Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joined Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) to demand answers from President Biden’s top personnel heads regarding plans to bring federal workers back into the office. In a letter to the heads of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) the bipartisan group of senators express concern that the agencies have not instituted plans to transition federal workers back to in-person responsibilities.
“We are writing to express our concerns about the lack of federal agency work plans to transition federal workers back to in-person operations,” the senators wrote. “We respectfully request that you take effective and safe action to transition federal agencies back to the physical workplace to ensure they can adequately serve the public.”
Their letter follows legislation the senators introduced in February that would direct federal agencies to submit a comprehensive plan for resuming in-person work. Grassley also joined his colleagues on a similar letter in November citing examples of government task backlogs getting worse due to out-of-office operations. The senators’ efforts are in response to complaints from constituents who have been unable to access federal services despite repeated calls from the President and Congress for federal agencies to resume in-person operations.
“Many of our constituents, particularly those in rural communities and areas without broadband, lack adequate access to federal services. It is time to reopen all in-person essential services for the benefit of the American public,” the senators wrote.
In March, marking two years since the start of the pandemic, Grassley expressed frustration that federal agencies – funded by taxpayers and created to serve taxpayers – were still closed or partially closed.
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