The Telework Improvement Act (H.R. 1722) is now set to become law, following a Nov. 18 vote by the House of Representatives to approve the bill after the Senate passed it by unanimous consent earlier this year.

The House vote was 254 to 152 with mostly Republicans voting nay. Among the no voters was Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), putative chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee.

Opponents have said the bill will cost taxpayers too much money; the Congressional Budget Office estimates (.pdf) implementation will cost $32 million for the act's first six years. The final bill, which President Obama is expected to sign, doesn't include language from an earlier House-approved version that would have required agencies to certify that telework programs save money.

The bill requires agency heads to establish a telework policy and determine which employees are eligible for telework. Employees caught viewing pornography on a government computer or while performing official duties receive an automatic telework exclusion.

Under the bill, telework must also become part of agency continuity of operations plan and agencies must factor telework support into computer buying decisions.

The Obama administration has made increasing telework a central part of its personnel management agenda, promising to increase the number of teleworks to 154,000 over the 102,900 employees who teleworked at least some of the time during fiscal 2009. However, an OPM survey earlier this year found federal employees somewhat less satisfied with agency telework programs than in previous years, with 35.4 percent giving a positive response to a question about telework satisfaction--less than the 38.6 percent who gave a positive response in 2006 and the 39.9 percent who gave a positive response in 2008.

The OPM survey also found that only 10 percent of federal employees telework at least once a week.

For more:
- go to the THOMAS page for the Telework Improvement Act

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