California state departments were short thousands of workstations needed to accommodate returning government employees ahead of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s return-to-office directive last spring, documents show.
Records submitted last spring reveal that several departments would not be able to accommodate all state employees in offices four days a week by July, when the governor’s directive went into effect. The documents provide insight into the cost and office space needed to implement the governor’s March 2025 return-to-office order — data that lawmakers and the California State Auditor have previously, but unsuccessfully, sought to obtain from the Newsom administration.
Officials at Department of General Services, which was responsible for collecting these surveys, declined to provide these records, but several departments recently released spreadsheets submitted last spring to a state worker who provided them to The Sacramento Bee…