Badge Swipe Update

We were all informed that, starting May 5th, Goddard would be sending badge swipe data to The Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The OMB demand for badge swipe data is based on the USE-IT Act, which was passed by the previous Congress and administration. Its purpose is to identify federal facilities in the largest agencies with low occupancy rates.

If occupancy rates are below 60% for a year a report goes to the General Services Administration (GSA), and if it doesn’t climb above 60% the next year plans are made to close or consolidate space. OMB has expanded their implementation beyond the Act to include all government agencies, and GSA may be demanding an 80% occupancy rate.

GESTA talked to Associate Center Director Ray Rubilotta, NASA GSFC Chief Counsel, Dave Barrett, and GSFC Human Resources Director, Crystal Gayhart. So far GSFC has had very little guidance on this from HQ, basically “just do it” and send a report every two weeks. Management  currently, absent any further guidance, is taking the total number of badge swipes at all the gate entrances each day (civil servants, contractors, visitors, every badge), and sending 10 numbers (one for each work day over two weeks) for each center/facility.  They do not plan to do anything like this for each building, and we were told GSFC would need to demand a substantial amount of money to be able to set that up.

The big question is how “they” (OMB, GSA, the Agency? No one seems to know) determine the percentage. They are using the total square footage of space (management is assuming this is office space, not including labs, clean rooms, etc.) divided by 150 square feet per person, to give the Center’s capacity. The number of badge swipes will be divided by this number to give the percentage. The bottom line is, they are NOT transmitting time information, they are NOT transmitting any building or lab information, and they are NOT distinguishing civil servants from others. Here is a sample of what is being sent:
 Date  Greenbelt   WFF    IV&V    GISS    CSBF    WSC   Total
5/7/25      4624         1530     146         83           54         279     6716 

The other, even bigger question is: “Is this a slippery slope that could lead to individuals’ attendance being tracked by their badge swipes?”. The short answer is that it certainly could be, there are unsubstantiated rumors that badge swipes will be required when we exit facilities, as they do now at NASA HQ, but at the moment there is no sign of the program being expanded. GESTA will be watching this carefully. We do have agreements with security and parts of our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) can also be used to fight any expansion of this program.