is for operational needs not out of spite or not to try to drive Mass Exodus of employees which would just drive up
▶ 4:33:10weight times we could get um plenty of studies to show that uh for operational needs it would um be necessary to bring people back to work um I guess I want to talk about the timing um they do work five days a week you know I think certain jobs um oh I guess another do you track their productivity yes sir you would be amazed at the uh amount of data this agency uh collects and tracks I was sharing earlier that Drew Ferguson
▶ 4:33:41who left your company now but he um he uh he came up and he actually saw the realtime monitoring of those uh folks that are on the teleservice center lines and by the way if somebody presses the button for a call back that is a service that's now there that was not there a few months ago however we are at this time the agency has been been struggling with the increased volume from Cola why are there such long wait times um Congress Higgins just said 90 minutes put that one
▶ 4:34:11back up because the Staffing Congressman has been reduced to a 50-year low even as the workload and the number of beneficiaries has climbed by like 50% since 2000 and that's the that's that's the operational challenge you know when the White House called me and asked me to go there and try to turn the agency in a better Direction which we did it's not healed yet it's not the level of service that any any of us would want I mean we used to have a high level of service uh
▶ 4:34:41but we did turn it in a better Direction but really we need the agency seniors people with disabilities need Congress to restore the funding that has been so greatly reduced over the last 10 years that would allow an adequate number of staff not more staff than they need but an adequate number in order to process the claims answer the funds and do those other things I think we're going to find some efficiencies um particularly by relocating and investing in new areas of the country to maybe address some call
▶ 4:35:11issues um you know if there's somebody working in Hawaii they can answer Fones different than if they're working in Maine and we have 24 call centers all across the country and we just ramped up in Albuquerque actually great well I I'm passed out of time uh Mr chairman thank you I yield back chair now recognize Mr Langworthy from New York thank you very much Mr chairman and I appreciate the opportunity once again serve on the oversight committee under your leadership uh this is the best committee to fight um to make sure that we have transparency in the people's government in address fraud
▶ 4:35:42waste and abuse and there's no better way to start that mission in the 119th Congress than by addressing the harmful consequences of abuses of the work at home policies across the federal government uh commissioner Ali you've been asked here today because the Social Security Administration is one of the Prime examples of a work from home policy gone wrong uh while you have worked overtime to guarantee Social Security Administration Employees the luxury of telework uh until 2029 uh my constituents they still
▶ 4:36:12sitting at home wondering why they haven't heard a response from your employees in months and in some cases years uh my District staff handled nearly 400 Social Security related cases last year uh many of which stemm from outrageous delays in simply getting a response and that's why they turn to our office uh you and I both know this is completely unacceptable by any metric uh in a disservice to all of our constituents and the millions of Americans who rely on Social Security as their main source of income commissioner
▶ 4:36:42Social Security uh data shows that processing times have not improved since fiscal year 2020 and have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels uh furthermore a study by the Stanford Institute for economic policy research also found that Tork policies have generally led to declines in productivity given this how could you believe uh that our constituents can expect faster responses from your offices with telea workk in place actually we I've changed the policy on on T work
▶ 4:37:12I brought more people back to the all of the nine Regional headquarters as well as to the Baltimore and Washington headquarters and actually a lot of processing times have been improved in fact the ones that most of your constituents call for the greatest volume is the retirement and that one we have returned to 87% timely within two weeks it hasn't been at that number for seven years and then earlier put up the map we were showing that we reduced to the lowest level in
▶ 4:37:4230 years the backlog of alj cases and this the dark green represents 270-day processing time and that's the first time in 30 years we've gotten it down to that at the beginning of last year it was 450 but your point and the main point and what I hope we acknowledge today is that when you reduce Staffing at this agency to a 50-year low while de demographics increase its customer base and as a matter of math
▶ 4:38:13we just have too few employees serving as many people as they need to serve but we are serving them better at the end of last year than we were certainly at the beginning of last year but you could make it uh sure I I I I I'm I'm not only hearing for my constituents that are struggling to get responses from your employees on the phones but they're facing challenges with walk-in appointments uh the field office is in my district primarily serve an older population with limited access or familiarity uh with new technology ology this appointment only
▶ 4:38:43policy is creating a significant barrier to resolving their issues in in the needless extension of telor for Social Security employees only exacerbates these challenges uh our our consentes are being left out in the cold with very limited ability to walk in speak to someone face to face and get those Social Security uh concerns addressed yes or no was enforcing full 5day office staffing at field offices particularly in our rural areas in districts like mine ever discussed a negotiation with the American Federation of
▶ 4:39:13government employees no we did not discuss that aspect uh I was not directly involved in the negotiations but we did in February 2nd I had a deadline where we had to look at the teleservice I mean the telework and on-site requirements we did not change it in the field offices those folks had returned five days a week uh and U uh two days teler I mean two days telework and three days on site we did not changed that one but we changed
▶ 4:39:43others and the recent thing that you mentioned about encouraging people to make appointments when I left the agency it was still very clear that anyone can walk in to a field office but just like you know I used to be governor of of Maryland and most State mvas have switched to an appointment model that doesn't mean that people can't walk in they still can but the appointment model allows them to spread to it makes it very difficult our seniors
▶ 4:40:13that are Les far less tech savvy are having difficult times they can still walk in uh were any concerns raised about the challenges that less than 5 days a week of in-person Staffing would pose on Rural and older Americans who depend on these field offices again the field offices are open five days a week they're actually open for longer hours now than they were open preco where they used to close uh on for half a day I think on on Wednesdays that was before my time so they've been open since Co commissioner my constituents taxpaying
▶ 4:40:43American citizens who have paid into the system for their entire working lives they rely on social security staff to address their concerns in a timely fashion and we wouldn't have that volume coming at us if there wasn't an issue it's plain and simple without a full five day a week in-person Staffing they will not be served adequately because of irresponsible telework agreements uh I am glad to see an end of this Administration that has time again put the dictates of unelected bureaucrats before the needs of everyday hard work Americans and this is why I support president
