We did it! Thanks to everyone who contacted legislators and unions for filing actions – they heard us and will discuss return to office (RTO) (Issue #4 Executive Order N-22-25) at the Subcommittee No. 5 budget hearing on April 22, 2025. They will allow public comment so please come and share how RTO will change your life.
I called the budget commission office (916-319-2099) and asked about the procedure to speak at the hearing for public comment. Here are their tips:
- Show up early. The hearing starts at 1:30 PM and RTO is Issue #4 on the agenda (PDF).
- Bring your written comments and be ready when they announce time for public comments. They said usually they ask for public comment at the end of each agenda item, not at the end of the entire agenda.
- Start by stating:
- Your name
- What department you work for or company, general public, etc.
- Your position on the RTO portion of Executive Order N-22-25: for or against
- Comments may be limited to 30 seconds to 2 minutes for each speaker so keep your points concise. Comment how RTO will affect you directly and how it will hurt the community. Here are some talking points from Reddit:
-RTO is a tax on the people. Departments will need to pay to lease more office space, including utility bills, IT infrastructure, admin support, and more. The possible working conditions may also violate ADA rules, health and safer codes, fire regulations, collective bargaining agreements for how much space certain classifications get, and more. [there is a rumor that DGS sent out a memo saying to put people in conference rooms…if confirmed, mention that]
-We want the best workers in government. Telework made us a competitive recruiter and allowed us to hire the best practitioners across the state because we didn’t have to hire locally. Now we will lose talent to local governments (they pay more than the state) and your legislative ideas will not be well implemented.
-Traffic and traffic accidents will go up. Vehicle emissions (smog) will go up. Parking will be crazy. This will be detrimental to climate goals.
-Workers aren’t pawns in economic “free market” games. We will brown bag boycott downtown businesses, so will our friends and families.
-The Sacramento Downtown Partnership previously said that bringing state workers back will not fix their business problems.
-We believe in equity. It is not equitable to only support Sacramento and other urban hub businesses to the detriment of other locality’s businesses.
-We believe in equity. It is not equitable that per CalHR’s own admissions, state workers make less than their city and county colleagues for the exact same jobs. RTO will increase that pay inequity due to gas, parking, childcare, and more.
-We believe in equity. Telework allowed the state to hire more disabled workers and those from underdeveloped areas, who could do their jobs in an efficient manner via telework.
-This makes the public trust government less because of Newsom’s hypocrisy. He is on record supporting telework. He even had a dashboard showing all the quantitative benefits of telework. This perception will affect all politicians.