Employees of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality will have to return to work, despite their parking garage being out of commission.
The agency requested a new parking garage in 2018 to replace the existing one built in the late 1950s. The state legislature set aside $16 million in its budget for Fiscal Year 2025 to demolish it and build a new one.
When Gov. Kevin Stitt announced an executive order in February requiring state employees to work fully in person, the DEQ applied for an exemption until the new garage was complete. Early Monday morning, DEQ's leadership team learned the exemption had been denied.
DEQ Communications Director Erin Hatfield said the department is already leasing 373 parking spaces to accommodate employees on the current hybrid schedule. It will need to lease 88 more spots under the back-to-office mandate.
Hatfield said she doesn't know where those will be or how much they will cost. The DEQ is working with the state Office of Management and Enterprise Services to figure out a parking solution before all employees need to be back in the office next week.
Before the existing garage was decommissioned, the department was already leasing 175 spots to meet parking needs. At the time, they were spending around $250,000 a year on parking, although that included repairs to the aging garage in addition to the lease cost.
All DEQ managers have been back in the office full-time since Feb. 1, Hatfield said. Lab staff and other people whose jobs couldn't be performed remotely have also been working in person. People approved for telework had a hybrid schedule where they were in the office three days a week.
Hatfield said the agency's work is the same, regardless of the setting.
"It is our mission to protect public health and the environment, and we will continue to do that," Hatfield said.
Construction on the new garage is projected to be complete in about 18 months.
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