Federal workers who telework one day a week could lose locality pay

[Anonymous]

Or they could release some of the leased office space (and maybe lease out some of the federally owned buildings) and save some money. There is a federal office across the street from us that they spent about a decade renovating — it reopened years before the pandemic and I’ve never seen anyone going in or out or working there. Maybe doge could look into that?

What’s the current system with full remote workers though? If you are technically out of a dc office do you get dc locality pay? I know at least some business that pay alll their fully remote workers on their midwestern salary scale.

[Anonymous]

So the party who was elected in order to lower grocery prices is now going to tackle important things like renaming the Gulf of Mexico and trying to pass ridiculous bills in the hope of getting feds to quit.

How much more out of touch could the Republican Party be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!!! Right because someone that teleworks ONCE per week is doing so from Texas.

Did you miss the "at least" part. I have colleagues who are full time teleworkers and live in Texas.

This would hit feds outside of the DMV significantly more.

Not PP, but I think the point is that if it is really targeted at people who do not live in the DMV, then the threshold should be higher than "at least" once per week.

And the people who DO live in the DMV and telework one day per work would be hit a lot harder because they are incurring DC locality expenses, while somebody in rural TX has just been benefitting from something they aren't entitled to.

Wait, I didn’t think fully remote workers got locality pay? My agency is based in DC but we have remote workers all over. My understanding is you get paid based on where you live, not where your headquarters are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!!! Right because someone that teleworks ONCE per week is doing so from Texas.

Did you miss the "at least" part. I have colleagues who are full time teleworkers and live in Texas.

This would hit feds outside of the DMV significantly more.

Not PP, but I think the point is that if it is really targeted at people who do not live in the DMV, then the threshold should be higher than "at least" once per week.

And the people who DO live in the DMV and telework one day per work would be hit a lot harder because they are incurring DC locality expenses, while somebody in rural TX has just been benefitting from something they aren't entitled to.

Wait, I didn’t think fully remote workers got locality pay? My agency is based in DC but we have remote workers all over. My understanding is you get paid based on where you live, not where your headquarters are.

Locality pay isn't just DC. We do get locality pay for our locality, which is usually less than DC locality but on my team we have a couple of people in CA and NY making slightly more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!!! Right because someone that teleworks ONCE per week is doing so from Texas.

Did you miss the "at least" part. I have colleagues who are full time teleworkers and live in Texas.

This would hit feds outside of the DMV significantly more.

Not PP, but I think the point is that if it is really targeted at people who do not live in the DMV, then the threshold should be higher than "at least" once per week.

And the people who DO live in the DMV and telework one day per work would be hit a lot harder because they are incurring DC locality expenses, while somebody in rural TX has just been benefitting from something they aren't entitled to.

Wait, I didn’t think fully remote workers got locality pay? My agency is based in DC but we have remote workers all over. My understanding is you get paid based on where you live, not where your headquarters are.

Before the pandemic some people would keep their duty station in DC and work a few days a week in the office. But I don't think anyone does that anymore.

My duty station in the computer system is literally my house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or they could release some of the leased office space (and maybe lease out some of the federally owned buildings) and save some money. There is a federal office across the street from us that they spent about a decade renovating — it reopened years before the pandemic and I’ve never seen anyone going in or out or working there. Maybe doge could look into that?

What’s the current system with full remote workers though? If you are technically out of a dc office do you get dc locality pay? I know at least some business that pay alll their fully remote workers on their midwestern salary scale.

It’s based on where you live if you’re remote. So they aren’t getting DC pay. But they may be getting at least some locality pay depending on their metro area. It could be a sizeable payout to get rest of US pay.

That said I was looking more at the bill and it looks like they want to move to more of a performance system where employees exceeding expectations get more pay and also those who meet or exceed will get extra benefits such as telework. So it seems like they’re trying to make it more of a carrot for good performers.

As someone with multiple years of making all 5s, I would love to make more $ and get extra perks. So I’m not opposed in theory. But I don’t really trust the intentions of the politicians trying to pass this legislation.

I wish we could have a bipartisan group who genuinely have the country’s best interest at heart and who respect the work that Feds do. Instead we have a bunch of idiots who are trying to burn it all down as some sort of media gimmick to get more attention.

[Anonymous]

That said I was looking more at the bill and it looks like they want to move to more of a performance system where employees exceeding expectations get more pay and also those who meet or exceed will get extra benefits such as telework. So it seems like they’re trying to make it more of a carrot for good performers.

Thank you for actually reading the bill and not headlines! That's good information.

[Anonymous]

You realize all the RTO bills are performance theater, right? They get some things to feed the base so they don’t have to answer to all the other pressing questions.

[Anonymous]

Maybe
Might
Could


Don't ask for trouble. If it happens it happens. Why are you worried about something that MIGHT happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!!! Right because someone that teleworks ONCE per week is doing so from Texas.

We all know that people who telework one day a week are using it for target runs, doctor’s appointments and laundry.

I know people in the office playing candy crush and scrolling TikTok all day. That is a management problem not telework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!!! Right because someone that teleworks ONCE per week is doing so from Texas.

Did you miss the "at least" part. I have colleagues who are full time teleworkers and live in Texas.

This would hit feds outside of the DMV significantly more.

Not PP, but I think the point is that if it is really targeted at people who do not live in the DMV, then the threshold should be higher than "at least" once per week.

And the people who DO live in the DMV and telework one day per work would be hit a lot harder because they are incurring DC locality expenses, while somebody in rural TX has just been benefitting from something they aren't entitled to.

Wait, I didn’t think fully remote workers got locality pay? My agency is based in DC but we have remote workers all over. My understanding is you get paid based on where you live, not where your headquarters are.

Yes but some of us were hired remote while living in the DC metro pay area (which stretches from PA to nearly Richmond). I'd absolutely take a 30k pay cut over having to commute 5 hours a day or move somewhere a house will cost 4x as much with current prices and rates. I'm not optimistic that I'll get the choice.

[Anonymous]

I’ve known a couple colleagues who live a plane ride away from DC but fly in every week for in-office days. So, I guess some people do actually do that but it seems really expensive and disruptive. Two of the people were political, but one is career who used to work in a field office but was hired to HQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you rather loose locality pay to be able to telework at least one day a week or rather keep locality pay and return to work 5 days a week?

DH is a remote GS-12 who moved up last year, and live in a lower CoL and have a low interest rate on our mortgage. It’s still more than he made last year, so we’d suck it up and stay put.

The worst case scenario for us would be RTO, then later that year moving HQ to a flyover red state. We couldn’t handle that many moves.

[Anonymous]

Seems like a very reasonable proposal.

[Anonymous]

Curious why some think this will not pass? To me it seems like something that actually could pass unlike cutting jobs, requiring in person 5 days/week, or getting rid of whole agencies.