CA wants to move telework oversight. Is the budget bill the right way to do it?
Last month, California Department of Human Resources officials suggested moving oversight of the state’s telework policy from the Department of General Services to CalHR — and state workers were leery of the proposal.
“It seems, kinda, a little bit suspect at this point,” Susan Rodriguez, the chief negotiator for Service Employees International Union Local 1000, said during a May hearing. “Normally, CalHR gives a heads up when they’re going to be changing something in the laws so we can comment on that. Today we have not received that.”
The two departments maintain there’s nothing substantive about the change.
“We view this as cleanup,” Jennifer Osborn, DGS’ chief deputy director, told lawmakers during the same budget subcommittee hearing.
A DGS unit that was granted funding in the 2022 budget is no longer monitoring or tracking telework, said CalHR Director Eraina Ortega. Both departments decided it was best to move the “body of law” surrounding telework under CalHR, Ortega said during last month’s hearing, which is more consistent with the department’s jurisdiction of handling personnel issues.
The specific change proposed in the trailer bill language appears innocuous enough. “Telecommuting,” an outdated term the state used to describe hybrid work, would be replaced by the more widely known phrase “telework.”
Additionally, the proposal moves several statements about the benefits of telework to a section of the Government Code that CalHR is responsible for. Those declarations state that telework gives workers more flexibility and reduces “air pollution and traffic congestion,” which are central to the arguments of state workers who oppose Gov. Gavin Newsom’s return-to-office order.
But lawmakers and the nonpartisan office that advises them have taken issue with the timing of the seemingly banal change.
“So there’s no money attached to this, this is a budget committee, why is this being proposed here and now, and not through policy?” Assemblymember Liz Ortega, D-San Leandro, asked state officials last month. The Legislative Analyst’s Office pointed out that the existing law has been in place since 1995.
Both departments say the reason for the change is because in 2024, funding for DGS’ Statewide Telework Unit, which received $1.9 million annually for two years, ended and wasn’t renewed.
Osborn said the language probably should have been changed last year and they are just getting around to making the change now.
That limited funding was allocated for just a brief window of the policy’s 30-year existence, the LAO noted, so changing it should happen through legislation.
CalHR disagrees.
Camille Travis, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement that because the change is “budget-related,” it is appropriate to alter through the budget process. Travis said that if the language is not shifted to the human resources department, DGS will continue to have a telework unit even though it has been defunded.
This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
