A number of regional leaders are pushing back on the incoming Trump administration’s goal of having federal workers quickly return to offices five days a week.
Despite concerns about the impact of work-from-home patterns on local transit and the commercial office sector, requiring federal workers to be back in the office full-time brought concerns from speakers at a recent Dulles Area Transportation Association (DATA) forum.
“It’s a nuanced question. What makes sense for one agency and position doesn’t make sense for all,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said during the virtual forum on Dec. 5.
McKay estimated that about 50,000 Fairfax County residents are employed in the federal workforce. Requiring them all back in the office full-time five years after Covid sent many to a home office environment would have pluses and minuses, he said.
“There’s no doubt teleworking is hurting Metro. Metro obviously could use the fare revenue,” McKay said. “[But] in terms of our air quality, our infrastructure, our roadways, they don’t necessarily need more congestion.”
When asked about back-to-office edicts by NBC4 reporter Adam Tuss, who moderated the forum, incoming Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-10) said his stance is “really context-dependent.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean making everyone come in five days a week,” he said. “Seems like a cop-out, but I think that’s the right answer.”
Some who are expected to play major rules in the Trump administration, such as billionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, called for all 2.2 million people in federal workforce to get back in the office on a full-time basis. Whether they can make that happen once the new president is sworn in on Jan. 20 remains to be seen.
“We’re watching what the new administration is going to do,” Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Deshundra Jefferson said.
“I don’t think it’s as simple as the incoming Trump administration thinks it is going to be,” McKay added.
About two-thirds of federal workers have at least some flexibility to work from home, although the Office of Management and Budget reported this summer that only about one in 10 spends no time in an office.
Among those pushing for a robust return-to-work requirement is D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who began she began calling on the Biden administration to bring more workers back to the office in early 2023, citing concerns about the city’s economic viability.
“We must and we will win back our downtown, because it is the economic engine that allows us to invest in our schools, our safety net and our public works,” Bowser said in her January 2023 inauguration address. “It is the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.”
Another who might be amenable to a return-to-work policy is Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) chair Matt de Ferranti, a member of the Arlington County Board.
“It could be a positive development,” he said at NVTC’s Dec. 5 meeting.
An immediate order to get federal workers back in the office full-time could lead to large numbers of retirements and resignations, McKay suggested.
“If I did that in the county, we’d probably lose 25% to 30% of our employees on Day 1,” he said. “That’s just the reality.”
Comments by Ramaswany and Tesla owner Elon Musk, who have been chosen by Trump to lead a proposed advisory commission on “government efficiency,” suggest a departure of a significant part of the workforce would be just fine by them. McKay pushed back on that point of view.
“If the motive behind this is to drive really talented, experienced people out of their important federal-government positions, then that’s reckless,” he said. “It is absurd to assume that teleworking equals not working. Some of these people have never worked harder.”
“People are getting the work done,” Jefferson agreed. “Workers proved during the pandemic we can be just as productive, if not more so, working at home. We have a lot more technology, people have learned to collaborate.”
Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-11) was invited to participate in the forum but couldn’t attend due to congressional business.
Photo via Chris Montgomery/Unsplash
