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CV NEWS FEED // On Thursday The New York Post revealed that only an estimated 6% of federal employees show up to work in person daily.
In a shocking report, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-IA, the Senate Chair of the new caucus for the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), expressed frustration with the state of affairs in the capital and claimed that Americans are getting “ripped off.”
“The nation’s capital is a ghost town, with government buildings averaging an occupancy rate of 12[%],” Ernst reported. “If federal employees can’t be found at their desks, exactly where are they?”
Ernst’s office has formed a relationship with the nonprofit group Open Books, which seeks to create transparency between taxpaying citizens and the federal government. According to the latest report, the Biden-Harris administration “redacted the ‘work locations of over 281,000 rank-and-file federal employees.’”
The New York Post highlighted the spending discrepancies presented in Ernst’s report:
Leasing and maintenance costs for federal office buildings as well as the tab to keep them running is about $15.7 billion annually, according to her report.
Meanwhile, the government has ownership of about 7,697 vacant buildings and 2,265 that are somewhat empty, costing about $15 million for leasing and maintenance of underutilized space, according to her report.
Ernst also called out the practice of collecting paychecks from areas where federal workers are not located, a practice that allegedly dates back nearly a decade.
“My audits are finding as many as 23[%] to 68[%] of teleworking employees for some agencies are boosting their salaries by receiving incorrect locality pay,” Ernst wrote. “Some employees live more than 2,000 miles away from their office and one ‘temporary’ teleworker collected higher locality pay for nearly a decade.”
“Government salaries are determined, in part, by the locations of an employee’s official worksite,” the report clarified. “There are 58 locality pay areas with base pay for federal employees adjusted to account for the cost of living in each.”
Ernst has since met with billionaire tech guru Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, whom President-elect Donald Trump nominated as the leaders of DOGE.
Following the release of Ernst’s report, Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his thoughts on the matter.
“If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%,” wrote Musk. “Almost no one.”
On Thursday morning, Ernst, Musk, and Ramaswamy attended a Senate DOGE meeting to discuss plans for moving forward with DOGE and slashing wasteful government spending. Musk and Ramaswamy have since received praise from other members of the Senate who met with them.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, spoke to FOX News Digital and explained that he was “impressed” by the duo.
“I’m very impressed with what Elon and Vivek want to accomplish,” said Scott. “I can’t talk about what they are going to be proposing, but I’ve known them for a long time, and I think they’re going to do a great job.”
