Sacramento state employee: Newsom’s RTO order will cost me $730 a month | Opinion

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order for all California State Employees to return to the office (RTO) four days a week does not currently have a price tag for California taxpayers. Increased costs for expenses such as rent, furniture, moving services and supplies has not yet been calculated, but as a state employee at CalRecycle, I can tell you that the cost for state employees is very clear and very dramatic.

Instead of working at home, every month I will burn more gas to smog up Sacramento (approximately $130), pay for parking in crowded downtown ($200) and have to keep my son in childcare one-and-a-half hours longer on in-office days ($320). I will also have to occasionally buy lunch (about $80) because what mother has time every morning after packing her child’s lunch to pack herself one? That means Newsom’s RTO order will cost me $730 every month.

That’s just way too much money: State service doesn’t pay well enough for that, and our families simply cannot afford it.

In a pathetic attempt to help with childcare costs related to the RTO order, the California Department of Human Resources recently suggested that families sign up for a Dependent Care Reimbursement Account, a program that allows employees to possibly avoid income tax on just $5,000 per year, per household of childcare expenses. But this is not a new offering, and I’m sure many families already have an account. Furthermore, the average yearly cost for childcare in California is between $11,000 to $13,000 (among the highest in the nation). Avoiding taxes on just a fraction of that cost is not going to cut it.

California families — especially families with young children — are struggling as it is. We have no time, and we have no money. Newsom’s order makes both those issues far worse.

The biggest cost to me — my commute — has me feeling an emotion somewhere between rage and depression. My commute from Woodland to downtown Sacramento takes 45 minutes, door to door. When I work from home, that cumulative one-and-a-half hours per day is spent with my 4-year-old son, instead of in traffic.

Four times a week, my little boy will see his mama not at all in the morning and not in the evening until 5:30 p.m. That leaves us just two hours together before bedtime. In that time, we need to drive home from day care, make dinner, eat and get ready for bed.

Because of Newsom’s RTO order, how many other mothers, fathers and children will feel the sting of precious time lost together?

It would make this order more bearable if I felt that the sacrifice my son and I are making was for a purpose that served the greater good. But working in the office has no benefit for my work. When I work from the office, I meet with my co-workers on Microsoft Teams because we need to share a screen to be able to view the same documents. We do not have a use for in-person meetings.

At my office, there’s an entire floor full of employees meeting with each other on Teams. It’s loud and often makes calls extremely difficult.

So what do we, as Californians, believe in? We value children being with their caregivers; we think working shouldn’t produce unreasonable costs; we think government overhead costs should be tied to productivity. But with this order, Newsom plainly says no to all of the above. I guess California values are old news to him now that he has set his political sights a little higher.

This story was originally published May 15, 2025 at 5:00 AM.