There was a 245% increase in the number of Department of Defense (DOD) employees working remotely after then-President Joe Biden ordered all federal workers to return to their official duty stations, according to an audit by the Pentagon’s Inspector General (IG).

“The DoD lacked complete tracking and reporting over the data on civilian employees working remotely. For FY 2023, the DoD reported a total of 17,504 remote work employees. However, in FY 2024, the DoD reported a total of 60,315 remote work employees, which was a 245 percent increase from FY 2023,” according to the IG audit made public earlier this week.

“As a result, Congress and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) did not have accurate data to analyze the impact of remote work on the DoD’s productivity and performance,” the audit observed. The DOD employs more than 770,000 civilian workers in addition to the nation’s military, making it the largest federal department.

Another result, according to the audit, was DOD officials lacked accurate information on how much remote workers were being paid. The audit reviewed more than 750 remote-working DOD employees, all of whom were found to be overpaid under the government’s complicated locality pay system, also due to lack of proper documentation of employment status.

One DOD worker reviewed for the audit was found to have been overpaid for eight years, while another was overpaid for at least four years, according to the report. The latter’s duty location was incorrectly changed back in 2020.

“After we requested supporting documentation for this employee, DCSA HR personnel noted that this was an error. Although they stated that they were in the process of correcting the pay, [DOD] paid the incorrect amount for at least 4 years,” the audit explained.

In a third example, a DOD worker moved from Annapolis, Maryland, to Carmel, Indiana, which should have resulted in a 15% reduction in the employee’s locality pay.

“This resulted in an overpayment of $5,605.60 from the pay period ending June 29, 2024, through the pay period ending September 21, 2024. In this instance, the employee had an approved remote work agreement for Annapolis, but had not updated their remote work location when they began working in Carmel in June 2024,” according to the audit.

“The FY 2024 information that the DoD provided to Congress and OMB was not reliable to accurately reflect the impact of remote work on DoD productivity and performance,” the audit continued. “Additionally, because the data that was provided for this audit was unreliable, the numbers reported as improper payments in this report are limited and may not equal the actual amount.”

Biden, through subordinates, ordered the “vast majority” of federal workers to return to their offices in March 2022 as the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared ended. He repeated the order in May 2023. Congressional critics like Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.), however, claimed far more federal workers were continuing to work from home without penalties despite Biden’s directives. Biden himself was absent from the White House nearly 40% of the time during his four years as chief executive.

Asked by The Washington Stand about the audit, Ernst said, “It’s indefensible that while our military men and women were bravely protecting our nation, Biden’s bureaucrats could have been lounging in bubble baths or at the beach. And even worse, Biden’s Pentagon — the organization tasked with overseeing our servicemembers’ security — couldn’t even keep track of its own personnel or our tax dollars. I’m working alongside the Trump administration to make sure federal workers are no longer missing in action at the expense of hardworking taxpayers. It is past time the Pentagon is held accountable and passes a clean audit.”

The Pentagon’s problems with managing remote workers are not an isolated case, according to a report the retiring Iowa lawmaker made public in December.

“Bureaucrats have been found in a bubble bath, on the golf course, running their own business, and even getting busted doing crime while on taxpayers’ time. Members of President Biden’s own cabinet claimed to be on the clock while being out of office and unreachable. Just three percent of the federal workforce teleworked daily prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ernst reported.

“Today, six percent of workers report in-person on a full-time basis, while nearly one-third are entirely remote. Most federal employees are eligible to telework and 90 percent of those are. Some come to the office as infrequently as once a week. The Biden administration redacted the locations of over 281,000 rank-and-file federal employees,” she said.