Experimenting to save money

Say hello to the four-day workweek. And, no, it’s not a move designed to expand the worker’s leisure time.
Following the lead of several other governments and public agencies, the Virginia Department of Forestry is moving to a Monday-Thursday week of 10-hour days. Employees who tele-commute will spread their workweek over five days. And, yes, forest fires will continue to be fought: Emergency response will still be available.
The shift is part of a move to save money. By closing offices one day a week, the agency saves on utilities.
Forestry Department offices at all locations around the state will close, but in Charlottesville other officers are affected, too. Because they share space in the same building, the local offices of the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy; Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries; Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services; Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, and Virginia Depart-ment of Environmental Quality will be affected.
This may be a test case for Virginia, but other governments, agencies and private businesses have already been down this route. The state of Utah moved to four-day weeks last year. According to a Time magazine story last month (“The Four-Day Workweek is Winning Fans”), Utah estimates that it saved 13 percent in energy costs and its employees saved a total of $6 million in gasoline. Cutting back on heating/cooling and commuter time is also estimated to annually reduce “greenhouse” emissions by about 12,000 metric tons.
Other benefits include the fact that the longer 10-hour days mean that citizens who work regular jobs can make it to government offices to conduct business after their own jobs have ended at 5 p.m.
And employees like the three-day weekends for family and recreational time. Plus, Utah state workers took fewer sick days and reported exercising more often under their new schedule. Concerns about 10-hour-day burnout seem unfounded.
One downside of 10-hour workdays reported by others, however, is a lack of day care for longer hours. And there may be a tendency for workers to spend more on their extra “day off” — shopping, eating, going to movies — than they would save in gas. Finally, there are those who contend that for some workers a compressed workweek does lead to burnout (“Why a Four-Day Work Week Doesn’t Work,” Forbes, Aug. 8, 2008).
Due to the nature of its work, the Virginia Forestry Department is a good place for the commonwealth to experiment. Forestry offices don’t get a lot of walk-in traffic, and much of the work they do can be structured to fit the four-day week.
Taxpayers should look forward with interest to the results of this experiment.