Bipartisan bill aims to preserve telework for California state workers

By Steve Large

As the deadline approaches for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order mandating California state workers return to in-person work four days a week, there is a new effort to change state law and allow the current telework structure to continue.

Connor Anderson is a state worker bracing for the governor’s return-to-office orders to take effect.

“I mean, people are stressed,” Anderson said. “I feel that’s what the governor wants, and I think the governor is going to get what he wants. But I don’t think that’s what everyone else might want.”

Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover and Democrat Assemblymember Alex Lee are teaming up on bipartisan legislation to change state law by allowing each state agency to make its own telework policy.

“I think that the governor’s blanket executive order is not the direction that we want to go,” Hoover said. 

“What my bill is saying is every department should figure out their own telework policy,” Lee said. 

The proposed change to state law follows a state audit released in 2025 showing that the governor’s office did not gather important information about space needs and costs before ordering employees back to the office four days a week and that ending telework could cost the state $225 million a year.

Newsom’s office said ‘…we respectfully disagree with the auditor’s findings…” in a response to that audit.

The new state legislation to allow telework to continue will likely reach a committee vote next month.