Amendment introduced to limit remote working in Ohio | Hacker News Reader

Amendment introduced to limit remote working in Ohio

wdtn.com

38 pointsbiscuits154 comments

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.

[0] https://www.statenews.org/government-politics/2023-06-20/sta...

I suppose if it's a state law it reduces all the time wasted by employees renegotiating this every month or so on a per-office, per-boss level.

Not to mention the jealousy and back-stabbing that would result from one office having unlimited remote work and another one having almost none.

That, or commercial real estate is a powerful lobby group.

Sounds like a case of "and" rather than "or".

That was my main thought. My news feeds have been rife with Musk and RE higher ups complaining about the market "Being a blood bath."

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.

yea with the stats about how governments need commercial property tax to balance their books...

might not even need a lobbyist; it's already in the powers' best interests

Similarly, I remember when I went to renew my hybrid car's registration for 4 years around the pandemic. I thought it was going to be like ~$30 x 4.

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.

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.

Perhaps more importantly, Very Important People don't want to leave a record of their conversations.

> and miss their ability to go throw their weight around in person at the capitol.

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.

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.

0 - https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/23rs/sb148.html (died)

1 - https://ballotpedia.org/Kentucky_Constitutional_Amendment_1,...

> If the measure survives, Ohioans who work for the state of Ohio would be limited to only eight hours of remote work each week.

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.

As a taxpayer I think in-person work reduces waste

What's the evidence for your belief? What sort of waste are we talking about? Is that waste enough to offset the fuel/time use for commuting?

The waste of government employees pretending to work at home, funded by tax dollars. It’s a huge epidemic that the pandemic made into a gold mine

Citation needed.

It’s a personal opinion, citation is not required.

Subjective judgements which are quantifiably proven or disproven should be replaced with evidence.

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 think” is what makes it a personal opinion.

I'd be careful of such a generalization. Studies seem to be a wash. I'd imagine it depends on the policies and processes of a given organization.

Remote work is the ultimate way to get offices to become paperless.

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.

Well, as a taxpayer I think in-person work increases waste. Now it's even!

This is a valid opinion. No downvotes are necessary for valid opinions. This is an open forum, not a shooting gallery.

A factual claim is by definition not an opinion

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.

what kind of waste? certainly not co2 emissions

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.

Nice loophole find.

Maybe they can work at a library, those are government buildings afterall.

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.

I find this hard to believe. Which state is this? I cannot imagine a state has the right to tax people who do not step into the state.

The US does this on the country level (US citizens have to declare and are taxed on income even if they don't live in the US), so why not?

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:

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.

Defined benefit pensions are only income once received. They accrue while employed.

This applies only to employees of the state:

> 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.

"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.

How can I even sleep knowing Ohio exists?

Me too & I live in this godforsaken state.

Are employees of state universities considered to be employees of the state? If so, it seems like this legislation could be impactful to academia.

Generally yes (former State U employee, and spouse of State U employee). On the other hand, salaried workers aren't required to report their hours.

Unless the state wants to pay them overtime.

The headline is misleading, the amendment would limit remote work for the state of Ohio.

> If the measure survives, Ohioans who work for the state of Ohio would be limited to only eight hours of remote work each week.

Specifically state government workers.

That is, it applies only to people who work for the state government of Ohio specifically.

Well this is about the kind of thing I'd expect from Ohio....

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.

I work remotely from Virginia…centered in Ohio.

Not feeling good about this

Remember: regulations are written in blood.

While generally fair, if this were specifically true for regulations about remote work, then working from home would be promoted and not limited.

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.

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