There are questions circulating in legislative circles about the potential cost of Gov. Phil Scott’s return-to-office mandate, which takes effect on December 1 and requires at least three days a week of office work for state employees. Questions, but few answers.
Well, my headline gives away the real answer: It will definitely cost some amount of money at a time when the state faces a severe financial pinch due to Trump administration fuckery with federal spending, including a government shutdown that Congressional Republicans are in no hurry to resolve.
The governor couldn’t have foreseen the shutdown when he issued his order in late August. But the current situation would seem to call for reconsideration. Because we don’t know how much it will cost to accommodate state employees returning to office work, but we do know one thing for certain: It’s gonna cost something. And we really can’t afford it right now.
Last week, Agency of Human Services staffers rallied in Waterbury to protest the potential impacts of the back-to-office order. They pointed out that the Agency doesn’t have enough space to accommodate its entire workforce. They pinned the shortfall at 250 desks; later, the administration gave an actual figure of 254. Administration Secretary Sarah Clark suggested it wasn’t so bad because staffers working part-time on-site could share desks! Wow, that’d boost morale. And productivity.
Still, the administration is considering options for accommodating workers, including the lease of additional office space. I’ve seen an anonymous tip that the administration is targeting Pilgrim Place in Waterbury, the former Green Mountain Coffee headquarters. The tipster points out that the building “is owned by three of Phil Scott’s friends who have been major contributors to his campaign.”
The noise prompted Sen. Andrew Perchlik, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and member of the Joint Fiscal Committee, to inquire with Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services. She emailed Perchlik that the state is “exploring a potential lease” at Pilgrim Place, but nothing has been signed and other options are on the table.
I don’t seriously think the Scott administration would lease office space as a straight-up payback to donors. He’s not corrupt in that direct and venal kind of way. I do believe that Phil Scott is a member of the developer class and views the world through that lens. (Remember that he launched his first campaign for governor in a roomful of gas-powered machinery at the Associated General Contractors’ annual convention, I shit you not.) And I’m sure that his landlord buddies are happy as hell about his back-to-the-office mandate, whether or not it directly pays off in a lease for unused office space in Waterbury.
Still, what might have been an acceptable idea in August seems far more unwise now. Whether or not the administration leases Pilgrim Place, it’s going to have to create usable office space one way or another. Even if it owned vacant space in a suitable location, there would be costs in taking it out of mothballs. Here’s where I point out that the administration has been saving a lot of money thanks to remote work. It’s that much less space they have to maintain and pay for stuff like electricity, heat, water, phone service, and Internet.
So why incur those costs now, for no particularly urgent reason? The administration cites vague notions of increased productivity for in-office work — in Clark’s words, “more effective collaboration, communication and connection.” But you can’t boil that down to dollars and cents, and there’s no evidence that state government operations are suffering measurable harm because of remote working.
If the governor was serious about saving money wherever possible, he’d be putting his back-to-office order on ice. He wouldn’t even have to acknowledge that his initial order was a bad idea, only that changing circumstances dictate a course correction. Let’s see if he’s too proud to take that step.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
Saw your headline and thought “political cost”. Folks I’ve heard from who work for the state are ripped. Could such tone-deafness on the Gov’s part become a significant chink in his armor?
It’s bonkers to spend money on new office space or retrofits of old space in a year when there’s unparalled uncertainty about where state money will be most needed: food, flood relief, health care, etc.
Waiting to see how productivity drops, when people are angry and have wasted time traveling to offices from which they are still zooming into most meetings!
“The noise prompted Sen. Andrew Perchlik, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and member of the Joint Fiscal Committee, to inquire with Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services.”
Thanks to Sen. Perchlik for reading my mind (and I’m sure many others as well) while I was reading this piece.
The thing to remember here is that the cost of renting these new offices, which will give landlords a wide smile, is falling on our shoulders. I’m still trying to figure this move out, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they knew about this short and the need to rent more space beforehand.
John, have you considered the possibility that this is a thinly veiled effort to induce state employees to retire early or quit? Or provide a justification for privatization by rendering government programs insufficient? Perhaps a little union busting icing on the cake?
Many state employees who have adapted to or were recently hired with the expectation of teleworking are panicked. They are facing sudden new expenses of commuting, altered child and eldercare arrangements, or seeking impossible-to-find housing closer to the “office”.
The state is staring into an abyss of massive cuts in federal support (e.g. Medicaid) Shrinking state government has long been an ambition of Vermont Republicans (e.g. Jim Douglas, who at least was more honest about it). This illogically timed return to office seems right out of the federal Republican playbook, most recently manifested by DOGE, of shrinking government by attrition, if not direct lay offs.
All of these failed policies – RTO, desk-sharing, open offices, etc., etc. – are mandated by our “betters”, not because they can _demonstrate_ that the policies are better (the opposite is true), they simply “know” so. And they make more money than the rest of us, so they must know better.
And here’s the “bonus”: Our “betters” are never themselves, subject to these policies. Strange, isn’t it?
What the Scott Administration has done with the Return to (State) Office (Buildings) is one of the most ridiculous, costly, wasteful, and hurtful ideas any administration has ever come up with. I could fill your page, John, with the negative impact this is and will have on so many. This doesn’t just impact state employees, but it impacts every taxpayer, every renter, and everyone who utilizes state services. The direct and indirect financial costs, the unmet expectations that the public will suddenly have additional access to state employees (we were behind layers of locked doors before, we will be again), people leaving their jobs because they can’t relocate their family, even within Vermont. But that’s not all. Montpelier businesses complained about reduced foot traffic without state employees, but that support has shifted from the state hubs of Montpelier, Waterbury, Rutland, Burlington, etc. to our home communities. Now, those community businesses will face the loss of those dollars. Did they just not complain loud enough? Or were they not friends with Phil Scott?
Every single state employee I know has expressed just how stressful and disruptive this change will be. The state is allowing employees who need to purchase vehicles for the commute a little extra time to make those purchases. But for some, the question is where are those funds to pay for that purchase coming from? Not all state employees are making a paycheck much above anyone else’s, so at a time when the cost of everything is increasing, where are those funds coming from in a household budget? And what about the cost of gas for the commute, which will be several hundred miles a week for many employees.
The benefits to the RTSOB? I’ve not talked to anyone who has been able to identify a single one. More collaboration? Not at all. But the administration is grasping at straws to try to sell the public on why state employees should be in those leased office buildings instead of working at a home office where the taxpayer actually saves money!
I recently asked if the administration would be doing any sort of study to show the increased productivity and collaboration they say will happen with state employees back in state office buildings. The response I received was there is no data available now, so how would they do that? So, no data to show reduced productivity or collaboration, but a policy change that will cost taxpayers more to address problems that no one can quantify? Yeah, this sounds like good governing.
How did Phil Scott get elected over and over again? I don’t want a governor who is a nice guy. I want a governor who is a leader, who drives policy that makes positive changes to our state, someone who recognizes we live in 2025, and the COVID pandemic has changed the way we work in the world. If Phil is so stuck in the past that he can’t see the harm this RTSOB policy will do to everyone, he needs to retire and stick with race car driving, where apparently you don’t have to understand the changing world to be a leader.