State Auditor: A Return to Telework Could Save $225M

In an affirmation of what many state workers have been arguing, the California State Auditor has issued a new report outlining the significant savings the state could achieve through prolonged telework.

In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom roiled unions and state workers by ratcheting up the number of days in the office from three to four a week. Some, like the SEIU Local 1000, pushed back, managing to secure a one-year reprieve for their 100,000 members, but many more of the state’s 240,000 or so employees weren’t so lucky.

While the report, released Aug. 12, stopped short of calling for a return to pandemic-era remote work, it underscored the need for fewer days in the office to realize substantial savings and avoid further cost increases associated with adding even more office space to the state’s roster.

There is the potential for an estimated maximum of $225 million in savings, assuming a return to the two-day on-premises workweeks of 2022 as COVID restrictions began to loosen. If such a plan were adopted, the report cited that state-owned and leased space could be reduced by 30 percent.

“If the Legislature would like to achieve some of the potential savings that we have identified in our assessment of the use of office space under teleworking conditions, it should amend state law to require departments to identify positions that can successfully telework three or more days per week and to offer this level of telework to those employees,” State Auditor Grant Parks recommended.

Aside from the annual environmental impacts of having some 240,000 commuters on roadways four days a week — 393,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions from commutes across 121 departments, by Department of General Services estimates — workers could spend thousands of dollars more each year just to commute into downtown Sacramento from nearby areas. A hypothetical breakdown of these costs estimated that a state employee traveling from Elk Grove would double their annual transportation costs as a result of the return to office order.

“Combining vehicle and parking costs, we estimate that this employee would spend over $3,100 per year commuting on a two-day per week in-office schedule and over $6,200 per year commuting on a four-day per week in-office schedule.”

Another consideration outlined in the report was the ability to attract and retain employees, which 46 percent of the departments surveyed said was more difficult because of return-to-office mandates.

But not all of the report was a ringing endorsement of telework; it also outlined several challenges associated with a decentralized workforce. The six departments surveyed about these challenges noted that technology, training, social interactions and workforce development were complicated as a result of remote work.

For example, the California Department of Human Resources cited technological limitations due to the analog nature of some of its payroll and filing processes, and the Franchise Tax Board reported that it had to transition to a new call center platform that allowed for remote integration after limitations were identified early in the shift to remote work.