Steven Potter:
Republicans say that cybersecurity risks with employees working from home on unsecured internet connections is another reason for this bill. Is that a concern of yours?

State Rep. Mike Bare:
I think that's a legitimate concern, but it's one that we heard about in committee through testimony from state workers and from managers about three-factor authentication and safeguards that have been put in place for state workers to have to do in order to work safely from home. Now, there was one recommendation from a Legislative Audit Bureau audit that we, the Legislature, pass a bill to be able to address security concerns, and we haven't passed a bill like that yet. So, we haven't done our work before telling others how to do their work. So, I think there are some things here that we could certainly address, but that's a matter of getting, the executive branch, legislative branch together to talk about this and talk to local governments who are implicated in these changes, too, in cybersecurity concerns. And so, that's a much bigger, broader process than what's being talked about very narrowly with this bill.

Steven Potter:
Republicans have also said specifically — the state representative who authored this bill that, taxpayers are, "absorbing the child care costs of state employees who work from home." Is that what's happening when employees work from home?

State Rep. Mike Bare:
I'm not sure I follow that logic. I think there are certainly costs and things we have to do on child care. We have not done our part in this state. We've seen other states like Connecticut who have gone in a very far, progressive, good direction on things like child care, and we haven't done that. So, if there's concerns about costs of child care — let's do some of that work. But this bill, I don't think does anything to address those.

Steven Potter:
How would this affect worker retention if employees are required to work in an office?

State Rep. Mike Bare:
I think we would see what the federal government saw when this was done at the federal level. We would see a lot of workers leave, especially those who have left the Madison area would be asked to come back to the Madison area. I don't imagine that a lot of them would want to do that, given Madison's got higher cost of living than other parts of the state. And so, there would be a bleed of good, talented skilled people from state government that we wouldn't want to see.