▶ 4:41:13Trump's forthcoming uh agenda and challenge to the agreement between Social Security Administration and the afge and I will continue to advocate for a return to the office policies across the federal government and with that Mr chairman I yield back Gman yields uh that concludes our questions so uh in closing I want to thank our Witnesses once again for their excellent testimony today I now yield raking member Conley for some closing remarks I thank the chair and I want to thank our Witnesses
▶ 4:41:44um I do think that the maybe the premise of this hearing for some on the other side of the aisle uh clearly has been disproved Tor is neither good nor bad it is a tool to be used to improve productivity to recruit and retain the workforce of the future and to try to provide more efficient services to our works I believe uh Governor
▶ 4:42:14Ali has shown us multiple times today a productivity chart that productivity went up not down Miss cross has testified that it can be a very creative tool without which we are at an enormous disadvantage with a huge Workforce that is ready to retire and needs to be replaced with a younger generation if we don't get smart about the deployment of technology including Tor we will be at a
▶ 4:42:45distinct disadvantage with respect to the private sector which can compete hammer and Tong Congressman Davis wisely said to us it has to be balanced it's not a Mindless anti- tellor approach nor is it a Mindless hey let's all work wherever we want whenever we want approach it has to be structured it has to be uh architecture created and it has to be as Mr Davis said
▶ 4:43:16balanced I believe that Governor om Ali must have told us multiple times I think I counted seven where you quoted the contractual language that somehow didn't penetrate some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle you did not tie a future present's hands in fact there's an escape Clause managers of the future who succeed you if they determine that operations require it can
▶ 4:43:46nullify the Tork agreement nullify it that is not tying anyone's hands and you also pointed out again sometimes to attention that you are dealing with the lowest ratio of employees to beneficiaries of the last half century true and nonetheless productivity went Tri up if we made more Investments instead of talking about slashing
▶ 4:44:17government Investments we actually might improve customer service dramatically and and and that even underscores how how impressive it was you were able to make those gains despite the fact that you were starved of the kind of resources you need dealing with the explosion of beneficiaries which is only going to grow even more uh as our population ages to uh over the next uh decade or so
▶ 4:44:47so with that Mr chairman I think we've learned a lot in this hearing I hope we've debunked some Miss and I hope we also can tackle real problems working on a bipartisan basis to try to make sure that Social Security works for every American I thank the chair gentlemen yields back and again I want to thank our Witnesses uh with all due respect M Mr ranking member I think you and I were at different hearings uh and I would go so far as to say I would welcome my colleagues on the other
▶ 4:45:17side of the aisle to go home and campaign with their constituents and brag about how much more efficient and productive the Social Security Administration has been I think that would solve some problems that we have because in the next election I think we would have a bigger majority and maybe be able to govern a little easier but uh at the end of the day uh nobody nobody uh on our side of the aisle who has case workers that deal with the Social Security Administration or any
▶ 4:45:47other government agency in the body Administration for that matter would be able to say with a straight face that any agency especially the Social Security Administration has become more efficient it has become harder to get people on the phone uh and I think that when this issue has become on the Forefront and it happened Mr Ali really when we started hearing people that in the outgoing body Administration say they were going to Trump
▶ 4:46:18proof the the uh the federal government and with the signing of your contract extending the the Tork policies uh I think people have been outraged I think it's brought this issue to the Forefront and the American people who get up every day and fight the traffic and have to get their kids to school on time and get to work on time uh and work hard and pay their taxes when they when they hear about the significant percentage of federal employees
▶ 4:46:48who aren't having to do this they're they're outraged by it and I think that uh that they expect Congress to do something about it so I hope you received our message today federal workers must show up for the American people that's why I'm reintroducing the stopping home office Works unproductive problems Act or the showup ACT again this Congress the showup ACT returns federal employees telework to no more than pre-pandemic levels
▶ 4:47:19we understand that there are always going to be certain employees who Tork we have field representatives in our offices they have an office but we expect them to go to City Council meetings and chamber meetings and funerals and things like that that is what a telor employee with the federal government does but the majority of workers the overwhelming majority of workers have to work from the office and there's no reason
▶ 4:47:49why we we can't go back to pre-pandemic levels which is what the show up act does that means from the day of enactment the federal Workforce must show up to the office for work that's what the American people want that's what we want last Congress throughout this committee's investigation on the federal agency Tork policies the Biden Heritage Administration could not answer simple questions about how many federal employees never come into the office and I think several times today you cited well we have employees coming to work three
▶ 4:48:19days a week well they're getting paid for five days a week work five days and there you know there are employees in other offices that we've heard come to come to the office one day a week or two days a week so they say Well they're they're not tele workking because they have to come to office every now and then that's not the way it works that's not the way it works in the private sector and that's not the way it should work for the federal government this and other serious problems are highlighted in a recent report prepared by the committee majority staff titled the lights are on
▶ 4:48:50but everyone but everyone is at home while the new Administration will largely will enter largely vacant Federal agency offices so I ask unanimous consent to enter this report into the record without objection to ordered I look forward to working with the incoming Trump Administration he's been very transparent about his vision to make the federal government more efficient and I think that you're going to be hearing a lot about that especially in this committee which has jurisdiction on the federal Workforce
▶ 4:49:20uh a lot over the next several months so uh hopefully the American taxpayers will get a better return on their investment and at the very least the federal Workforce will have to show up for work like they do uh so with that and without objection all members will have five legislative days within which to submit materials in add add written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses if there's no further Business Without objection the committee stands adjourned thank you
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