Legislation to force state employees back to the office gets cold shoulder from governor

Yahoo

11-02-2025

State Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) testifies on Tuesday, Feb. 11, in favor of legislation to require state employees to work in the office five days a week starting July 1. (Screenshot/WisEye)
State employees who worked in the office before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 would have to return to working in person starting July 1 under a proposed bill that went before a state Senate committee Tuesday.
'The pandemic is now over and has been for quite a while,' said State Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie), testifying at a public hearing on SB-27 in the Senate Committee on Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs. 'Yet a high volume of state duties that required in-person execution prior to 2020 are still being performed in locations outside of the state offices in which they were long housed prior to the pandemic.'
Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), the bill's Senate author, cited decisions by major U.S. employers to return to at least partial in-office schedules. 'Returning to work in person makes sense and forces accountability,' Tomczyk said.
Nedweski and Tomczyk were the only witnesses to testify at Tuesday's hearing. There is not an Assembly companion bill, but Nedweski is the lead Assembly co-sponsor of the Senate legislation. She also chairs the Assembly's new Committee on Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency.
Republican state lawmakers have been pushing for state employees to end remote work for most of the last four years.
Meanwhile, the Department of Administration (DOA) and the administration of Gov. Tony Evers have been moving forward with a plan, Vision 2030, to reduce the state's real estate footprint.
No administration representatives testified at Tuesday's hearing. But in a memo to reporters Tuesday afternoon, Evers' communications director, Britt Cudaback, said Vision 2030 is based on moving to a 'modern and hybrid work environment' mixing remote and in-office work 'in order to continue to be a competitive employer and bolster our efforts to recruit, train, and retain workers statewide.'
If SB-27 is enacted, she said, returning to in-office-only work would require more private leases for office space or reopening buildings that are to be closed and sold, or both. The administration has projected savings of more than $7 million in occupancy costs and more than $540 million in deferred maintenance costs.
Reversing those plans 'would neither be pragmatic nor fiscally prudent,' Cudaback said.
At the hearing, Nedweski emphasized that the bill's intent is not simply to bar all remote work, but she argued that the state hasn't systematically evaluated its impact.
'We don't have a handle on what's going on,' she said. 'So the idea would be, everybody, please come back and let's figure out what the best situation is.'
Two years ago the Legislature's Joint Audit Committee commissioned the Legislative Audit Bureau to review remote work and space allocation in state government. The resulting report said the state lacked comprehensive data on the extent of remote work and recommended more detailed monitoring and documentation of remote work agreements and practices.
Democrats on the five-member Senate committee balked at the legislation, calling it inflexible and a potential deterrent to the state's ability to hire.
Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) noted with remote work more state employees have been able to work from counties across Wisconsin, not just in its two largest cities. 'If those people are going to have to keep their jobs and be in the office, which I assume would be Madison, are they going to be forced to give up their jobs?' he asked.
Nedweski and Tomczyk said that employees who were hired to work remotely or had employment agreements allowing remote work before the pandemic would not be required to return to an office five days a week.
But Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee), said the legislation's wording appeared to be more narrowly written. 'I am worried about this being wildly inflexible, and you're talking about a level of flexibility that is not contained within the bill,' he said.
Nedweski said she 'would be more than happy' to add language 'that underscores that we already have DOA policy in place to allow for flexibility.'
Larson replied that the bill 'would be a law that would override the policy.'
In an email message, Nedweski's office staff member Tami Rongstad told the Wisconsin Examiner that there would be an amendment to exempt the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics from the bill 'and clarify that the requirement to return to onsite work would not apply to duties that were performed off-site prior to March 1, 2020.'
Rongstad said Nedweski 'was open to considering adding clarifying language to the bill related to future telework options for state employees beyond the July 1, 2025, return to in-person work date,' based on existing terms for remote work in the state human resources handbook.
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