Speaker Vows To Bring State Employees Back To The Office One Way Or The Other

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 04/24/2025) House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) is determined to bring all state employees back to the office and if that means bringing in a few to the House Oversight Committee to answer questions about working remote, he's all for it. He's also looking at axing state enhancement grants for downtown Lansing businesses.

At an event with the Lansing Regional Chamber yesterday, he told Lansing Mayor Andy Schor that he’ll be pushing “pretty hard” to bring the workers back. He said Senate Appropriations Chair Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing)’s legislatively directed spending items that benefit Lansing are not addressing the problem.

Hall’s argument is that bringing state workers back to working in person would stimulate Lansing’s economy, perhaps by going out for lunch downtown, running errands after work, paying for parking and having meetings or coffee in the city.

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic caused in-person, in-office work to be put on pause, state department policies on work modalities is up to the discretion of the department alone, but the topic has also come up in conversations on the gubernatorial campaign trail.

Under Rule 52 of this term’s House Rules, House members are required to make their enhancement grants request public with information disclosed such as its sponsor, recipient, amount and more.

Senators are not required to submit the same requests under Senate Rules, but the House Rule states that “no appropriations bill or conference report containing a legislatively directed spending item shall be brought for a vote without proper disclosure of the sponsor and intended recipient, and a description of the legislatively directed spending item in a form and manner established by the House by resolution.”

Hall said some senators have gotten House members to sponsor their enhancement grants, but if it’s not filed under the transparency rules, it will not pass the House.

The deadline for submitting the requests was Thursday.

“Sarah Anthony’s plan is, ‘let’s just keep writing checks to the City of Lansing to keep all these businesses open,’ but what if we just brought the government workers back? We could stop writing them checks from all of the taxpayers of Michigan,” Hall said on Thursday.

In tandem with the appropriations process, Hall will bring state workers back using the oversight process, he said.

House Oversight Committee Chair Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay) said he thinks it’s his role as Oversight Chair to prioritize efficiency, and there are no predetermined outcomes, but said he sees data that shows working from home reduces efficiency.

“You have to remember the history of Lansing. Lansing wasn’t a city that became a capital. Lansing was created as the capital. Its entire economic engine is based on the capital, and we’ve destroyed that economic engine in my opinion,” DeBoyer said.

When it comes to enhancement grants being used to keep an economy running, DeBoyer said he was sent to Lansing by voters to make sure taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely.

Neither Hall nor DeBoyer said when the topic would be taken up by the committee or who would be brought in to testify.

Regarding the House’s policy on hybrid work models, Hall pointed out that an additional House Rule implemented this term removed the ability of the Speaker to direct the staffs of members.

DeBoyer said representatives or their staffs working from home or in-district is different than a state department permitting work-from-home because part of the job of a state representative involves attending events and working in the district.

Hall said his staff is in the office every day.