COVID-19 spikes in California state offices, forcing departments to revisit reopening plans

The latest COVID-19 surge has hit California state offices, forcing department leaders to decide whether to stick to in-person work or allow employees to go back to working from home.

Many of the largest departments called employees back to offices over the last three months as cases dwindled, typically requiring them to work in the buildings one to three days a week.

But the variants that have quintupled the statewide infection rate over the last two months are also infecting state employees. And while some departments are beginning to soften in-office requirements, others are holding to reopening plans that had already been repeatedly delayed.

“We didn’t get anything that said ‘Wait, now that we have this surge, go back to the pandemic status quo, that did not happen,” said Tim O’Connor, president of the state employee union representing attorneys and administrative law judges.

Several unions have been pressing for a return to full-time telework, citing safety and the successes of remote work in the pandemic’s first two years.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered the state government to embrace telework, citing cost savings for the state and environmental benefits, but has left the specifics up to each department, creating a lot of variation from one department to another.

COVID in CA state departments

Three big departments with in-office requirements are taking three different approaches to the surge, according to their responses to questions from The Sacramento Bee and their communications with employees.

The Franchise Tax Board pivoted Wednesday, telling managers they could reduce required office appearances to one day a week, down from two, through early September, according to spokeswoman Victoria Ramirez.

The agency made the change after about 115 people tested positive in the last two weeks, according to detailed email updates employees receive.

More than 400 employees at the agency signed a petition demanding full-time telework last week, posted by an SEIU Local 1000 job steward, that featured a colored chart showing the rise in cases.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is sticking to its requirement of three days per week in the office for most employees, despite identifying 62 work-related positive cases since April 1, according to information provided in an email by spokesman Joe DeAnda.

CalPERS employees have been spending part of their weeks in the office since March, when the pension system called them back, citing the need to make sure employees were assigned and performed full-time work.

At the California Highway Patrol, where 193 people have tested positive in May, it’s up to each commander or manager to set employees’ schedules, spokeswoman Fran Clader said in an email.

A CHP headquarters employee who spoke with The Bee anonymously, fearing retaliation, said schedules range from full-time in-office to full-time telework.

All three departments said they follow local and state guidelines, which don’t currently require masks. Sacramento County mandates a minimum isolation period of five days for people who have tested positive, and up to 10 days without a repeat test or for those who still have a fever.

State employees, along with other workers in California, are eligible for two weeks of paid sick leave through September under Senate Bill 114, passed in February.

State offices require unvaccinated employees to be tested weekly.

Franchise Tax Board

The Franchise Tax Board, with about 5,600 employees, started requiring workers to come into office once a week in the beginning of April.

The emailed notifications to employees about new cases didn’t come every day, and never mentioned more than four cases, according to the graph of cases in the petition.

The agency moved to two days a week in May, ramping up to an office reopening plan that has been repeatedly delayed over the last year.

A week later, cases leapt to 12 in one of the agency’s four buildings off of U.S. Highway 50 between Rosemont and Rancho Cordova. Notifications for May have often mentioned more than a dozen new cases.

The figures include all COVID-19 infections among employees, not just those thought to have been contracted at work. Cases followed a similar course statewide, steadily rising from a low infection rate of 5.8 per 100,000 people April 1 to 26.8 per 100,000 on May 15, according to Department of Public Health data.

Employees have questioned why they must risk getting sick or spreading the virus in the office when most can work from home, said Kevin Menager, the SEIU Local 1000 job steward who organized the petition.

In addition to risking the health of employees who could work from home, more people in the office means more risk for those whose jobs can’t be done remotely, he said.

“We have proven over two years we are productive working from home, and safer,” Menager said.

The agency granted managers more flexibility through Sept. 2, and employees who work in an area with an outbreak may work from home for three weeks after the outbreak if their job can be done remotely, Ramirez said.

Ramirez declined to share the vaccination rate among the agency’s employees.

CalPERS

At CalPERS, with about 2,800 employees and a vaccination rate of 87%, workers select three weekdays to work from the office.

Only 37% choose to go in on Mondays, while 69% work from the office on Tuesdays, 78% on Wednesdays, 63% on Thursdays and 28% on Fridays, according to information provided by DeAnda, the spokesman.

When there’s an outbreak, defined by Cal-OSHA as three or more cases in an office area in a 14-day period, employees may telework for two weeks, or return to work after five with a mask on, DeAnda said.

CalPERS notifies employees of all positive tests each month, and who have had close contact with those who have tested positive are notified within 24 hours, said DeAnda.

Workers who have been in close contact with someone who tested positive and have symptoms follow the same protocol as infected employees: 10 days of remote work or sick leave, with an option to return to the office after five days with a negative test, DeAnda said.

Employees who come in close contact and don’t show symptoms are required to wear a mask for 10 days, he said.

CHP

At the CHP, with about 10,750 employees and a vaccination rate of about 60%, many jobs don’t lend themselves to telework, said Clader, the spokeswoman.

But the department has a three-building headquarters campus in Sacramento and a training academy in West Sacramento. About 3,400 of the department’s employees are non-uniformed. As of April, 443 employees had full-time or hybrid telework agreements, Clader said.

Employees in the headquarters buildings do not receive detailed information about infections, said the anonymous employees.

“Today, fewer than 11 employees at Headquarters tested positive for the COVID-19 virus,” say the emails they receive. They got 11 of them in May, according to copies of the notifications.

Clader said the department follows California Department of Human Resources guidelines with the notifications. She said the CHP follows Cal-OSHA and CDPH guidelines for notifying employees who are exposed at work.

This story was originally published May 31, 2022 at 5:00 AM.