Skip to main content
S. 27 119th Congress Senate

Federal Employee Return to Work Act

Official title: A bill to prohibit certain telework employees from receiving certain annual adjustments to pay schedules, and for other purposes.

Introduced: January 7, 2025 Introduced by: Bill Cassidy Republican · Louisiana See on congress.gov
Government Operations and Politics CommutingComputers and information technologyGovernment employee pay, benefits, personnel management
Sign in to write a letter Sign in to watch
 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Jan 7, 2025
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Jan 7, 2025
Introduced in Senate
 Votes taken on this bill 1
DateChamberWhat was voted onResultYes–No
Apr 2, 2001 Senate · vote #64 On Passage of the Bill S. 27 Passed 59–41 See who voted →
 Ask about this bill AI · grounded in the bill text

Have a question about what this bill does? Ask in plain English; the answer is drawn from the bill's actual text and official record, and it'll tell you when something isn't in the text rather than guess.

AI answers can be imperfect; always confirm against the full bill text.

What's happening now January 7, 2025

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Federal Employee Return to Work Act

This bill prohibits providing certain annual or locality-based pay increases to teleworking federal employees.

Currently, federal law mandates annual adjustments to General Schedule (GS) pay rates according to (1) a formula based on the annual percentage change in the Employment Cost Index (a measure of labor costs in the private sector); and (2) the difference between public and private sector pay rates in an employee's locality, if that difference exceeds 5%. For example, in 2025, the default annual rate of pay for a GS-7 (step 1) employee is $49,960; the adjusted annual rate of pay for a GS-7 (step 1) employee in the locality pay area that includes Washington, DC, is $57,164. 

The bill makes executive agency employees who telework at least one day each week (or, in the case of an alternative work schedule, 20% or more each week) ineligible for these payments.

The bill is effective on the first day of the fiscal year beginning after the bill's enactment. 

 Related & companion bills 1
  • HR 236 Identical bill Federal Employee Return to Work Act
 Bill text 1 version

Source documents hosted by congress.gov.

 Committees of jurisdiction 1
 Lobbying activity 10

Registered lobbyists who named this bill in their disclosure filings. Source: federal Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

Bodies those filers lobbied

A filing lists the bills it worked on and the parts of government it contacted in separate sections, so these are the bodies those filers named anywhere in the filing, not a per-bill breakdown.

See all 10 filings →
Cite this page click to expand
APA
U.S. Congress. (2026). S. 27: Federal Employee Return to Work Act. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-27/
MLA
"S. 27: Federal Employee Return to Work Act." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-27/.
Bluebook (legal)
S. 27, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-27/.
Markdown link
[S. 27: Federal Employee Return to Work Act](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-27/)
Report a problem