No it’s not. A personal opinion would be “I wish people would work in person more often.” “In person work reduces waste” is a (perhaps true, perhaps not) statement of fact, which is very reasonable to ask for a citation about.
I don't know why you need to clarify that you are a taxpayer.
But I would argue that in person work creates more waste. Between commuting and real estate. It might be easier for a remote worker to not work, but it should be easy for a manager to notice their employee isn't working.
As a taxpayer, I think a lot of different things. That doesn't mean I am right!
State employees also do a lot of different jobs. A park ranger working remotely might indeed be wasteful, but maybe someone who is an accountant gets more done working remotely.
It's not mentioned in the article but the language is such that state employees are limited to 8 hours of working from home. Coffee shops, a neighbor's house, restaurants, all fine.
OK, so state employees would be hard-limited to 8h/week... But why does that policy need to be codified into state law across all possible state employees and agencies, and not just a policy decided by different agencies or offices or managers?
I can't help but feel there's some hidden agenda by whichever anonymous Ohio legislators introduced the provision into the bill.
____
Found another article [0], which says:
> Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said the suggestion to force state workers to return to their offices came from a member of the Ohio House. Huffman didn't identify that member. The provision was not part of the House version of the budget.
> [...] Huffman said 10 years ago, when he was in the House, if he had an issue with someone at the Ohio Department of Education, he could walk over to their office and talk to them about it. He said that's not the case anymore. There are times when issues cannot be resolved with a phone call, Huffman also said.
Sounds almost as if the legislators don't like teleconferencing, and miss their ability to go throw their weight around in person at the capitol.
So basically the same justification as every push to get employees back in the office: Very Important People want to be able to yell at employees who dont actually work for them, but are beneath them in an org chart.
When employees work from home and meeting requests have to go through proper channels, somebody might have a chance to stop that abuse.
I'm unfortunately inclined to look at it from the negative side -- Its more like they don't like writing it down and/or having a paper trail of some sort. Its hard to achieve that when you have to schedule a virtual meeting or type up an email. Even a phone call leaves a record of there being interaction. They don't want THAT and I see that happening in corp culture to. If its not on a person's calendar, in a discussion thread, or there wasn't an email then it didn't happen and there is plausible deniability. Its like the madmen method of the board room back deals is being taken away from them and its too difficult to let go.
This is the state legislative branch imposing something on the executive branch. Maybe there's a difference in perspective on remote work, and the representatives don't like how the agencies are handling remote work and want to impose their requirements rather than make it a matter of agency or executive policy.
The Kentucky version of this sort of bill - restricting state employees from working remotely (they used the term "telework") - was done solely to prevent any future COVID response. Our legislators absolutely hated the governor's actions during the pandemic and tried multiple ways (including shoving a constitutional amendment onto the ballot - which voters rejected) to prevent any sort of shutdown from ever happening again.
Question: Are state employee pensions considered income earned in the state the employee worked while earning it? Or can they move out of state and avoid state income taxes? Should they be able to?
My mother was a teacher before she retired to a different state than she'd worked in. She now has to file income taxes in the state she receives the pension from and the state she currently lives in each year.
Because the rules are different for federal and non federal government.
I have never seen a US state or smaller jurisdiction be able to tax an entity that does not perform work or reside within its boundaries, so I am curious which one it is so I can look it up.
See this federal law prohibiting states from taxing non residents:
> (a) No State may impose an income tax on any retirement income of an individual who is not a resident or domiciliary of such State (as determined under the laws of such State).
Based on the answers to this question, what I suspect is happening is to morvita’s mom is erroneously having state income taxes withheld for a state she does not live in, which she is then filing a non resident tax return to get a refund.
We should leave regulating to professionals who are trained in doing this. Software Engineers are not trained in determining the economic and health risks from working from home and therefore their opinion should be disregarded. Software engineers are trained in detecting security risks and it is well known that physical access is everything. Therefore, state employee hardware should be kept in a well-regulated, physically secure facility protected by trained and licensed security staff. Remote work is not conducive to that.
State workers are, by definition, working on sensitive materials regarding governance. Therefore, we must ensure that their work is safe and secure, and that access and authorization is controlled.
during an adjustment phase of residential real estate in the continental US, maybe around 2008-2010.. one of the very few places in the entire US where home prices fell, was in Ohio.
"Prohibits state employees from working from home for more than eight hours per forty hour workweek for the time period beginning October 1, 2023, and ending June 30, 2025."
As @kesslern stated earlier, coffee shops are totally fine still, as are libraries, other people's homes, even the parks...
This is why we should never allow politicians to get involved in politics.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadSpecifically state government workers.
The amendment limits remote work for Ohioans working for the state of Ohio. Probably still silly and short-sighted, but not as bad as I was imagining.
State employees also do a lot of different jobs. A park ranger working remotely might indeed be wasteful, but maybe someone who is an accountant gets more done working remotely.
> Ohioans who work for the state of Ohio would be limited to only eight hours of remote work each week
Seems like a pretty arbitrary thing to set in stone.
I can't help but feel there's some hidden agenda by whichever anonymous Ohio legislators introduced the provision into the bill.
____
Found another article [0], which says:
> Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said the suggestion to force state workers to return to their offices came from a member of the Ohio House. Huffman didn't identify that member. The provision was not part of the House version of the budget.
> [...] Huffman said 10 years ago, when he was in the House, if he had an issue with someone at the Ohio Department of Education, he could walk over to their office and talk to them about it. He said that's not the case anymore. There are times when issues cannot be resolved with a phone call, Huffman also said.
Sounds almost as if the legislators don't like teleconferencing, and miss their ability to go throw their weight around in person at the capitol.
[0] https://www.statenews.org/government-politics/2023-06-20/sta...
Not to mention the jealousy and back-stabbing that would result from one office having unlimited remote work and another one having almost none.
Markets disappear. That's part of "the free market."
These megalomaniacs only care about "the free market" when they can manipulate it into a control market.
might not even need a lobbyist; it's already in the powers' best interests
She quoted me nearly $800, and I had a moment of, "What in the.."
It was actually that Ohio added $100 for hybrid cars ($200 for EV), because of lost money at the pump.
When employees work from home and meeting requests have to go through proper channels, somebody might have a chance to stop that abuse.
Remote workers in the financial sector are 14% less likely to commit fraud or other crimes.
In-person workers are ~15% more likely to commit crimes.
The bad apples want you back into the office to bully you into going along with their crimes.
0 - https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/23rs/sb148.html (died)
1 - https://ballotpedia.org/Kentucky_Constitutional_Amendment_1,...
Unless the state wants to pay them overtime.
I have never seen a US state or smaller jurisdiction be able to tax an entity that does not perform work or reside within its boundaries, so I am curious which one it is so I can look it up.
See this federal law prohibiting states from taxing non residents:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/4/114
> (a) No State may impose an income tax on any retirement income of an individual who is not a resident or domiciliary of such State (as determined under the laws of such State).
Based on the answers to this question, what I suspect is happening is to morvita’s mom is erroneously having state income taxes withheld for a state she does not live in, which she is then filing a non resident tax return to get a refund.
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/state-taxes/discussion/i-r...
However, morvita’s mom should just tell the pension administrator to stop withholding income tax that they will never owe.
State workers are, by definition, working on sensitive materials regarding governance. Therefore, we must ensure that their work is safe and secure, and that access and authorization is controlled.
Not feeling good about this
As @kesslern stated earlier, coffee shops are totally fine still, as are libraries, other people's homes, even the parks...
This is why we should never allow politicians to get involved in politics.