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

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[quote=Anonymous]I’d love this. I have gone in a sum total of one day since COVID— to clean out my office when we gave up our leased space and get my new PIV card.   I’m teleworking 5 days a week and have Ben since 3/2020. But, my ODS is not my home. And, I was 60% telework pre-COVID.  My OFS, which I have literally never seen is in DC— and the building has enough room non-BU- employees— basically, managers— to hotel twice a week.  If I lose power or internet and can’t work from home, my manager has to see if there is room for me to come into our building that day. If there is, I get two hours of Admin time to drive in, or can take leave. If the building is full, I just get Admin leave for the day because there is nowhere to put me. (I do have sensitive conversations involving PII and PHI— and work in our extra bedroom with the door closed unless the house is empty, before anyone starts).

We gave up two full buildings in one DMV location and three floors in another large building in the DMV between 2021 and 2023 when leases expired. And we all have our assigned ODS as the one small building they retained that can’t even hold our managers 3 days a week on a hotel if basis.   They are literally thousands of seats short of bringing us back. And our CBA extends current telework levels until 2029. So, good luck with that.

Nevertheless, I’m required to live within 50 miles of my ODS in downtown DC, even though I have never worked from (or even set foot in) the building. I would absolutely take the pay cut if they would remove the live within 50 miles of DC provision and make me full remote.  My last kid is a senior in college. My DH is full remote and could work from anywhere. And we have aging parents we’d like to be near, who live in a much lower COL area. We also about 800k in equity in our home.  Given that we’d downsize to a retirement sized home, with decent office home space, we could probably just buy all cash and lose the mortgage payment. Which is more that my salary would be cut.

The only thing keeping us in the DMV right now is the requirement that I give within 50 miles of my office. And with telework up in the air, we want to move, but are frozen in place waiting to see what the permanent decision is. And we have been waiting for a permanent decision for two years.  If my DC ODS goes away, we’d move within a year to a lower COL, even if we could retain the higher COL by staying in the DMV. It would be a win-win.

But, DOGE would need to admit we are not going back in person. and remove our DC office as my ODS, and make full remote official. But, I’m praying they do. With kids and VA state colleges out of the equation, and elderly parents needing more help, I’ll take the pay cut and move to a sunnier, less hectic, less expensive area where we can lose out mortgage. [/quote]

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