Three Washington, DC area local leaders sent a letter to the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management asking that telework for federal employees be extended even when the federal government begins resuming normal operations after the coronavirus.
The letter was sent by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R), Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D).
The trio contended in the letter that telework will save federal employees lives and wrote, “…we know that a continued federal telework policy will help save lives by allowing more of our region’s 360,000 federal employees to work from home.”
The letter was sent in response to a memo issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget and OPM that outlined a plan for federal agencies to follow to gradually resume their normal operations and let federal employees begin to return to work in office environments. The plan follows the Opening Up American Again guidelines issued by the White House for the country and urges federal agencies to follow local guidelines and conditions to allow federal employees to safely resume normal operations in areas where the virus has dissipated.
The letter essentially asked that OPM take this approach of following local guidelines for federal workers in the DC area. The letter said, “…we hope the federal telework posture is reflective of our own local operating statuses.”