State Workers Make Case for Telework in Texas DOGE Hearing

State employees asked Texas House lawmakers Wednesday for more flexibility to work from home as agencies enact stricter rules for the state’s nearly 150,000 workers following a March order by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

For one environmental worker, the ability to continue his remote job means the encouragement to stay in the state he loves.

“When I finished graduate school, I had job offers around the country, but I chose Texas,” Sam Bickley, a hydrologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, told a government efficiency committee. “My family chose Texas, and I chose this job at TCEQ. Now I’m asking each and every one of you to choose workers like me.”

His testimony came during a hearing before the House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency on House Bill 5196 by Southlake GOP Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, who chairs the panel.

The legislation would establish a framework for telework policies within state agencies, which currently have myriad approaches. Some require workers to be in the office every workday, while others let large numbers — if not the majority — work remotely, either full or part time.

Although telework is nothing new in state government, the practice came into the conservative crosshairs in recent months after President Donald Trump ordered federal workers back to the office — largely vacated in the years after the 2020 pandemic lockdowns forced most of the nation’s nonessential workforce into their homes during Trump’s first term.

Capriglione’s bill comes weeks after Abbott ordered agencies to review their post-pandemic telework rules and update them to have the most on-site workers as possible. He said the legislation erases gray areas in the law.

The bill “addresses a challenge that’s evolved significantly since 2020: the modern workplace,” Capriglione told the committee.

The pandemic encouraged more employees into remote work without updated policies covering those arrangements — while Abbott’s directive sought to return to pre-pandemic conditions without much clarity on how to account for office space and parking challenges, among others, Capriglione testified.

His legislation, he said, “provides practical structures for a solution” and “gives a modest and responsible framework to empower agency leadership to determine what telework makes sense.”

The bill would create rules for telework policies within the section of the Texas Government Code that covers state employees.

Agency directors would continue to be able to design telework policies and let employees work remotely under the legislation, but they would be required to review those arrangements annually and submit them to the state in writing.

They also would need to show the telework arrangements “address a lack of office space” or “provide reasonable flexibilities that enhance the agency’s ability to achieve its mission,” according to the bill.

The bill also stipulates that agencies cannot use a guarantee of telework as a condition of hiring — only the possibility of it as an agency policy — and allows agencies to revoke a telework arrangement at any time for any reason without notice.

Capriglione said the bill could see small changes before the panel would decide whether to send it to the House floor for a vote. That could include requiring agencies to post those policies on the website or allowing employers to require teleworkers to come in for special events or meetings.

One committee member expressed concern that agencies would not be required to give notice to telework employees before canceling the arrangement, although it’s unclear yet whether that will be included in a final version of the legislation.

The committee left the bill pending on Wednesday.

Supporters of the legislation, including several current and former state employees who testified Wednesday, herald the bill as an essential tool that can build morale and efficiency.

Supporters also said more remote work meant less time spent commuting in traffic and more time and energy spent on the job, more child-care options and less tax money spent on office rentals and parking spaces.

It helps enormously with recruiting, an issue that has challenged state agencies because the private sector pays higher salaries for similar jobs and often steals workers with more money and better benefits, said Ann Bishop, executive director of the Texas Public Employees Association, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of state workers.

In a recent state-funded survey, the vast majority of state agencies told the state budget leaders their flexible work policies improved recruitment and retention — one of the biggest challenges state agencies face.

Officials at the Texas Workforce Commission, for example, reported an 86 percent retention rate in its technology workforce — an unusually high rate for a state agency, especially in the competitive tech job market.

The issue has buzzed through the capitol since early February, when lawmakers examining agency funding requests pressed agency heads for details on remote-work policies.

The Legislative Budget Board, which oversees state spending matters, surveyed state agencies about the impact of post-pandemic remote-work policies. The report was presented to budget writers last month.

The LBB survey examined policies of 96 out of 150 state agencies, including the 10 largest. It found most allow at least a small portion of their workforce to do their jobs outside the office. Some agencies have up to 80 percent of their workers fully or partially remote.

Forty-six agencies said allowing employees to work outside the office has made them more productive, while 40 others said productivity wasn’t affected either way. None reported a negative impact.

Some 29 agencies said moving to more remote work saved money by reducing office space, supplies, furniture and the cost of recruiting and retaining employees. Most said there had been no financial impact.

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