{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://newhouse.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/newhouse-introduces-bill-reform-telework-locality-pay-federal-employees", "Newhouse Introduces Bill To Reform Telework Locality Pay for Federal Employees", "2024-10-20", "2024", "2024-10", "Republican", "House", "WA", "Dan Newhouse", "N000189", "newhouse.house.gov", "newhouse", "https://newhouse.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "This week, Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA-04) introduced The Federal Employee Return to Work Act to crack down on wasteful government spending and incentivize federal employees to return to in-person work. Federal employees who telework from home currently receive annual locality bonuses despite not being required to physically attend their offices located in a high-cost-of-living area. This bill is the House companion to U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana\u2019s bill.\n\n\u201cThe federal government pays for massive offices for agency employees in Washington, D.C. and we now know that 17 of the 24 federal agencies are using less than a quarter of their space because of work from home employees,\u201d said Rep. Newhouse.\n\nNewhouse continued, \u201cIf agencies wish to allow their employees to work from home, that is within their right to do so. But if they do, then the government should not be paying locality bonuses to those employees and they should be treated like any other work from home federal employee that doesn\u2019t receive such a bonus. Taxpayers pay for federal buildings and salaries; it is time to stop wasting their money on empty buildings and unneeded work from home bonuses.\u201d\n\nU.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said, \u201cFederal employees get paid extra to work in higher-cost cities. But what if they don\u2019t show up to work? Why should they get paid?\u201d said Dr. Cassidy. \u201cIf you don\u2019t show up for work, you don\u2019t get paid at the same rate just for teleworking.\u201d\n\nThe U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 17 of the 24 federal agencies were using 25% or less of their headquarters building\u2019s capacity at the beginning of 2023.\n\nGAO identified six agencies that were on average 91% vacant while their employees still received a 16.44% locality bonus compared to the rest of the country, regardless of their in-office attendance. These agencies included the Social Security Administration, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.\n\nThe bill excludes certain federal employees who telework at least one day a week from receiving raises and special locality bonuses for their office location being in a high-cost-of-living area despite working from home.\n\nIn the bill, the term \u201ccovered employee\u201d means \u201can employee who teleworks not fewer than 1 day, or in the case of an alternative work schedule, not less than 20 percent a week.\u201d The term does not include an employee who teleworks not fewer than 1 day a week; is disabled and receives reasonable accommodations; is a member of the Foreign Service; Federal law enforcement; Armed Services; or any other employee, the official worksite of whom is not described in section 531.605(a)(1) of title 5.\n\nIf the employee meets the definition of \u201ccovered employee,\u201d then they may not receive an annual adjustment under section 5303 of title 5. They shall be paid at the rate of basic pay under the applicable grade under the locality pay area designated as \u201cRest of U.S.\u201d\n\nFull bill text can be found here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:57:20Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://newhouse.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/newhouse-introduces-bill-reform-telework-locality-pay-federal-employees"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9628850966691971, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}