Joni Ernst says Biden Department of Education deserves an ‘F’ amid low office use

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is highlighting the Department of Education‘s low occupancy rate of its office space in Washington, D.C., in the face of growing concerns about students dealing with the largest learning loss in 30 years after pandemic school closures.

The Iowa senator specifically pointed to the DOE’s numbers, which had an office occupancy rate of only 17%, as a point of concern after the National Assessment of Educational Progress found the average math and reading scores for students at the age of 9 declined substantially over the past two years.

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“Biden’s Department of Education kept our kids out of the classroom – leading to historic learning loss,” Ernst said in a statement sent to the Washington Examiner. “Now that students have returned to regular learning, the bureaucrats are forgetting to show up to work, and their report card shows they should receive an F.

“It’s time for Biden’s bureaucrats to get back to class, or forfeit their expensive, unused office space,” she added.

Ernst is urging the federal government to further crack down on remote work after receiving new information from the Government Accountability Office that showed not a single government agency is occupying even half of its office space.

“COVID has been over for years, where are the workers?” Ernst questioned, speaking with reporters earlier this week. “If we aren’t going to fill up, work within these agencies, then maybe we need to get rid of this space because it does cost a lot to rent these buildings in Washington, D.C., or own them.

“If we aren’t going to bring workers back, folks, let’s get rid of the space,” she added. “It’s costing our taxpayers a lot of money.”

Earlier this year, Ernst requested more information on how telework is affecting the delivery and response time of services, how much funding from taxpayers is being spent on unused office space, and if there are any steps that have been taken to adjust federal workers’ location-based salaries for those who have relocated and are still working from home. In addition, she requested information in an effort to better understand what work-site attendance looks like at every agency.

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After the senator’s inquiries, General Services Administration officials announced the agency’s plan to downsize 3.5 million square feet of federal building space, which would save taxpayers over $1 billion.

According to estimates from the GAO that showed three-month average space utilization statistics, which included one-week periods in the first three months of 2023, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Social Security Administration shared the lowest occupancy rate at just 7%.