Office space insanity: Feds spent $3.3 billion on office furniture during pandemic despite telework

The federal government spent billions furnishing agency offices during the pandemic despite most buildings sitting nearly empty as employees worked from home, according to a report released Tuesday.

From 2020 through 2022, Open the Books identified that eight departments shelled out a total of $3.3 billion for furniture even as most of them used just a fraction of their office spaces.

The report from the watchdog group, which advocates for transparency in the federal government and its expenses, comes as Congress works to craft an annual budget and amid demands from conservatives to curtail spending.

“In the case of office furniture, most federal headquarters are barely a quarter full on a given workday, and no major agency is at more than half capacity,” said Open the Books Founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski. “Yet for some reason, we’ve bankrolled another billion dollars in desks, chairs, couches and more — while employees clock in from their own living rooms.” 

Per the report, these agencies spent the following sums on office furniture over a three-year period with the following office usage rates:

• Department of Defense spent $1.2 billion with 23% office usage.
• Veterans Affairs spent $428 million with 16% office usage.
• Department of Justice spent $408 million with 35% office usage.
• General Services Administration spent $308 million with 9% office usage.
• State Department spent $302 million with unspecified office usage.
• Homeland Security spent $156 million with unspecified office usage.
• Department of Transportation spent $55 million with 9% office usage.
• Department of Agriculture spent $57 million with 9% office usage.

Nearly all of the aforementioned agencies either did not respond to a request for comment or declined to do so.

VA press secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement to The Washington Times that given its focus on health care, the department was in a unique position during the pandemic with a “vast majority” of employees working in-person at facilities to treat patients.

“VA’s 465,000 public servants are currently delivering more care and more benefits to more veterans than ever before in our nation’s history, and we regularly purchase furniture and office supplies to support them,” Mr. Hayes said. “Some of VA’s office-based employees teleworked during the pandemic, both for their safety and the safety of those we serve, but they represent a fraction of our total workforce.”

The VA is looking to force employees back into its Washington headquarters at least 50% of the time by requiring a minimum of five days in the office every 10-day pay period.

A report released in July by the Government Accountability Office found that 17 of the 24 federal agencies it analyzed used an average of just 25% or less of their headquarters’ office space. The highest average was 49% office usage.

The GAO report concluded the federal government has long struggled with underused office space for several reasons, including outdated spaces that don’t support hybrid work environments, a lack of uniform in-office policies and unwillingness by agency leaders to share spaces with inner-agency departments or other agencies.

The telework culture in the post-pandemic era has only exacerbated those struggles and the work-from-home trend.

The federal government spends roughly $2 billion per year to operate and maintain its office buildings and an additional $5 billion annually for leases. The federal government owns over 500 million square feet of office space.

The costs have prompted proposals from congressional Republicans to either force federal employees back into the office or for agencies to shed their building expenses from their budgets.